Big Brother and Cousin Corpo slowed our progress today. First came all the hoops of CBP’s new and improved eAPIS reporting system for planes flying across U.S. borders. In the old days they were interested only in people and things entering the country, but now they are intrigued by departures as well. If larger than a Canada goose flying across, you must answer lots of questions and carry documents. Once out of the land of the free you must deal with an entirely different Canadian Customs than 2007 or so when we simply taxied our plane into a box painted on the tarmac, picked up a phone to assure them we had no weapons or other stuff they didn’t like, and we were free to fly on. Today we waited two hours while two armed men drove the five miles or so from Soo Canada to that airport. We had failed to phone giving two hours’ notice of our intention to invade this beautiful land. Now we know, so hopefully next time the CanPass system they told us about will ease our transition North. Once they’d done their work we enjoyed a few minutes of easy conversation and laughter as people rather than the roles we humans so often become entangled in. At least the roles and procedures help us all feel safer, right? 😉
While waiting we tried to activate Anne’s phone for use in Canada. Verizon it seems has special torments for anyone taking phones into Canada. To get it working we were to dial a number on the phone, but of course the phone didn’t work. Mine somehow did, so it’s activated. Now I have the right to pay the better part of a dollar per minute of talk time. As an added bonus, the new Android phone I bought for the trip is equipped with a data connection that racks up charges even when not in use. I think that great feature is now turned off. Too bad that neither the data connection nor the phone voice connections work reliably. 🙂
Happily, we did finally take off to see how far we could fly around the top of Lake Superior toward Thunder Bay. The scattered clouds were too low for us to fly high and thus shortcut more of the highway’s curves to save time, so we kept within 5-10 miles most of the way. A nice benefit of flying low of course is the intimate perspective on our green planet. There were many small lakes in variety of shapes and hues, like this little gem surrounded by miles of forest.
0046 Small Lake
The first airport along the Trans-Canada highway from Soo is in the small town of Wawa. Do you love that name too? At the edge of Lake Superior a couple of miles from town was a scene so placid as to be ethereal.
0061 Quiet Waters
I just love the curve of the ripples in the lagoon. Be sure to click and see the largest version of this one. I’ll probably post larger versions of some snaps from this flight on my Photo Page too.
Rounding the tip of Superior just offshore is a cluster of small islets descending gracefully into the clear water.
0075 Floating Islands
At last we turned away from the moderate headwinds and sped toward Thunder Bay, where a long row of bluffs reflects the lowering sun.
0082 Approaching T. Bay
It wasn’t getting dark as this photo seems to show. Thick clouds were blocking most of the sun, and much of the remaining light surrendered to fairly thick smoke from fires further North. T’Bay is off to the right of this photo, in the distance. Thus ends another glorious day on our North by Northwest adventure. We bid you pleasant dreams and happiness in your homes as we wander the continent.
John & Anne Wiley 
Just getting caught up on your adventures. Looks as though you are having a wonderful time. Beautiful photos…I particularly like the floating islands and quiet waters. The photos in the post above are quite spectacular as well. Enjoy the rest of your journey!
Comment by booklady — 2010/08/03 @ 03:56