Cross-Country Corvette Stage 6: 1270 kms

Date of Travel: May 5, 2015

The next portion of our travel took us around the northern shore of Lake Superior, the world's largest body of freshwater by surface area and boasting unusually cold temperatures.  As we drove between Thunder Bay and Nipigon we had excellent views of this mammoth body of water, looking like some kind of frozen ocean.  The highway now took us northeast into areas more familiar as we approached the Canadian Shield region.

We now found ourselves on Highway 11, a very fine two-lane road that took us through beautiful countryside, all rocks and lakes and, as are all two-lane highways in Ontario, at a maddeningly slow 90 km/h highway speed limit.  Crossing the Prairies we had been allowed to exercise the Corvette a bit as the limit was 110 km/h, which you could stretch to 130 without attracting any notice but aware of the Ontario Provincial Police's enthusiasm for catching speeders in lightly-travelled areas, I left the car on cruise control at around 105 and hoped for the best,

My travel planning had given us a very ambitious stage to cover to get home to Ottawa but after the Drumheller to Winnipeg one I thought it could be handled, although 200 kms further.  I was wrong because six days of driving is more tiring than I had thought, even in good weather.  We passed through so many little towns--Geraldton, Hearst, Kapuskasing, Cochrane, Iroquois Falls, Temagami, and North Bay, where we rejoined the Trans-Canada Highway (17) that I did not notice feeling tired as it was all a new experience.  I did notice that as we drove through North Bay, where the highway goes right through town and not around it,, my shifting was not nearly as smooth as before.  

At a nice new  McEwan's gas I stopped for a very strong hot coffee.  We had covered 1240 kms and I was feeling very tired.  It was dark and the roads were empty; we lowered the windows for the cool refreshing air and I decided we had to stop at the next place we came to rather than try to get home.

In Deep River, 30 kms further down the road, the first two places we passed had "No Vacancy" signs and were dark anyway.  The third place said they closed at 11:00 pm and it was a quarter after so as I saw lights I went in.  The gentleman sweeping out the kitchen was very helpful and said there was a one room only left so needless to say we beyond ecstatic to take it.  Within fifteen minutes of unpacking the car, I am pretty sure I was sound asleep.