Day Twenty Four - The last leg! July 06 2011
We got home at 3:00am this morning, so I am just posting this now.
We got up at 7:00 am yesterday (impressive considering we went to bed after 2:00am), and started out on the last leg of our journey. We didn't get as far as we had planned the day before, so we had about a 15 hour drive planned for yesterday.
Our first stop was at a huge waterfall (I can't remember the name of it). We made smoothies at the lookout point and then continued on our way. We had lunch in White River, which is where the inspiration for Winnie the Pooh is from. The original was a female bear cub named Winnipeg (Winnie for short), and was bought and smuggled to the London Zoo (London, England), where the author A. A. Milne was inspired to write the story of Christopher Robin (his son) and Winnie the Pooh. We sat on a patio and enjoyed sandwiches in the beautiful, hot sun.
I had to show Sarah and Dustin Katherine's Cove (where I stopped with Court on the way out). Sarah and I took a little dip in Lake Superior, but Dustin opted to stay on the beach where it was warm. We had bought a big pickle to snack on in Wawa, but it was not very tasty so we played catch with it instead.
We weren't planning to make any more stops, but when we passed a sign for ancient pictographs, we couldn't resist. I'm so glad we checked it out! There was a beautiful but short trail down through a rocky gorge towards Lake Superior. Along the water is a giant wall of rock where the ancient Ojibway people had painted mythical creatures using ink made from crushed hematite mixed with either fish oil or animal fat. The paintings are thought to be between 150 - 400 years old, and their meaning is not known for sure. The view of the lake and shoreline was pretty spectacular. The trail was more challenging than it looks in photos, and we were lucky that the water was so calm-- there were signs all along the water warning of the risk of serious injury/death in rougher weather.
We pretty much drove straight on through the night after that, enjoying our last 6 hours or so of car sing-alongs.
Distance today: 1437 km
Total distance: 12441 km
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