July 3 & 4

Sunday, July 3

Today we drove to Lake Placid, 75 miles from Massena, to spend the day with Joni's cousins:  Freddie and Billy Capshaw, their son, Max, and his 6 year old daughter, Aine (Irish for Anya), and David and Serena, Nicola.  For the Capshaw's, Lake Placid is their vacation home, but David and Serena live there year round.  David owns Mr. Mike's Pizza.  Mr. Mike was David's Dad, and Joni's uncle.  HIs pizza is the best.   

Lake Placid was exploding with people, other than Northern New Hampshire, you really can't find a better place for hiking, biking, kayaking, or other outdoor sports.  But we spent the afternoon, eating, drinking, & laughing...just catching up on each other's lives with lots of reminiscing mixed in.  

We left Lake Placid around 6:30 and got back to Massena around 8, just in time to order a pizza from the Hotel Nadeau, where I spent many an after noon and evening playing pinball and drinking beer with friends Noel and Lee. during my first four year teaching.  The pizza doesn't warrant a return visit...we never ate there when we lived in Massena.

Monday, July 4

Today we covered lots of new territory.  Leaving Massena around 8:30, we crossed the very scary bridge (Joni drove) into Canada, and stopped for breakfast at the first Tim Horton's that we could find. 

We were on four lane highways until Ottawa, and then it was mostly two lanes roads until we got to our campsite at  Fairbank Provincial Park, which is about twenty miles west of Sudbury, Ontario.  Most of our route followed the Ottawa River which separates Ontario from Quebec, so all the signs were in French and English...very appropriate for us since we've spent a lot of  July's in France.  For lunch we found a beautiful picnic area along a lake just off the highway.  Our lunch was simple, hotdogs, chips, and Dr. Pepper.

We covered the 407 miles in nine hours.  Our campsite was wooded, private and only 25 steps to the lake.  We bought some wood for a fire, and immediately set up camp.  It's now 8 PM, 70 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, the fire's blazing and there's enough of a breeze to keep away the bugs...no screen house necessary tonight.  I love camping!