FROM HERE TO THERE...

I'm spending the night in the Chocolate Capital of Ontario.

I'm doing a site hand over to one of our regional Inspectors at Westport. Westport is 53 km north of Kingston. It is 40 km from Smith Falls. I usually stay in Westport, but this time I brought our student from the lab. The hotel in Westport has no television or telephones, so I didn't want to freak him out. I put him to work today at the site.

I saw this mailbox in Westport. The perfect gift for the angler.

The hotel in Smith Falls is right on the Rideau Canal. The view from my balconey.

And then at dusk.

I read in the newspaper that the Yamaska River in Cowansville has flooded parts of the town. They have had nine straight days of rain, in a 24 hour period they received 75mm of rain. The rain started the day after I left. That happened in Bridgewater, NS last year, after I was there they had had flooding problems. I guess my timing is right.

I drove down to Frelighsburg Quebec on Monday to replace an instrument that has been on the fritz . The site is about an hour from Montreal, the US border is only 5 km from Frelighsburg. It is close to Mont Sutton, when I worked as a student I hiked to the summit a few times. It is also known as Roundtop Mountain.

At the site the wasps were busy trying to set up home in the roof of the precipitation collector. I have seen the start of many nests but never with anybody home.

After Frelighsburg, I drove to another site we have in St. Anicet. I took the 202 highway, it goes around Lake Champlain.

While I was working, this robin kept coming and watching me, I didn't see any nest nearby, I figured that may have been why it was keeping close tabs on me.

Started the morning with a Tim Horton's coffee and a stop at the Kirkland Lake Miners Memorial.

A closer look at the miners on the memorial.

On the drive back today, I stopped in Earlton to take a picture of the big Bison. Not sure why there is a Bison there, it is on the property of a place selling RV's, no association with the town or an information building.

I made a stop in Marten River, it is the location of a new precipitation site that will be installed this summer. I was there last November to stake it out, most of the stakes were still in the ground, but the fluorescent paint had faded. Within the area we had staked I found some bones, I don't remember seeing them last fall and I didn't think there was that much snow on the ground to cover it up.

Not sure what kind of animal it was, pretty sure from the size it was an animal.

I hunted around and found some more further away in all directions.

In Moonbeam, Ontario they have a space ship as you enter town from the west. Here are a couple of shots of the alien landing.

Spent most of the day at the site, the mosquitos were out but not biting. A shot looking down the access road.

I left the site in the afternoon and started my drive back to Toronto. I got as far as Kirkland Lake, it cuts a few hours off my drive tomorrow. The weather was pretty crazy up here today, it rained off and on, the sun was out, it would cloud over and then it would pour, and then repeat. This was taken just south of Cochrane, it is one of those Historical Plaque sites. This one is for the 49th parallel.

I wonder if there is a website that has all of these historical plaques and where they are?

Of course I had to check with my GPS.

Further south on Highway 11, there is the Arctic Watershed plaque.

If you are driving south you see this side of the sign.

If you are driving north you will see this side.

I remember seeing this sign on Highway 17 last summer when we were on our trip, but we had to be selective on where we stopped, since we only had a month. This is looking north from the Arctic Watershed stop.

One last scenery shot.

I just did a check on Google and found information about the Historical Plaques. There is a guy in Toronto named Alan L. Brown who has a website called www.ontarioplaques.com. Wayne Cook also has a site with Historical Plaques of Ontario. Something else I found is Waymarking, it sounds similar to Geocaching, I'll have to read up on this one.

I left Toronto this morning to make the drive up to Kapuskasing. It is about a 9 hour drive, however I had to make a stop at another site, so it made for a long day. There is no shortage of Big Things on this drive. In Dymond, Ontario they have a big cow.

It is hard to tell the scale of these things when there are no kids standing in front of it.

Further up on Highway 11, near Earlton there is a big Bison, I didn't get a picture, but I'll try on the way back. In Cochrane, Ontario they have a big Polar Bear in town.

I made a stop at Fraserdale, we have an ozone site there, it is about 40 mins north of Highway 11 at Smooth Rock Falls. On the way up I spotted a black bear at the side of the road, once he spotted me he turn and went back into the bush. This is a picture of the Fraserdale site, we only measure ground level ozone, there are other programs there that measure greenhouse gases.

The sky was starting to cloud over on my way out. By the time I reached Highway 11 it was raining. I saw another bear on the drive out, this time he was running across the road in front of me. I don't think it was the same bear, I saw them about 10 km apart.

My stop for the night was in Kapuskasing, what do you know they have a big thing in town. Here is there black bear, it is located near the information building, however I did notice for sale signs on the building.

Close up of the bear.

Off to Moonbeam tomorrow, we had a break-in at our site and they took most of our equipment. I'll try to get a picture of the spaceship that they have in town.