Now *this* was a perfect boondocking spot!

First thing I did yesterday morning was to change Sherman's distributor cap and rotor. Should have been a simple half hour job from start to finish, but it didn't go that smoothly. The distributor cap is held on with two long skinny screws, about 3/4" long. One of them snapped in two taking the old cap off. That's not supposed to happen!

After pondering my choices (one of which was to wait until the world's smallest Canadian Tire opened it's doors at noon) I tried putting the new cap on with just the one screw. There's a guide on both sides of it, and it seemed to hold just fine with only the one screw. So rather than sitting and waiting for three  hours, we got on the road. I'll fix it properly in Ottawa.

Glad I changed the cap and rotor. Looking at the old one, it definitely needed replacing. Sherman fired right up, and ran better, but there is still something not quite right. I still say my original diagnosis of bad plug wires is the main problem, but the cap and rotor certainly didn't hurt.

New bridge in Nipigon, Ontario.

Highway 11 north, beside the lake. Beautiful.

Old church.

At the entrance to Lake Nipigon. It's a huge lake...but not a "great" lake!

Odd looking row of trees up the hill.

Lots of trees.

In the town of Beardmore, Ontario (pop 200), an old Dodge Travco motorhome.

The world's largest snowman. 

Can you still call him that even if he's not made of snow?

We stopped at MacLeod Provincial Park. They closed up for the season on September 25th, but you can still go for a walk there. A few people out walking dogs and we met one lady who said "good, there won't be any bears around then". She said that bears have been a real problem lately in the nearby town of Geraldton, getting into people's backyards and just generally being a nuisance.

But we saw no bears, and no moose. Not even any deer. No wildlife at all.

We went for a walk in the park.

Ruth, by the lake. 

She said the water was fine and if she had her swimsuit nearby she would have gone for a swim. Still too cold for me  though!

Me!

Us!

Back on the road. Not much traffic.

It came time to look for an overnight spot. There's a 150 km (93 mile) long stretch of basically nothing. No gas stations, no buildings, no cell service. Nothing.

But, there are a lot of lakes. And several access roads to get to some of these back country areas. And, because Trans Canada's natural gas pipeline runs half a km from the highway, there are a lot of access roads to get to the pipeline.

The problem is that a lot of these roads are overgrown. Some more than others, and some are definitely passable, but you don't know if there's going to be room to turn around.

So I had checked out a couple of possibilities using google earth. and saved the GPS coordinates. We stopped at the first one, and pulled in just off the highway. I went for a walk while Ruth stayed with Sherman. I walked about a km each way. There was one spot that looked not bad, but the road was quite rough and I decided we would carry on to the next one.

Again, I walked the route first...and couldn't wait to get back to tell Ruth what I found! We hopped in Sherman, and took off along this two lane track...

Sherman, doing some back country driving.

We're almost there!

Now this was a perfect boondocking spot.

GPS 49.79540, -85.79799

The view out our side window.

You could tell that people had camped here before. A couple of fire rings, and one that looked recently used. But no garbage or trash anywhere. If we had more time, we would have spent a second night here and gone for a kayak ride. Just a perfect spot. Except, no cell signal. So, almost perfect. Seemed kind of funny to be without internet. You do get used to it being there at all times.

Kevin, cooking us some burgers.

Yesterday's drive, 246 kms (153 miles).

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