The Fisher's, Author at Our View From The Road

Heading West to go East?

Welcome to the first in a series of posts in which we will share with you a trip to the Canadian Maritime provinces. We’re traveling in our 2022 PleasureWay OnTour 2.2 camper-van again and plan on staying at a variety of campgrounds along the way. It’s late May 2023 and our plan is to complete this trip over the next four weeks arriving home ahead of Canada Day (July 1st). We hope you enjoy reading about our travels and will check back often as we add to Our View From The Road.

It’s Friday. It’s early. It’s day one of a new adventure. We’re excited. We’re off…. But wait, why are we heading West? I thought this was a series of posts about going to the East coast? Remember I said, it’s late May? That can only mean that it’s time again to head to Indianapolis for the 107th running of the Indianapolis 500 !!!!! That’s right, we’re heading back for a 2nd year.

7:00am and I’m out for my 5km walk, a beautiful morning. 8:40am and we’re out of the laneway. Towards Prescott and Hwy-401. Our first stop was the Mallorytown OnRoute service center for fuel and breakfast. Not a huge Tim’s fan but it does fine for this morning. The driving is good for a Friday, the usual compliment of trucks setting the pace whilst impatient drivers try to carve around them.

Toronto comes and goes. Early Friday afternoon traffic slows us a little but soon we’re cruising past the airport and on our way out of town.

Our next stop is the Cambridge OnRoute this time only for gas. $1.709 / litre for regular, ouch. We’re getting hungry but decide to push on.

Woodstock OnRoute and we stop to take a break in the picnic area. This is a wonderfully quiet, shady spot to take a break and enjoy a sandwich in our van. Not much further today so we finish up and get back on the road.

Past London, West Lorne and finally we pull off of the highway at Blenheim. Our stop for tonight is the Red Barn Brewing Company. As a Harvest Hosts location, we stay for the cost of trying some of their goods. They are fairly new based upon the nice barn structure in which they are situated. They have a nice outdoor patio and some activities to enjoy such as the game of cornhole. The beer selection is quite good and we buy a few to enjoy whilst traveling about.

Tomorrow we cross into the US of A. Sleep well everyone.

Sorry but there are no pictures from today, we were just to focused on our destination and forgot to pickup the camera.

Recap and Statistics

It’s been a week or so since we arrived home after our 47 day US Southwest tour and I thought I’d share some specifics about the trip.

The first question tends to be about where we stayed each night. Did we find suitable camping locations? So, here are the stats for that.

15 nights free camping (Cracker Barrel, Walmart, Harvest Hosts, BLM land & family laneways).
12 nights at private campgrounds (serviced).
19 nights at US state parks (serviced).

As you can see we mixed it up a bit and tried a variety of places. Favorites?

Harvest Host: Bar Z winery, Canyon, TX. Great wine & canyon views from their patio.
BLM camping: Angel Peak picnic area, Bloomfield, NM. Great views.
Private campground: Lazy Days RV Resort (KOA), Tucson, AZ. Free citrus fruit for the picking along with swimming pools and other resort activities.
State Park: Picacho State Park, Picacho, AZ. Great hiking and views from everywhere in the park. Wonderful wildflowers and cactus.

The next question is about where exactly did we go? Here’s a map that shows you our route.

Lastly, given the price of fuel, how much fuel did we use and what did it cost. Here is a table for you to review.

So there you have it, a few statistics about the trip. Hoping you find them interesting.

Day 47: The road home

Days 45 & 46 were spent visiting family & there was no specific post for those days.

This is it, the last day of this trip. We are up early and it’s cool. We enjoy breakfast and say our goodbyes (for now) and hit the road. Our first stop is just a few blocks away at a public dump station where we empty our tanks for the last time.

We drive cross-country towards Cambridge, ON where we join Hwy 401E towards Toronto. The traffic is steady but being a Sunday there are few trucks on the road. This allows traffic to flow easily and before we know it we’re in Toronto passing the airport.

