We awoke to beautiful blue sky this morning.  So very nice to see after two weeks of cloud.

Sometimes they have to cut through a lot of rock to make the roads.

We didn’t have a long drive today, only about 260 km.  The scenery wasn’t a whole lot different but it looked better in the sunshine. There were also a few actual hills to drive up and down.  We had the same white daisies, and yellow something-or-other wild flowers alongside the highway but today we were also blessed to see water lilies in the ponds.  I don’t know if they were a natural water lily or an introduced variety that is moving prolifically through the waterways but they were pretty.

We only made one stop along the way today, at French River.  The French River was used as a premier water route into the Canadian wilderness for over 250 years.  There is a museum in the visitor’s center that documents the many different people and nations and explorers that came up the French River.

Also crossing the French River is the world’s longest snow mobile bridge.  It was built by the Voyageur Snowmobile Club of French River and is 90 feet above the water, 521 feet long and 12 feet wide.  It can support a heavy trail grooming machine or 100 snowmobiles crossing at the same time.  I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a snowmobile bridge.  Across the bridge is a huge map showing all the snowmobile trails and their distances.  I would love to know how many years of fundraising they did to pay for the thing.  Impressive achievement for a recreational club.

When we got into Parry Sound at 2 pm we went directly to the Bobby Orr Museum to check it out.  It wasn’t large, but was well done and really gave a good overview of the famous Boston Bruins defenseman.  John even tried his slap shot in the booth upstairs.  He clocked 49 mph.

 A model of the famous photograph from the Stanley Cup winning goal in 1970

After reading all things relevant about Bobby Orr we drove up Tower Hill and climbed the 12 flights of stairs to the top of the Fire Lookout.  Most of the clouds had moved on and we had a fabulous view of Parry Sound and the town.