it’s still daylight

I’m at 46^o North and 84^o West and sunset wont be until 8:50. The area has almost 45 minute more daylight than Pittsburgh (40^o North and 80^o West).

The snow is finally gone. This is an amazing statement given that two weeks ago everything was covered in snow and the white stuff was still coming down. But the extended daylight has dried the ground and waken up the trees. I walked the neighborhood around my parents’ house and there were trees everywhere full of buds. Also, the new, soft-green grass is a clean breath in the industrial landscape.

My cousin and I drove up. (He had two goals – make it on one tank of gas and avoid getting a speeding ticket. He accomplished both.) It’s been 40 years since I made the trip from Toronto to Sault Ste Marie by car.

The trip has 3 section to it – Toronto/Parry Sound (150 miles), Parry Sound/Sudbury (107 miles), Sudbury/Sault Ste Marie (195 miles). My favorite part is the stretch between Toronto and Perry Sound particularly around Georgian Bay. The highway is one rock-cut after another. It’s a surreal landscape through low mountains of rock.

Also, from Toronto up to Perry Sound, it’s a divided highway. But at Perry Sound it becomes a two-lane road with occasional passing lanes. Finally after some 50 years, the province is rebuilding Highway 69 making it a modern divided highway from Toronto to Sudbury. And, you can see the path of the new lanes, of the new highway. (There was some evidence of new construction between Sudbury and the Sault, but it’s in its early stages. Sudbury to the Sault is still a two-lane highway. And because you’re following the contour of the lake, the landscape is flat and boring.)