Traffic comes to a short halt a couple of times as we cross the city but nothing that causes any real delays. We stop at the highway service center near Port Hope, ON where we grab a sandwich and coffee before filling up with fuel. Argh! Canadian fuel prices are harsh.

The drive towards Eastern Ontario goes smoothly and we arrive at home by mid-afternoon. The tree damage from the recent ice storm looks severe and will take some time to clean up, but that’s for another day.

This trip has been amazing, we’re both tired and looking forward to resuming our home lives but for now, we sit and reflect on the sights and experiences we’ve shared in recent weeks.

As mentioned in my last post, I hope to post a summary of our trip in the upcoming days so watch for it. Thanks again for coming along for the ride & we hope you join us again on our future trips.

Day 44: It’s nice to be back, Eh!

So this is it, our last day of this trip in the USA and it starts with another beautiful morning. We enjoy a quick breakfast and pack up the van for the drive.

We head out and immediately have a small issue, our phones (used for GPS mapping functions while on the road) are not connecting to a network. Luckily as this is the last US leg and we’re somewhat familiar with where we are going we can push on. We figure out over the next few hours that it’s only an issue with AT&T, if we change our phones to use Verizon they work fine.

We head towards Fort Wayne, IN and have to decide which route to take. Detroit or Lansing. I’d prefer to avoid Detroit because of traffic and construction, but Lansing will add about an hour to our drive time. We’re tired of driving and so Detroit it is. At Fort Wayne we head NE towards Toledo, OH and hope that we don’t get caught up in any major delays.

We’ve already noticed the lack of leaves on the trees when compared to our drive of yesterday. Spring is only just beginning in the Northern states.

Toledo, OH is under construction, or at least the I-75N is. It gets better as we cross into Michigan, but then in Detroit it feels as if they’ve decided to completely redo the entire highway system. We muddle on and emerge the other side of the city unscathed. Yay!

A quick lunch stop at McD’s and then a stop at one last US gas station. It seems like just a few minutes later and we’re paying the bridge toll (Debit/Credit only, cash no longer accepted). Over the Bluewater bridge and into Ontario.

Canada Border Protection Services happily allow us to re-enter Canada with a minimal delay (less than 5min total from bridge to Hwy 402). Yay, we’re home, Eh!

Our last hour for the day takes us along the shore of Lake Huron to Grand Bend where we stop at Tim Horton’s for a coffee (Mmm, Timmies) before heading to Exeter, ON where we are spending a couple of days with Barb’s parents.

This marks the end of daily posts for this, our 2023 Southwestern US tour. I will put up a post in the upcoming days about our drive across Ontario towards home as well as one or two posts summarizing the trip in the next week or so. Whether you’ve followed us regularly or just found our blog, thanks for reading. I hope that you’ve enjoyed our view from the road.

BTW, we are planning a tour of the Maritime provinces in just a few weeks, so watch out for another series of posts starting soon. Cheers.

Day 43: Northward bound

A nice quiet night at the Walmart parking lot in Russellville, KY. We’re up early with the sun again and soon all set to get back on the road.

A short drive to Bowling Green, KY where we stop at the Crumbl cookie store. We’ve been hearing good things about their cookies so thought we’d give them a try.

We joined the I-65N and headed toward Louisville, KY. Lots of trucks again and the terrain means I’m passing them uphill & then they’re passing me downhill. A couple of hours in and we cross the Ohio River into Indiana.

From here the road is flatter and the driving easier. We stop for a quick break and bite to eat at a rest stop and then head onwards toward Indianapolis, IN. We take the I-465 around the city and veer off on the I-69N towards our stop for today in Anderson, IN at Mounds State Park.

The park is tranquil and fairly quiet with most sites being empty. We back in, have something to eat (Chick-fil-a chicken) and then both enjoy a late afternoon nap.

Tomorrow we plan on completing our Northward trek back to Canada and should be crossing the border back into Ontario in the afternoon. check back again to see how we get along!