Ottawa to Hearst

Here we are in June and I'm on the road again.  Joan stayed at the Folly to mind the grounds, orchids and Frankie, but not necessarily in that order.

As usual, the crack of dawn happened at 9am and the TransCanada was relatively traffic free and construction free.  Mind you, some areas are in serious need of repair, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The usual provincial wildflowers followed me all the way: at first it was those tall blue plumes surrounded by smallish yellow flowers.  Then came the daisies and some red flowers. After a gas fill-up in North Bay, I happened upon this field of blooms that was part of a quarry.  The trucks spread their dust around, while I managed a few shot for you to see.

After North Bay, the road seemed to get progressively worse: cracks everywhere and just enough potholes to keep me awake.

I kept driving until shortly after 7pm when I reached Hearst, ON, a place first visited with my parents when my Brother and family were up in Pagwa, a very small radio station that was part of the dew line. I was 17 or so at the time.

Hearst is still a frontier town with new parts for me to explore now that I'm unsupervised...

This hauler was in the back parking lot of my hotel / motel.  I didn't realize that the provincial police had their own haulers, fancy that, my tax dollars at work, well just parked at the moment.

I thought a B&W picture was appropriate.

Wayne and I have been talking about a trip up the Agawa Canyon by train; well, here's part of it, parked just behind my hotel / motel.  ...just near my room actually.  Of course, to keep up with provincial promises, the engine will run all night likely to keep the air-conditioning working.  Did I mention that it's just near my room?

Just to keep things interesting, there is a set of humoungous machines moving lumber as if they were pick-up sticks.  This is just part of one and you can see the bunch of sticks.  The gantry will move on its own path [rail?] and deliver the bunch to a pile where another machine will pick them up in smaller bunches and put them is a long narrow hopper that seems to feed a big machine in a huge building.  It was a constant process until about 10pm.  Good thing so it should be quieter, but the the diesel engine would probably have drowned the monster machines out anyway...

Of course, large machines spit out a lot of saw dust.  This bucket of stripped bark is being loaded into an articulated dump truck.  I guess it might end up as top dressing in someones garden.

This bucket is being pushed up a growing pile of sawdust.  I have no idea what will become of the pile, maybe they'll add glue and make VolksWagens...

Of course, train yards have all kinds of neat stuff, like these spare trucks for train cars.  It's hard to tell if they're all new or not, but they do have different levels of rusty colours which looked interesting in the failing light.

And lastly, the front of my hotel / motel. 

Now doesn't that look quieter? Maybe I should stop asking for rooms away from the highway to avoid the road noise. 

Did I mention that there's a running train engine just at the end of the parking below my window?  I think it's actually blocking out the sound of the air conditioner ...

I might have preferred the air conditioner noise...

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