Day 24

Today, we are off to Chatham, a small city towards Toronto, pronounced Tronto, where two of Sue’s sisters live.
Its population is about 59,000 to give you an idea of its size. I think that compares with 25,000 for Mount Gambier.
One’s husband manages the Holiday Inn, in Chatham, the others husband works as an electrician in some factory.
The drive to Chatham takes about an hour, is along some back roads that parallel the 401.
The 401 is the main highway from Windsor to Tronto and carries all the big trucks that are making for the border crossing at Friendship Bridge.
It is busy, hence our being on the old road.
It is flat, I may have mentioned that previously. Is that a hill? No just a clump of trees.
It’s all corn country; the farmers are ploughing for their winter crops. They get three crops a year here.
There are more wind farms, this time the towers are painted green at the bottom, gradually getting lighter green, then gray for the remainder of the tower, the turbine and the blades. Looks OK, though I think our white ones are better.
It’s yet another family gathering, with lots of kids given the day off school.
I won’t bore you with the details.
We head home just after dark. The drive is cold, as Jim, Sue’s brother has the sunroof open. The temperatures hovers around 3C then 2 C then 1C, then soars back to 3C. It’s chilly, Billy.
We almost don’t make it home as at a set of lights Jim decides to carry on through, as the lights go amber and a man turning right, thinks Jim is going to stop, and turns in front of us.
It wasn’t that close in the end, however gives us a mild fright.
Jim is a behemoth of a man, no neck and huge belly. He has had a couple of heart attacks, bypass surgery, a stroke and has an aortic aneurysm, a prima candidate for sleep apnoea, so I furiously chat to him all the way back.
We survive.
Our hosts, Mike and Carol, are just having their second wine, so we join them, as one does.