Goodbye to Canada – for now!

Sarnia was great fun for many reasons, but mainly – it snowed! All day as we were sightseeing, light flurries kept coming through, and the wind was absolutely freezing. Bill, our host, forecast a complete dusting of snow by morning, and sure enough, when we woke up, everything was white. The wind had dropped, and the temperature was about 3 deg C, so we went for a run (me) and walk (Al) anyway.

The nature trail which runs virtually in front of their home goes for about 16km, and is a level gravel track, my favourite running surface. I was a very happy camper, except for the fact that my stomach wasn’t too comfortable after the extra glass of wine the night before. I blamed Bill of course, he twisted my arm! It was snowing properly by then, big fat flakes which stung when they hit my eyeballs.

If you click on this photo to get it bigger, the falling snowflakes are visible.

Snowflakes on my gloves.

The closest thing to a unique national dish in Canada is poutine, a sinfully yummy combo of chips, soft curd cheese and gravy. It was of course essential to try it, so Al ordered it as a side with his burger and we shared it. It is also on the menu at McDonalds, Wendys and even at the Irish pub where we ate the first night in Sarnia.

Our B&B was a comfortable and fun stopover for two nights, where we could either socialise or not as we chose. Bill and Judy also kindly allowed us to use their big industrial washer and dryer, so our laundry is up to date now. We intend to stay in touch with them, and hope to arrange a future visit both ways. And we finally got to use the scraper and brush provided in the car, to remove the snow. The day was so cold though, that we still had snow on the windowsills hundreds of miles later.

We left Canada reluctantly, crossing into Michigan and stopping for the night at Lansing. We chose it randomly for accommodation, and checked into our Comfort Inn on the edge of town. Then as we started driving around sightseeing, we became suspicious that it was actually quite large. Turns out it’s the capital of Michigan, has a huge university and stadium and is quite the centre of government and culture. Ignorant Australians! We will be moving on today, so Lansing will have to wait for another time. It was minus 2 deg C this morning, so the gym was a better option than running outside. Hopefully it will warm up a bit by the time we get to Chicago, because I plan to run by the river.

During this trip, we’ve tried various sorts of hotels, from the large and luxurious to the budget but comfortable, and have decided that in general, Comfort Inns are our favourite. They all have large, clean rooms, comfortable beds, lots of pillows and towels, a gym and sometimes an indoor pool, as well as breakfast, all for between AU$90 and $120. The other benefit of the smaller hotels is that there is very little tipping required. There is no doorman, concierge, bellman or bellboy with their hands out, as you find in the big hotels. We do leave a small tip for the maid when we leave, just because they are so poorly paid, but it’s by no means compulsory.