New tires, and a late arrival

We have now made it to October 7... (yes, I'm late with posts).

The plan for the day had been in limbo until October 3rd when we finally confirmed we would be visiting my old high school friend Steve at his cottage near Bancroft. The original idea for the day was to drive from The Soo to Bancroft via Algonquin Park -- about 8 hrs -- to see the colours there.

But to do that, I needed tires, and even though I knew they were on the way, I had no idea when they would arrive, though Chris at the tire shop thought they would get there around noon. We were hoping to be on the road by 1:30 pm. We had agreed that

• if we weren't on the road by 2 PM, we should not go through Algonquin, because it would be dark and there were too many critters to hit;
• if we weren't on the road by 4:30 pm, we needed an alternate plan... finding a place to overnight... on the Friday night of the Thanksgiving long weekend... when we couldn't find one when we were planning the trip a month ago. Ah, well.

The morning delay gave us time for Karen to do laundry and me to... get a watch. As I posted a few weeks ago, I got a new watch recently. Unfortunately, on the morning of the 7th, I caught my brand new watch on a door handle, ripping it off my wrist, breaking its band (and my wrist...). On top of that, I was having troubles setting it and in that process the crown broke. Sigh. So while Karen was at the laundromat, I was at Wal-Mart getting yet another Casio $25 special.

At least it has a dual display and a stopwatch

At noon, we got to Chris'. No tires yet. We went for lunch and had a picnic in a nearby playground, 19°, threatening clouds. At 1 PM, we went back to Chris'. No tires yet. At 1:30 pm, a truck pulled up and delivered my tires (along with a bunch of other stuff for Chris).

The top 4 are mine

The tires, I learned, came from Mississauga, leaving Thursday morning and arriving in Sudbury on Thursday evening. They were then shipped to The Soo from Sudbury -- a 4 hr drive -- this morning.

Chris told me to drive my car into a bay, and around this time I learned Chris is a popular and busy guy. His one helper was getting married tomorrow, so was off, and Chris was all by his lonesome. There was a car up on the hoist that he was working on when we arrived at noon; by 1 PM it was replaced by a truck. The afternoon saw a parade of his regular customers, including:

• a farmer with a tractor tire and a wheelbarrow tire he had brought in for repair;
• a guy who looked like a used car salesman who needed to replace the tires with cheap ones on his leased car;
• a guy who came in to confirm a price for a set of tires Chis said he could get;
• a guy who drove up with a tire problem hoping to get it fixed today.

Chris alternated between working on mine, answering the phone, and managing everyone else. Hell of a balancing act. And I didn't just need my tires mounted and balanced; the asymmetrical wear made it clear I needed a 4 wheel alignment.

Old tech but good tech

Turns out my front left wheel was way out, and my rear left was slightly out. I had just rotated my tires, so the one that failed had been worn badly by the misalignment.

By the time all was said and done, I was finished with Chris at 3:45 PM.  He gave me such a deal; even including GST & PST, it was about 30% less that the same tire in Calgary. We gassed up and were on the road at 4 PM.

But we still had a +8 hr drive to do. And the temp had dropped to 8° and it had started to rain. Hard.

A cold front had passed through around 3 PM with a line of nasty rain and thunderstorms. It was moving east, and over the next 5 hrs, I went through it three times; once going from the Soo to Sudbury, again leaving Sudbury because it passed us while we were wolfing down dinner, and again between Sudbury and Parry Sound.

It was light for the first 3 hrs of the drive. Because of the rain, we didn't see much of the scenery.

5:15 pm somewhere

But we did see bald eagles. Lots of bald eagles. Probably 20-30 of them, spaced out every 300 m along the Mississagi River between Blind River and Iron Bridge. The road parallels the river, and for 10 km, it was eagle after eagle sitting in the trees. I wanted to stop and take pictures, but my GPS said I was already going to get to Steve's well after midnight. So this blurry photo is the best we got out the car window.

The white head is visible

So we just hotfooted it through torrential rains and violently swinging temperatures (7° to 16°, down to 6°, back up to 14°), losing time the whole way to the GPS's estimates (and I was doing the speed limit). Almost 6 hrs of driving in the pitch black...

Fun

...through moose and deer country, all the while texting location and progress updates to Steve as we were finally back in cell range. We saw a black bear on the road at 10:30 PM near Bracebridge (he ambled off the road as we went by), and a dozen dead racoons, too. 

We rolled into Steve's at 12:50 AM, dead tired. Thanks to M.R. and Duncan for staying up to greet us.

It was a long, expensive, colour-free day day.

Agawa Canyon Awesomeness

Even when I was a kid, I knew that everyone raved about the Agawa Canyon railway day trip out of Sault Ste. Marie -- but I had never ridden it. Day 7 of our trip, October 6, seemed like the perfect day to change that. We managed to get to the Soo almost exactly at leaf colour peak, and the train was only running for about 6 more days.

