After the ferry trip of about two hours and a drive of an hour and a half, on Thursday afternoon of the 24th we arrived at our B&B in the village of Gore Bay. Gore Bay is on the northern edge of Manitoulin Island and about the middle of the island. It has a population of just over 900 folks and this shot is of the whole place from an escarpment across Gore Bay itself. Our B&B is on the far right side of the picture just above the red roofed marina building.



The Queen's Inn is a wonderful place, built as a hotel in 1880, and extensively renovated with 8 guest rooms now.




Our room was a two-room suite, one with the two twin beds shown here and another room with one similar twin bed. A bath joined the two rooms together.




There are several common areas, all of which have been restored beautifully ... a lot of money went into this place. This is the main sitting room. In addition there is a library, the breakfast room, and a formal dining room for special occaisons.

And our view from the second floor balcony where you could sit in the pleasant 60 degree air and sip some wine and watch the boats come and go in the afternoon.

We decided this week to do some family history research and and head for Manitoulin Island the location of some of Jo-Anne's relatives; Gore Bay to be specific. Here is an overview of where the island is and we are headed for the black dot on the top of the island.




We got to Tobermory on the tip of the Bruce peninsula which is the place you catch the ferry to Manitoulin Island. Because of the ferry times and the distance from Meaford we elected to stay the night in Tobermory and catch the first ferry the next morning. We did some minimal research, in the end too minimal, and selected the Grandview Motel as our place for the night. Well the internet ads and AAA hype for the place were way over rated ... this was a maximum one star place and even less ...




Nice location and view but there the amenities ended ... The motel and room were right out of the 50's and while clean and quiet, nothing else was included for the $104. No iron or board, no telephone, no tissue, no extra towels ... TV was up on the wall Motel 6 style ... pretty basic.

But then we walked down to the Tobermory town center and hit the local pub in the place upstairs in the photo below and had their burger which was awesome. That was probably the best burger we have had in a long time ... and then washed down with a couple of Stella Artois beers ... yes, the night is good.

And the Chi Cheemaun was waiting with her snout open to take us the next morning ... Thursday ... over to Manitoulin Island.

Still a cool rainy 60ish kinda day and evening ... nice but wish the rain would stop for a consistent time.

A sad note here is the passing of our favorite media device the Olympus D-40 camera which has done so well over the years. We got the 4MP camera in 2001 and it has provided many thousands of pictures for our trips to Europe and this blog. As you can see the focus mechanism must be controlled by tape and the batteries sort of work when the weather is really bad and there is no picture to take; however it is still capable of taking some of the most accurate and beautiful pictures ... RIP.

As the D-40 was put gently into the box for its final resting place, we have the new Canon G10 which is generally performing well in its place. Actually we just got the G10 back from the shop for some distortion on the lens, but all in all it is a really fine camera and we've had great support from Canon and the local camera shop here (Fotoart Inc).

In addition, we have a Kodak 190 point and shoot to catch all the valuable stuff that is missed with the main camera.

Today it is a rainy 60 degrees but even when the temperature is a bit higher Buster's trip around the park ends up with mud up to his little elbows. So every relief trip is finished with him going into the blue pan filled with water and then a brisk towel down so he doesn't leave muddy tracks on the carpet.

Yeah I know, who is the guy who decides to put carpet in a camping machine anyhow? He's never been here ....

While the picture below looks like, and is, a really healthy field of mustard, there is a sad note for the reason it is here today. Take a look at the piles of dead trees in the middle of the mustard and you will see the remnants of apple trees, rotting in the sun.





Until about five years ago this area was known as the apple capital of Ontario with over 32,000 acres of apple trees of all varieties providing juice to most of this region as well as a lot of North America.





Then the Chinese began to dump juice on the Americas and it resulted in the destruction of this whole region as an important apple growing area of the continent. The above picture is of the Gardner warehouse and juice operation, now for sale. The Gardners are friends of the Martins and we have had parties together, but the loss of the apple business has resulted in the elimination of property and employment for this family as well as hundreds if not thousands of other apple growers and workers.

This field on highway 26 across from the Gardner home is one of many for sale and soon to be cut down and cultivated into some other cash crop. Currently there are less than 10,000 acres of land which is still classified as apple production, but even most of these acres look like the below one which has just recently been cut and is ready for firewood; some of these trees more than 50 years old.

And the boxes which held tons of apples as they were carted to the juice mills now are empty and themselves headed for the scrap heap or the pallet mill.

A few days ago we had Jo-Anne's dad and her brother over for a BBQ at the Roebuck park, "up on the hill," as we are calling it; as that park is about 1000 feet higher than the level of Meaford and the bay. We've slowly built the patio by buying a few stones at a time and it is beginning to look pretty good. Good old BBQ burgers, potato salad, and a sauerkraut dip recipe we got from Paulette ... yum!





Today though we moved the Flying Scotsman down to the Meaford Memorial Park for a couple of days to enjoy the sunshine on the beach. The sunshine was yesterday as we arrived but today it has been rainy and about 60 all day; still pleasant in the breaks between the showers. We are hoping the sun will return tomorrow to warm us up a bit and then we'll head back up the hill on Friday.






And you ask, "how do you keep track of what day it is now that you are retired?" Well, it helps to have a clock that shows the day of the week with the red hand below ... of course watched over by the ever present Mr. Chicken.

What a change in the weather! Last week we had temperatures approaching 80 and almost had to use both air conditioning units ... a bummer when you only have 30 amp service.

Last night though it was a steady downpour for almost 12 hours and the low was about 50 and the high today was 63. We actually had the furnace on this morning to keep from freezing in the shower.

In spite of the frequent rains here is a shot of the entrance to the Roebuck Campground just outside of Meaford. The owner really does a lot of work to keep the 75 acres mowed and maintained.

Here's the view out of our dining room window to the northeast and our neighbor's place. Curley, the owner is scraping out some new sites to our east and you can see the work here. The rains have been so hard and frequent that his efforts have been admirable in the mud and goo. These sites are nicely grassed and quite large and as you can see, you can do pretty much what you want as far as accessories.

And in keeping with the Canadian flag above you can brush up on your French while you eat the corn flakes. Remember to, "saveur de bleuets."

And a shot of the lone tree to the north as we had our first fire of the season.