Sault Ste Marie Titanium Rally - August 2011

In the middle of our busy summer, we decided to pull up stakes and join 28 fellow Titanium owners in scenic northern Ontario. So we hitched up on Monday Aug 15th, and headed west on our beautiful TransCanada highway – an oxymoron if there ever was one!! The trailer survived the trip and we stopped the first night in Sudbury – where we met our friends Wayne & Carolyn (our Texas neighbors) for dinner.

We had a great visit with them. When we returned to our campground we found that we were parked next to our good friends Doug and Sue

– and that Tony & Sharon, Bill & Margaret, and John & Carol had also stopped for the night at Carol’s Campground. Our mini-rally had begun!

Next day we all headed to the ” Soo “ and arrived at the Sault Ste Marie KOA – a really nice campground. Our site opened onto the campfire gathering ground – so we really had a large site. It was a beautiful warm day – so we took advantage of the heated pool to relax our sore muscles.

Wednesday was the official check-in day, so it was fun to watch the Titaniums roll in one after the other. By late afternoon, the area was full of rigs and our official ‘meet and greet’ happy hour started.

An evening orientation session was held at the campfire and a local historian gave us a short presentation on the history of Sault Ste Marie.

Thursday morning we all truck pooled into downtown for a tour of the Ermatinger and Clergue Blockhouse Historical Site – followed by a tour of the Canadian Bushplane Heritage Center (where we also had lunch served amongst the displays).

Later in the afternoon we moved over to the Essar Steel plant where we watched steel being made into large rolls. Very interesting and very hot!! A cool swim back at the KOA was in order. That evening, the campground owners hosted a wine & cheese party for the group. What a busy day!

Friday morning (at 7am – is this a vacation?) – the trucks all lined up and we headed to the Algoma train station where we boarded the Agawa Canyon Tour. It is a four hour trip each way, with a 1 ½ hour stop at the canyon. Breakfast and lunch were served on the train’s dining car and the scenery was spectacular (even if the seats were painful).

We managed to walk to several of the waterfalls and were heading back to the train just as the black clouds rolled in. We were among the lucky ones who did not get wet but others decided new, dry Agawa Canyon t-shirt would make the return trip more pleasant. On our way home we stopped to pick up some food which we BBQ’ed. We had a nice dinner with Doug & Sue – in our trailer since another thunderstorm cancelled all outside activities.