Dundee, Michigan

Thursday October 23…11:00pm

We were up a little earlier this morning, in time to see the sunrise around 7:30am. It was cloudy where we are, but on the horizon it wasn’t, so there was just a strip of sun when it came up. We drove about 30 km’s (18 miles) to the town of Blenheim and had some breakfast. By this time it was getting sunny out, although it was still windy.

Sunrise on Lake Erie

Put another $40 worth of gas in at 0.979 CAN per litre (about $2.96 US per gallon). This will be enough to get us to our destination in Michigan where gas is a lot cheaper.

About 30 km’s on we stopped at Wheatley Provincial Park. The gate was closed, but there were a few cars there so we weren’t the only ones going for a walk. This park has a beach, but because of the wind, the waves crashed almost over the sandy part so we didn’t walk on the shore.

Beach at Wheatley Provincial Park

Kevin and Whiskey at Wheatley Provincial Park

Then we stopped in Leamington, which is a fairly big town. It has a beer store, which we wanted to go to in order to drop off some empties for refund before we enter the US. We did find it using the GPS, but it was a fair distance off our route. We probably wasted $2.40 worth of gas to get the $2.40 refund!

Leamington is where Heinz has their ketchup manufacturing plant. If we hadn’t been in a rush to get through Detroit before late afternoon traffic starts, we would have gone in for a tour. It’s a big plant, and you can just imagine the truckloads of tomatoes they process there. In fact, just outside of town there are greenhouses where they grow the tomatoes that take up hundreds of acres.

Made it through Windsor to the border. There are two main choices when crossing into Detroit…the tunnel, or the bridge. We decided on the bridge, but only because the GPS had chosen that as the shortest route for us to our destination. There is a LOT of truck traffic, so much that we can’t figure out how they get everybody through. But fortunately we are sent in the car lanes and cross through fairly quickly. There is a $4.00 bridge toll, and they haven’t yet adjusted the recently rising US dollar so it is $4.00 whether you pay in US or CAN dollars.

Detroit is not an attractive city. They are redoing the main highway leading up to the border on that side and it is a huge construction project. As such, we are detoured on side roads in order to get us on the Interstate 75 highway leading south. The road is not in very good condition, and Sherman is bouncing around as I try and avoid potholes while the maintaining a fairly high speed. The maximum is 70 mph (114 km/h) for cars, and 60 mph (98 km/h) for trucks, but there is also a MINIMUM speed limit of 55 mph (90 km/h).

We see gas here at $2.58 US per gallon (0.82 CAN per litre) and see by the internet that it gets even cheaper the further we head south. Even with the rising US dollar, gas is far cheaper here, and we will buy some tomorrow.

We made it to our destination, the Cabela’s store in Dundee, Michigan. We had read online that this hunting/fishing/outdoors store was something to see, plus they have an RV parking lot where you can overnight for free, plus a dump station and fresh water fill. Sure enough, the store is absolutely huge, and you’d think it was a zoo inside except all of the animals are dead and stuffed. They have displays of almost every type of game animal that is hunted. We are not hunters, and I feel bad for the animals, but obviously not everybody feels the same way. Despite this, we spend an hour wandering around the store. They even have an large aquarium where they display live species of game fish.

The African exhibit at Cabela's

The moose at Cabela's

Ruth and the Pirate...where's the rum?!

We play cribbage in the evening and Ruth beats me 2 games out of 3.

Total nights sleeping in a motorhome…367

October Fuel $126.35

October Grocery $262.39

October Overnight costs $ 0