Back in the USA!

Thanks for the memories, Canada. You were great! We may cross over again in a week or so, but the weather will be the deciding factor.

We left Gore Bay yesterday morning and drove off Manitoulin Island back to the mainland. We saw more barns along the way.

Usually the barns are either red, or weathered wood color. Sometimes we see green ones, and those are my favorites.

We've seen a few wind turbines in Canada, but not many. Here were a few we saw on the island.

It was one of the few days we've driven without rain...just passing from Point A to Point B. When we stay in a free spot, there is never any water, electricity, or sewer, which isn't a problem because we're completely self-contained as long as our propane and water hold out, and as long as we don't fill our "drainage" tanks. Eventually, we need to dump our tanks and fill our potable water tank, and it's sometimes hard to find a place to do that.

Enter my friend, Cathy, who put us onto a couple of nice Provincial Parks in Canada. We didn't reach Grundy Lake at the right time for a stay-over, but we did use their facilities to dump our tanks and fill up with water.

Also, we parked and had lunch, so it was a good use of their facilities even without an overnight stay. Instead, we moved on to Parry Sound where we spent the night in a Walmart parking lot. It was the first time we'd done that, and generally, we are not fans of Walmart. Nevertheless, they were friendly and welcoming, and we bought some groceries from them.

Just before pulling out today, Smitty exasperated Sadie by finding an unexplored portion of the RV that she hadn't thought about. He sat there sneering at her, while she sat on the floor wishing she was in his spot.

It was a terrible day of driving because it was very dark and rained most of the day. There weren't many opportunities for pictures, but I did get this barn.

And this one.

We were warned of the city traffic on Hwy 400 through Toronto by my friend Elaine, but we really didn't have a choice about our route. It was dark and wet as we passed through Toronto. We couldn't see much, nor did we want to, but you can see the city off in the distance in the image below.

Fortunately, the weather cleared so we could get our first glimpse of Lake Ontario off in the distance below.

And shortly, we crossed over a big tall bridge connecting Burlington and Hamilton.

From there, we could see Lake Ontario

on both sides of the road. You have no idea how much this thrilled us. By "us," I mean me.

And then it was a short distance before we started seeing these signs. If you don't want to go to the USA, better disembark now.

The signs were plentiful.

And eventually, we reached the border crossing into Lewiston, New York.

Here's what our tour book told us about Lewiston:

The customs official at the border crossing was rather unfriendly. We've noticed that the Canadian border crossing people are friendly, while the ones at the USA are rather unfriendly. Hmmmmm. Anyway...he wanted to see inside the fifth wheel. I warned him of the attack cats inside and asked him to come inside quickly and shut the door to avoid releasing them on the public. He seemed unconcerned by this, but did close the door as instructed. Then, he shined his flashlight all over the place and looked inside the bathroom. Apparently no Canadians trying to escape to the USA today, and he allowed us to cross over without further incident. Thankfully, no cats escaped. Also, he spoke with a thick Russian accent. I blame Trump's America.

So anyway...we were in the sweet land of liberty once again, and it always feels good to be home. And, hey, New York! How are ya? It's our first time here!!!

Believe me...we are so ready. From here on, we're going to be crossing off a lot of bucket list items. Niagara Falls is only the beginning.

It's still raining, although the sun is shining temporarily. We unhitched and set up in a loud thunder and lightning storm. There is a little bit of business to take care of...we need to get the rest of the groceries we couldn't get at Walmart (Grrrrrrrrrr), like Campbell's French Onion soup (Really?), and a couple of other things. Also, we need to add Lake Huron, Lake Ontario, and the great state of New York to the side of the RV. We're waiting for warmer drier weather before doing that.

Tomorrow, we'll be off to explore Niagara Falls, and we're pretty excited about that. The forecast is for no rain, so let's hope it's correct. We're here for the next three nights...our longest stay anywhere so far.