Leaving Bruce

The motel was expensive for the budget, but cheered Linda up quite a bit. Monday was a bright sunny day, and we set off for a campground in town.....nobody there for check-in yet, so off to Kincardine Cemetery to find some more graves. The caretaker there, Terry, was helpful in telling us where many of our sites were located, but we were still going to walk the entire cemetery (1500+ graves) to try and get every one that would be relevant. We phoned Aunt Orlo, back from a bit of a holiday, and organized a lunch break with her at Tim Horton's. We had a very good visit with her, and she had an old family photo for me, as well.








Visit with Orlo



After lunch, it was back to the cemetery. By late afternoon, we'd "bagged" over 110 ancestors. Then back into town, to check into the campsite just down the street from my Mom's old house. We fixed up a dinner, and then as the sun set over Lake Huron we walked out onto the pier to the Bagpipes coming from the Lighthouse.....the Phantom Piper. There is a legend of a piper who, during a fog, piped his family safely home into the harbour. Now, in the summertime, there is a Phantom Piper who plays from the Lighthouse each evening at sunset.









The Phantom Piper
















A Lake Huron Sunset





Next morning was another fine sunny day, and we wasted no time in getting out to the South Kinloss Cemetery, Armow Cemetery, Bervie, Glammis, Cargill, Tiverton, and Inverhuron Cemeteries. We managed in all to bag another 130 ancestors. Back to our campsite for a quick shower, and then we dropped in on cousin George and his wife Mary Lou, for a short visit. We organized to meet back at the campsite for a continuation of the visit over a bottle of wine and KFC, while we watched another spectacular Lake Huron sunset.





Visit with George and Mary Lou




George and Mary Lou are keen sailors, and keep a boat similar to ours, in Florida. We also discovered that not only was I related to George (which I'd always known), but also to Mary Lou on my father's side of the family. After the sun went down, it cooled off considerably, and we said our goodbyes to George and Mary Lou, and crawled into our (thankfully) warm sleeping bag.
Being a Tuesday, this is another day of reckoning. Totals for this week:
Distance driven: 683.3 Km Gas: $ 76.01 Food: $232.30 Accommodation: $317.70 Other: $80.56 Total: $ 706.30 Over budget by 91 cents a day! Close....but no cigar.
Wednesday morning was yet another bright and sunny day. As we were sipping our morning coffee, George drove in and dropped off some family history sheets to detail our relationship to Mary Lou and her Norman family lines. Then a short visit with Uncle Jack, before setting off down the road to Southampton, where the Bruce County Museum has an impressive archives. The archivist on duty, Sue, was extremely helpful in suggesting places to research, and helped us a great deal. We were able to glean a bit more information on various ancestors, including a copy of Gt-gt-grandfather Alex McKinnon's will.....but our attempts to further information on BlackJack McKay proved fruitless. By 16:30 we left the museum, and decided to head further north, to the end of the Bruce Peninsula, From here, we could take a ferry the Chi-Cheemaun, to Manitoulin Island and start our trek back across northern Ontario. A fresh fruit/veggie stand provided us with fresh corn, and after setting up camp in Tobermory, we had a bbq with freah corn, then walked to the beach to watch our last Lake Huron sunset....again photo perfect.







Our Last Lake Huron Sunset, this time in
Tobermory.











Thursday morning was a continuation of the fine weather we'd been seeing, and we lined up for the ferry at Tobermory.....where I presently sit, in a lineup, catching up on the Blog.