At the Sault Ste Marie locks

Thursday October 18...8:10pm

Slept in this morning! Didn't get up until 8am. Haven't done that for a long time, but we think it was because it was just so peaceful at Julie and Pat's rural property. Didn't hear a sound all night long, excpet for a few drops of rain in the early morning.

But those few drops turned into a steady rain that didn't let up until late afternoon. So we kind of lazed around for the morning talking to Julie and her daughter while waiting to see if the rain was going to stop long enough to take the dog for a walk. Had some buckwheat pancakes and maple syrup, By noon or so, we gave up and decided to head into Sault Ste Marie. I set the GPS unit for the library near downtown, and followed the directions. But I didn't notice that I had it set on "shorter distance" instead of "faster time" and so it took us on the backroads route towards The Soo. That's okay, it was "only" 17 kms of bumpy backroads, so we just took it easy and drove slowly. Then, the right wiper insert started slipping down from the wiper blade, and I stopped to fix it, but drove further to find it slipping again. So we just turned them off and drove slowly with a wet windshield. Didn't see too many other cars on the road anyhow.

Made it to the downtown library near the waterfront and around 3pm the rain started to lighten up. I had a good internet connection, so stayed online while Ruth took Whiskey for a walk. Later, we headed down to the locks area under the international bridge and found a spot where we thought we could stay for the night. Hardly anybody around. So we had supper and then went and explored the locks area. Came back to Sherman and took apart the right wiper blade in order to perform a more permanent fix. Seems okay now.

 Our boondocking spot in Sault Ste Marie

Cloudy, but warm just now...temp about 17 degrees this evening. But the rain has stopped. So we are parked up for the night in our first true boondocking experience. For those unfamiliar with the term, "boondocking" is camping in a spot where there is no set campground and no facilities and no hookups. So we are set up under the bridge on Environment Canada land beside the locks. Hopefully it won't be too noisy, because there are train tracks close by.

Will do laundry tomorrow, and do a pit stop at a nearby Shell station that has RV dump facilities and fill the fuel tank for the ride up around towards Thunder Bay.

Total Nights Sleeping in the RV... 5...

October Fuel $ 147.41

October Grocery $ 68.82

October Overnight Costs $ 0