Dec 16 - arrival

We weren't in a hurry to get out of Jason's; no rush to the cold, but we did want to get to our destination before it was dark.  We just made it !

Our first stop was Hamilton where we went to the Passport Office.  I'll make my point that this was unnecessary -- Sandy could have renewed hers at the same time as mine but a) she wanted a better picture; b) she wanted to have the "new passport" with the chip; c) she wanted a 10 year passport.  Well, the prior procedure was easier, as it turns out, because they won't mail to an address other than your home address any more.  Registered mail won't work any more since they maintain, quite rightly, that someone else can pick up your registered mail.  Because Loring isn't our home address, Florida is, then our only choice was to pay a huge surcharge ($100 ?) to mail to the U.S. or come back and pick it up.  We opted for the latter.

So, since my passport is a 5-year version, we'll be back in 5 years anyway, despite her 10 year passport, then five years after that for hers, five years after that for mine ... you get the idea.  Sooner or later we'll  break that cycle either by a) dying or b) one of us renewing early !  I'll let you know in five years :).

I do have fun with these things ...

From there, we headed north.  Stopping briefly in Barrie at the new Onroute we had a piece of pizza for lunch.  We both tasted that pizza for the rest of the day.  It seemed like a good idea but wasn't.  Hitting the road again, next stop was Parry Sound -- Gas, Sobeys for food and Canadian Tire for a couple of things including new windshield wipers for the X5.  The old ones worked well enough in Florida but the rubber was getting old and very stiff in the cold weather; very noisy.  They carry the Original Equipment Bosch wipers for all these vehicles, which is great.  Of course they're twice as expensive as they are in the U.S. ... rats.

By the time we got to the cottage it was after 4pm and the sun was down; not quite dark.  It took me a while to clear the walk so that by the time we were finished unloading the car, it was almost dark.  Made it ... barely !

Everything was basically ship-shape except for the satellite receiver in my den, which had flashing lights.  Those "boot up" lights won't cease rolling so the unit is likely dead.  I tried every possible type of reset without any luck.  Drat.  The units are expensive.

I moved the car back up to the barn and today I'll clear the way in and have a place to park plus I'll put the snow tires on.  I didn't have any difficulty getting up and down the driveway with the all-season tires but we've got more driving ahead of us and they'll provide a wider margin of safety.

Sandy whipped up a pasta dinner so we didn't go hungry.  Abby had dog food :).

It was about -4F when we arrived and went down to -12F before I went to bed.  The internet still shows -4 but that's in North Bay.  Here it's now above 0F and the trend is warmer but definitely not  banana-belt !

Abby is having trouble in the snow.  Her coat is thicker but she's freezing her feet.  The snow gets between her toes and it's cold.  I wish that she'd keep little booties on and perhaps if we had time to work on that, she would, but not likely.

Today -- the aforementioned snow tires and a trip into Loring for mail.  Bonnie tells me that the General Store is still open but only selling off existing stock, no milk etc. but Buchanan's has milk and bread ...  It will look kind of sad to go in but since that's the Post Office, I must go in.

Onward !