Train info, in case that is all you are interested in:

• The train ride is a full day. You have to show up at 7:30 AM for an 8 AM departure, and it doesn't get back until 6 PM. Ticket pickup is simple, but the ticket office can be as much as 1 km from the car you're on.
• The train is an "out and back" -- northbound in the morning, southbound in  the afternoon, on the same track
• Cars are added or removed from the train depending on demand; we had 16 passenger cars, 2 dining cars, one snack car, and 3 engines, which is about as big as it ever gets.
• The cars are of varying vintages, but mostly early 1960's rolling stock. The toilets are "spartan" but functional
• To manage the crowds, they call car numbers in order for breakfast service. We didn't partake of the food for sale on the train nor check out the dining cars, so can't comment on them. Lunch service is also available, but it is first come, first served. You're not supposed to bring your own liquor onto the train; they sell it starting at 10 AM
• You are assigned to a car on the train, but not a seat; seats are first come, first serve, and you stay in those seats up and back (meaning you stay on the same side of the train all day).
• Seats on the train rotate 180° so you always face forward -- except emergency exit seats, which do not rotate. The rotation of the seats means that a seat centred on a window in one direction will be centred on a post the opposite direction.
• Everyone is eager to see the scenery on the ride up; they are far more tired on the way back and tend to just sit still; many nap.
• The train stops for 90 minutes at mid day, which I will describe later.

My best advice is to:

1. get a good window seat on the trip up;
2. sit on the right hand side of the train for better views; sit on the left for better photography;
3. make friends with the people who sit across from you to swap seats on the way back, giving you a different view northbound and southbound;
4. Pack a lunch and breakfast snacks to maximize your "looking out the window and exploring" time. 

The right side of the train has better lake and canyon vistas (the left has good ones; the right are better and more numerous). The downside to this strategy is you are always shooting pictures into the sun (and you will shoot a lot of pictures; we did a combined 877).

The train platform spans a road in downtown Soo, and many, many bus tours were on our train.

A long train

We had a slightly foggy morning, which made for interesting views until about 10 AM.

Colourful trees in fog

Fog in the low lying areas 

Fog in the evergreens 

A lake in the mist 

The fog breaks to reveal some colour 

More rising fog

Once the fog had risen, the colours exploded.

Just passing by 

Reflections 

More reflections

The train rises and falls in elevation repeatedly, and moves from colourful mixed hardwood forests to aspen parkland/evergreen forest and back. Depending on aspect and elevation, aspen and tamaracks we past were green or yellow/gold.

The aspen parkland 

Back into colour 

Serious colour

Still lakes 

Reflective 

Colour speeds by

Bright hills

The train goes over only 2 trestles; the first offers views over to Lake Superior (fogged in during our morning journey, but for the afternoon view, stay tuned). The second crosses the Montreal River at a dam, offering splendid views. The train slows crossing both to allow time for photos.

The crossing of the Montreal starts 

Accros the reservoir 

Downstream from the dam 

Megacolour on the hills 

Looking back -- the train is long 

Down into the valley 

Across the valley

After the Montreal trestle, the train starts a gradual 400 m descent to the Agawa River canyon. The canyon was created by a fault, the west side thrusting up over the east, and the river sits in the middle of the fault. This creates 300 m tall walls and a narrow canyon.

The Agawa Canyon Park

A quiet platform 

The beautiful river valley 

Colour on colour 

Orange hills & red trees 

More 

Engines swapping ends 

Karen, alone on the viewing platform

Now, understand how hard it was to get the above photo of Karen. The train arrives about noon, and you have 90 minutes off the train to enjoy the park. Here's what you can do in the park:

1. Stay near the train, enjoy the grass nar the river, and have a picnic;
2. Visit the twin Black Beaver Falls. They say allow 30 min to get there and back
3. Visit Bridal Veil Falls. They say allow 45 min to get there and back
4. Climb the 325 stairs to the canyon overlook where the above photos were taken. They say allow 30 minutes for the climb, and warn you repeatedly it is strenuous.

I had already figured out that the canyon overlook would be great, but you had to get there before the other 900 people on the train did -- and probably, one-third of them would head there first. So we leapt off the train and started climbing. By stair 200, puffing and panting, we had passed everyone else. I made it to the top in 6 minutes, Karen slightly after, and we were the first to the top. We had the lookout platforms to ourselves for less than a minute, but enough time to get pictures. After 5 minutes, so many people had made it to the top, you could barely move, so we started down. While we had the stairs to ourselves on the way up, on the way down, it was solid people barely moving their way up from the top to the bottom. Six minutes for us to get up, but almost 15 to fight our way down through the crowds.

Once at the bottom, we hoofed it to the Black Beaver falls through a pretty forest.

The forest 

North Black Beaver Falls 

South Black Beaver Falls

More South

We crossed the tracks...

Folks just hanging

...got to the river, and headed for Bridal Veil Falls.

The river view 

Maple reflections 

The falls come into view 

The falls 

Downstream colours 

The falls in context

Until that moment, I was not aware that these falls were the subject of a Lawren Harris painting. Harris was a member of the Canadian Group of Seven, artist who in the mid 1900's changed how Canadians painted and saw Canada.

Having hit all the "attractions" in the park, we headed back along the river to the train.

Did I mention the place was beautiful?

Fabulous 

Looking upstream 

And downstream 

Folks enjoying the pretty picnic grounds

The have "sweepers" -- employees to make sure you get back and on the train, because the park is only accessible by train and if you miss it... well, I hope you can swim.

Back on, and headed south. The scenery doesn't change from the morning, but the lighting does.

Glorious hill colour 

Lake Superior on the upper left, Hwy 17 in the upper left centre 

Over a small stream 

The Montreal River power station and valley 

More of the beautiful Montreal River valley 

Afternoon on lakes 

More lake afternoons 

The colours rush by

Painted trees 

Boating

The train goes out of cell coverage 30 minutes after leaving the Soo, and returns to coverage about 30 min before arrival. At 5:15, just as cell service returned, I called Chris to inquire about my tires. They were "on the road" and scheduled to arrive tomorrow sometime. There was hope we could make Bancroft on Friday.