Days 27 and 28 - Ontario and our Return to the USA

July 28 – Visiting the Hurta Family then to Toledo, Ohio
Today we drove for a short 1.5 hours to the Hurta household in Michigan just south of Detroit. We crossed the US border at mile 3308 and we entered Ohio later in the evening around mile 3382. The Hurta’s are friends of Sheri’s. Sheri’s father and Don Hurta were best friends in the Marines so the ties are strong and go way back. We spent about 7 hours visiting Mrs. Hurta, Jessica, and Christie. Sheri hadn’t seen them in 18 years. We had a splendid visit: we didn’t break anything, we got our laundry done for free, and they feed all of our family. What else could we ask for…maybe a heated pool (oops they had that too!). The kids had a ton of fun, and they asked when they could play with Christie and Jessica again. In fact, Seth said they were "basically like cool teenagers" (even though they are in their 20s and 30s). Sincerely, we had a wonderful visit and God once again blessed us with great weather. We certainly hope that the boys get to play with the Hurta girls before another decade goes by. After our pleasant visit at the Hurta’s we drove the short drive to the KOA at Toledo where we will see Sheri’s cousin tomorrow and hopefully my brother too. He is moving from West Virginia to Portland, Oregon and is stopping in Toledo.
July 27, 2007 – Niagra to Wheatley, Ontario
We woke up this morning to rain so we made the best of it and got on the road quickly. So early that we finished our 4 hour drive at 1pm, which was perfect considering that the rain was gone and the kids were ready to play. Just an aside here; we have had only one day where rain actually kept us in the RV. God has truly blessed us with excellent weather. Most of the rain days have occurred while we were driving. By the way, today marks the first day where Sheri did the driving. Oddly enough the 4 hours went by faster for me as a passenger rather than a driver and I didn’t sleep at all. The campground here is on Lake Erie so the kids and I went for a swim during the afternoon. Lake Erie was fairly cold, but I can’t let a little cold water dampen the adventure. It was odd, Lake Erie was so murky that when Seth went under right next to me, I couldn’t see him. In contrast, Lake Ontario was crystal clear. This may have been partly due to the weather conditions because we also saw lake Ontario when it wasn’t as clear in the evening, but not nearly as murky as Lake Erie. This evening, Levi made his first official fire, I didn’t help one bit. He had the teepee of sticks set up just perfectly. Bailey, our princess in training, had kind words for the fire, "I’m going to kill the fire, Daddy". She said this as she threw a stick into the fire. Yes, it is hard to train a princess when you have three pyromaniac brothers. Not that the fire makes any difference. Bailey has no trouble punching her brothers in the most lady-like fashion. I leave out so many of the moments I will cherish forever. There was the moment when Bailey was "pushing" Seth and Brandon into the pool and laughing like crazy. Another moment was when Seth carried Bailey on his back to help her. How could I forget that Brandon has learned to swim on this trip. Seeing his excited little face when he made that accomplishment is worth remembering. Almost forgot the one where I left the pliers on the rear bumper only to find them still sitting on the bumper when I stopped about 10 miles down the road. And of course there was the time when the sewer hose came out of the drain pipe……(I’ll spare the details)….Yes there are moments we will all laugh about someday in the future.