Great Lakes Circle Tour, last day....

Woke up this morning in Port Colborne, did the usual pack and go. I had bought milk at the WalMart the day before so we did eat breakfast before we left. Went back into town so Steve could take pictures of the lock we'd seen the night before. Then headed west again along the northern shore of Lake Erie. Lots of small town roads with small town speeds. I found it interesting but Steve was getting impatient.

One thing that made it interesting for Steve was the amount of wind turbines that we saw on the lakeshore. Two caches that I'd marked earlier at wind turbine sites made for good starts - Steve for wind turbine pictures, me for wind turbine caches.

One wrong turn brought us to Port Bruce Provincial Park. We stopped and took a short walk on the beach and took some pictures. The next road after that that I led Steve to turned out to be a gravel road. Not good. At that point I decided to cut my losses, so to speak, and made a deal with Steve. We ended up going back to the 401 for the remainder of the trip to Windsor in return for being able to stop at the two westbound rest areas on I-96 in Michigan on the way home, that I hadn't yet found caches in. We weren't right at the lakeshore for the last part of the trip, but we did make it all the way around.

Stopped in Windsor at the duty free shop just before the Ambassador Bridge. Meant to exchange my remaining Canadian money for American dollars but ended up exchanging them for goods instead...couldn't let a trip to Canada pass without some maple candy! Had just enough leftover to pay the toll for the bridge.

We really noticed the heat wave once we were back in Michigan. Earlier along the lakeshore, it was in the low 80s. It was 102 degrees once we were on I-96 in Detroit. We also noticed a lot less traffic than usual. Coming through the area in the middle of the afternoon on a holiday is a pretty good idea...

Made the first rest area stop in Howell. Steve walked Max while I got the cache. Really feeling the heat just being outside for 10 minutes!

The second stop was in Okemos. Ended up with two caches as they were just a tenth of a mile apart in the same rest area. The second was a joker cache. Opened the ammo can and a fake snake popped out. Joker! But needless to say I was totally drained after another 10 minutes in the heat. Steve kept the car running to keep him and Max cool.

We made it all the way back to Grand Rapids by about 6 p.m. We had to unload the outback from the street as the driveway was done!!!! The end will need to cure still, we should be able to use it when we return from Fort Wayne on Sunday (a whole nother story....)

Then collapsed in our very warm house (as we'd turned the ac way down) as it cooled.

Then went over to Eric's to switch the outback for the van (don't want to park the outback outside.) Was able to cross the new bridge over the Grand River for the first time, it's been a year and a half in the making. About time!

Then went to Steak & Shake as I really didn't want to heat up the kitchen.

Decided it was too hot to sit outside for fireworks. Been there, done that.

We can now say we've been around all five Great Lakes

Michigan - 2007
Huron - 2008
Superior - 2010
Ontario - 2012
Erie - 2012

How many can say they've done that?