Surprise Side Trip

On the way home, we went through Port Huron, one of two places on the "thumb" of Michigan through which you can enter Canada. We hadn't told Blackeyed Susan and Alvin Fernald we had planned this (and "plan" you must... though they still take birth certificates for minors, and birth certificates and driver's licenses for adults), and they didn't know until we took the exit that said "Bridge to Canada."

It took about thirty minutes in line, to get through the border. Susan, especially, enjoyed all the Canadian flags:
Next in line--almost there:

We were really In Another Country:

The city on the other side of Port Huron, Michigan is Sarnia...not quite Narnia!

It was such fun to see lots of these:

Gasoline was "only" $1.25, which startled us until we figured out it was by-the-liter. However, multiply it by four, and you get $5.00. Don't know if that is more than a gallon, but we waited to get back over, to get gasoline, at our more-normal $3.81/gallon.

We ate at an Applebees-style restaurant, so the menu was fairly familiar. This, however, was a fun addition to our french-fries:

Glad to know I was served Canada's Favorite Ketchup.

Sarnia, for some reason, is not a tourist-y town, so we were having a difficult time finding anything that would pass for souvenirs. (so much for postcards for everybody--never found any.) We finally lighted in a Target-type store that was featuring Canadian Olympic stuff, so were able to get a few flags. I got a maple-leaf pin to wear on my jumpers. The kids got pj pants with Canada on them, and Alvin got a *Canada! Eh!* baseball cap. So, after spending all that time driving around Sarnia (pop. 76,000), and forty-five minutes on the bridge back to the U.S.A., we were really late. Charming got a frappucino, and was "hoping" to get home by 1 a.m. You might need to click on the photo to see the actual arrival time:

Ah. Home again! We grabbed our pillows and toiletry bag and crashed in our beds. (a little hoorah--my King Sized Bed. The cottage only had bunks and full-sized beds.) Yep, Dorothy Gale was right--there's No Place Like Home.