Day 118,119, and 120 Sault Ste. Marie, to Wawa, to Marathon, Ontario

Day 118 in the Soo . It was a day off, but chores needed to get done. I ran into Kenn at the laundromat.

Random lurker. Imagine our surprise (my roomate Russ, and I) when all of a sudden this window washer appeared outside our room on the 4th floor. Definately not the job for me.

Once he was gone, I had a chance to see our view across the St. Mary's river to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.

Our day 119 start of day was at the Queen Elizabeth public school in Sault Ste. Marie. The school has adopted              Roberta Bondar, Canada's first female astronaut, as their role model. She is from Sault Ste. Marie

This age group is the most fun to teach about Rick's story and the relay

Barn is in charge of the audio, visual, and powerpoint presentation today.

Billy is our master of ceremonies. He is a teacher himself and can really relate to the kids.

Aint it the truth, Kenn!

Showcasing our medal bearers, the difference makers, what this relay is all about.

Some of the relay crew outside the gymnasium, waiting for them to introduce our endurance athlete, Tyrone.

Our medal bearer host Kyle posing with Makda, one of the CTV news reporters from Sault Ste. Marie. CTV is one of our sponsors.

I has two jobs today, in the morning, I had a chance to try out being a pilot. We go ahead of the shuttle bus and make sure the medal bearers get dropped off at their right spot at the right time. We also get a chance to introduce ourselves to the medal bearer and reassure them about the their segment. It was a great experience to see the relay from this position.

Here they come!

This group of medal beareers posing for a pic against the motorhome at a sponsor stop at the local honda dealership.

Great Lakes Honda, aptly named for the fact Sault Ste. Marie is in between Lake Huron and Lake Superior.

Our race director Jamie greats the crowd.

I got dropped off back at the hotel, and had a chance to take a couple of quick pics before I started my afternoon duties, moving the supply and luggage truck ahead to Wawa. Across the water is the Edison Sault electric building.

A shot of the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge, spanning from Canada to the U.S.

Looking across to Michigan

First stop for fuel just outside of the Soo, looks like fishing country

Sounds good to me!

No stress driving, no traffic, no stress!

A lot of this area reminds me of B.C. a little

The shores of Lake Superior. I knew it was big, but I had no idea how big!

All these pictures are miles apart.

A whole lot of nothing going on.

There were lots of these moments, you knew as you were cresting over the hill you were going to get a great view of the lake.

as the Carly Simon song says, anticipation

reminiscent of winter driving on Hope-Princeton highway in B.C.

All the pictures were over a 227 kilometre span.

Ahhh, finally,  the world? famous Wawa goose!

Hey wait a minute, there's another one on top of our motel!

I tried to capture a beautiful sunset with my little camera, but you will have to take my word for it, it was spectacular!

Not a bad view outside my front door!

The townsfolks hosted a pasta dinner for us at the end of day celebration. They tied in our event with a celebration of their own community difference makers! There were over 200 people in attendance.

Kayla and Tyrone rocking to the Chrismas tunes.

One of the first nations artifacts at the Michipicoten Community Centre

You know your in wilderness country when..............

I shared a cabin with Pat, and Don, it was really rustic, even had a fire going in the fireplace. Here Pat is showing off his world? famous home made eggnog. He made it from scratch, it was creamy, frothy, delicious, and had a heck of a kick to it!

In case you can't figure it out, Pat, Kayla, myself, and Jordan spelling "Wawa", Ojibwe first nations name for wild goose.

We had a bit of a come as you want get together coupled with an orginal drink contest. I don't know how Marilyn and Wendy found these matching outfits while on the road.

Ahhhh yes, the Downey's are in the house.

My team included Russ (community engagement) and Tina (marcomms), here we are doing a little experimenting.

Okay, our drink may not have been the best, but we certainly won on style and presentation points. We had ice dyed to represent the aurora borealis (nothern lights), a little goose (actually a duck), for wawa, rubber worms in the drink to represent the fishing in the area, christmas stir sticks, stickers on the glasses to represent Eric and Pat's birthdays, goldschlagger liquer to represent the gold mining of old in Wawa, and grey goose vodka, phewwwwwwwwwww!

Russ and Jane retro stylin.

The boys are too cool for school, Jordan, Barn, and Justan.

Back to my quiet little cabin, too bad it was only for one night.

I was on the supply truck again, and was one of the last ones to leave this skating rink of a parking lot.

"big bird", pretty handy when you can park right outside your door

I saw three gooses, one on the hotel,

One at a general store across the street,

and the one on the highway. they have started a campaign to replace this rusting old goose, which has been standing for 50 years. I put my $5 bucks in.

Farther north towards Marathon starting to look like a real winter wonderland.

"Hello Penske truck rentals", "where am I broken down?" "about 10 miles northwest of White River the original home of ( Winnie the Pooh), right across from the 13 km to Gloria's sign" I don't think Susan in Reading, Pennsylvania actually knew where that was

It is eerie when you are on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere and there is no one around. The silence was deafening.

Gino to the rescue. The transmission was acting up, it went from gearing down to nothing. I stopped 3 times, and after it sat for awhile, I could go again, only to have it quit, or to go at a top speed of 60 kph. I am proud to say that all of the relay staff that was behind me stopped to see if I was okay. I had to catch a ride to our next hotel in Marathon.

Finally the truck arrives in Marathon. We all had about 45 minutes to store in the truck all the things we wanted to for our upcoming 2 week break. Then the truck was towed all the way to Thunder Bay, about 300 km

Our motel tonight had these super narrow hallways, gave an interesting effect.

I can only guess as to the meaning of why these stickers were put up on every window, I don't think we had too much to worry about this time of year in this cold weather.  (I'm a couple of days behind on my blog, soooooo Merry Christmas everybody and happy holidays to all!)