Ending mileage: 722 Ending time: 6:00pm
This is the first of our long days of non-stop driving to our first main destination, Glacier National Park. We drove an even 500 miles.
We decided to take the less busy route through Watertown, NY, Alexandria Bay, Brockville and up to the Trans-Canada highway just west of Ottawa and then to Sudbury.
The traveling was good although there was considerable construction along the roads in Canada but we could make up time with traffic moving considerably faster than the speed limits...
On the way up, we passed the Maple Ridge wind farm near Lowville, NY which is the largest wind facility in NYS, with 195 turbines generating a maximum of 321 MW. It is quite impressive to see so many huge wind turbines spread across the countryside.
Traveling north in Canada was similar to traveling north in NY, with many farms growing corn and soybeans. In Canada there were fields of oats and wheat and something one doesn't see in the U.S.: fields of hemp. We don't know if it is being grown for seeds, fiber or both,
We were looking for a place to eat lunch when we were lucky to find a small park next to the Mississippi Falls on the Mississippi River - didn't know Ontario also had a Mississippi.It was very pleasant eating left-over pizza and fruit for lunch along the riverside.
Once we arrived west of Ottawa, we followed along the Ottawa river much of the way. Much of the area is pretty rural and it looks like the main industry is logging to the south of the highway and boating and camping to the north along the river.
When I was growing up, I often traveled through Canada to my grandparents house in Wisconsin and remembered the hills for miles around Sudbury were completely bare due to the pollution from the huge nickel mine and refinery there. The air always smelled of sulfur and I often wondered what it did to the people living there. The pollution now seems to be gone and the hills are covered with small white birch and pine trees.
We stopped for the night at the Quality Inn in Sudbury and had dinner at an Irish pub - we were very ready for glasses beer.
We made a reservation for a hotel in Thunder Bay, Ontario for tomorrow night - this is a little over 600 miles.
Day 3 route
David and Betty Adler with Shona
Maple Ridge Wind Farm
Entering Canada
