We don't seem to have any luck with cameras!

I mentioned last Saturday that when we were out on a hike with friends John and Diane, I dropped our new Nikon P520 camera.

Of course, it landed on a rock.

The Balanced Rocks of Remic Rapids

This is kind of cool, and exactly the type of thing we love to see when we're exploring an area.

Our hometown is Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. Because we grew up here, and we know the city very well, we wanted to find some things to do that we've never seen or done before.

September Expenses

Well, we had a planned budget of $1,300 for the month of September, and we blew it!

Just kidding, but we did exceed our plan a little bit. Total expenses came in at $1,446.

Trip down to Ottawa

We're going to be doing this drive quite a few times between now and October 15th when we leave for Nova Scotia. We're staying at Ruth's father's house in the village of Galetta, which is about a 45 minute drive from the center of the city of Ottawa, Canada's capital.

We made it!

Despite the fact that we haven't lived here for six years and we'll probably never live here again, we still consider Ottawa our hometown. So arriving back here for the first time in almost a year is pretty exciting for us and we've been looking forward to seeing the family and friends that we have in the area.

We left here October 22nd of last year.

Elliot Lake, Ontario

Elliot Lake is an interesting town. Or at least it has an interesting history.

In the early fifties, a huge ore body of uranium was discovered in this area. So the city was designed as a planned community for the mining industry, and by the late 1950's there were 25,000 people living here.

Fastest Border Crossing Ever!

Yesterday morning, our friends Bill and Bonnie were getting up early to go get their solar installation done on their motorhome. They had a three hour drive to the appointment, so they woke us up as they were ready to go. It was only 5:40am, but we decided to stay up and get an early start.

A drive around Amish country

Bill and Bonnie took us for a drive to see the sights around the area. There is a large Amish population in this area and of course it's interesting to see this culture a little more up close. Sorry we don't have many pictures, but we didn't want to seem intrusive.

What a great day...

First, we had to get the drive over with. We tried to get an early start, and it was about 8:30am by the time we left Marquette.

Beautiful day in Marquette, Michigan!

When I had been doing some research about the places we were planning on stopping along this road trip, one of the things I found was that Marquette, Michigan was voted #1 on CNNMoney's list of the top 25 places to retire in the United States.

We went exploring yesterday, on a beautiful blue sky day, and we found out that Marquette (pop 22,000) is a nice little town!