Ontario!

I am in love with Ontario so far! Kenora is especially beautiful with all the lakes. We made a quick stop at Kakabeka Falls - very cool. Apparently you have to buy a $5 permit at the park though, so we, uh, ran to the viewing platform, ooh'd and aah'd, and ran away. We made it to Thunder Bay last night... Lake Superior is enormous! We stayed at a KOA campsite in the area and it was so great - they even had an off leash dog park! Which was much needed... after a full day of driving the dogs were full of beans. Unfortunately our air bed sustained an injury and by the middle of the night we were sleeping on a thin layer of plastic. Guess we need to get a roll of duct tape today. We tried fixing it, but all we had was gum, doggie poop bags, and 4 tiny pieces of tape I commandeered from an out of order sign. I don't think I even need to tell you that it was not effective.
We're hoping today will be another great day, should make it to around Sudbury.

Centered

We just passed through the longitudinal center of Canada. Neat!

Bad luck beard

Scott would like everyone to know that everything will be fine from here on in, as he has shaven the bad luck beard. We have pieced together that the beard grown in Quesnel was infused with pure evil, as bad luck seems to have followed the beard wherever it has gone. Much like a playoff beard brings good luck, this seems to have been some sort of bizarro beard.
The beard has thus been removed. We will keep you posted on any further developments in the theory of the bad luck beard.

A new day

So we ended up waiting at the mechanics for over 6 hours yesterday for our alternator to be replaced. Turns out it's a real bitch to change one in a Ford Escape. Of course it is. They had to take off the entire axle on the passenger's side to even get the old one out. The shop wasn't very close to town, but we did find a dog park, so the dogs had their first off-leash doggie park experience and it went great! Other than that we just sat around the junk yard, then when it got too cold sat on dirty couches in the mechanic's lounge and watched The Cable Guy on VHS. And tried to keep the dogs away from the mouse traps in the corners.
The bill came to $850 *choke* (including the 25km tow) which was pretty hard to swallow. But the guys at the shop were really nice and stayed late to finish so that we could carry on our journey. And I made my first costume industry contact - the shop owner is a major historical war reenactment buff and is constantly looking for historically accurate uniforms and such. So he was excited to hear about my program and wants me to contact him when I'm done.
It was 8:30pm by the time we got out of there, so we found a hotel, took a much needed shower, and crashed.
Now we're on the road again. This picture is of some of the flooding in Brandon.

Alternate universe

The morning started off so well! We got going early, the sun was shining and the roads were perfect. Then shortly after getting into Manitoba I noticed the battery light was on. Then the cruise control failed. Then the dash lights went out. Then the car died.
*sigh*
So we called a tow truck, who was apparently very busy as we waited two hours to be picked up. Now we're sitting in a junky mechanic shop lot with the dogs waiting to hear what we're pretty sure we already know: our alternator has crapped out.
I thought this adventure was supposed to be fun?!

Regina night two

The highway is back open, but we've decided to stay for another night - hopefully it means the roads will be even better tomorrow. Plus we've already paid for another chilly night at the campsite, so hopefully we can get an early start tomorrow.
This is a picture of the highway coming into Regina from Manitoba. If we had left this afternoon we probably would've just ended up sitting in traffic anyways!

Stuck

So thanks to a blizzard in eastern sask and manitoba the highway is closed and we're stuck in Regina. And every single hotel in the city was booked for the night, so we spent the night at King's Acres Campground bundled up in our little tent. We were really hoping things would be cleared up this morning, but no such luck. There are semi's and campers lining all the side streets and parking lots - we're certainly not the only ones affected by this! So for now we're cozy in our tent, watching movies on the laptop and checking highway reports. Expecting to spend another night here and hopefully be on the road again tomorrow.