Sault Ste. Marie...We're in the Money!

We left Bracebridge a little later than planned as Jim opted to get a haircut. We finally got on the road and then when we got to pretty Port Carling, we remembered Randy talking about Ella's Restaurant so we just had to stop there. Not fancy...just great food.

We arrived in Sault Ste. Marie from Bracebridge around 6 p.m. (Note to selves...leave earlier!) We went for dinner in the hotel and met a couple (Jean and Alan) sitting next to us who were celebrating their 40th anniversary. Their daughter was our waitress and they gave us lots of great ideas of things to see from here to Thunder Bay. After dinner we decided to walk to the casino which is about 10 minutes away. We put $5 in the 2 cent machines and played for about half an hour. We still honestly have no idea what we are doing! We decided to take our $12 winnings from there and put them in the 5 cent machines. Oh such daring! After about another half hour, we called it quits with $22.28. Quite tickled with ourselves! Ha ha...we are such gamblers!

Saturday was a very relaxing day. Went to the gym in the hotel and walked around downtown. Here is one of the many pretty little churches downtown.

We went to one of the restaurants in the eating bible, Panna. It was good, but not as good as their prices would indicate, and their attitude is one of indifference. But the food was good....

This morning we thought we would take one of Jean and Alan's suggestions and head to Mackinac (pronounced Mackinaw) Island in Michigan. It is about 85 km from here and the island has banned motorized vehicles for the last century. You leave your car at the terminal and take a ferry, and once on the island you either walk, bike or take a horse and carriage. The Grand Hotel (http://www.grandhotel.com/) looks amazing and claims to have the world's largest porch at 660 feet long.

The drive started off great but in the distance we could see some pretty black sky. Soon it started to rain, then it started to hail and snow, then it was thunder and lightening. After seeing the second car spun off the road in the ditch, we decided to turn around and head back. Somehow walking around in that weather just wasn't appealing.

So we headed back to the Soo, bought a bunch of newspapers and magazines and had a great day of reading.

Tomorrow we are off to Marathon, our midpoint between here and Thunder Bay. Forecast is for snow tomorrow, but supposed to be nice later in the week....