24 June 1992: Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada to Windsor, Ontario, Canada

After breakfast, we visited the courthouse and library in Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada so I could research the family of my maternal great-grandfather Robert Neil Sanders, who was born in the area in 1874.

I found records that added a few pieces to the puzzle. I learned that his father, my 2nd-great-grandfather Thomas Sanders Jr. was born in England around 1829. He later settled in Mono Township, Ontario, where he met and married my 2nd-great-grandmother Ann Patterson, the daughter of an immigrant father from County Tyrone, Ireland and an immigrant mother from Aboyne, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

After I completed my research, we left town in a westerly direction on King's Highway 21, taking us through more of rural Ontario. We saw fields. We saw cows. We saw cows in fields. I remember stopping to take a photo. One cow stopped eating grass and stared at me. The rest of the herd was oblivious, but that one was alert.

Alert cow

The route eventually took us south along the eastern shore of Lake Huron, one of North America's five Great Lakes. After driving about 81 miles (131 km), we stopped at the historic Point Clark lighthouse, constructed between 1857 and 1859. I recall seeing some interesting artifacts in the former lighthouse keeper's quarters, which now housed a small museum.

Point Clark Lighthouse

Sign at Point Clark Lighthouse

Former lighthouse keeper's quarters turned museum

Garment bag from the 1920s or 1930s, in the museum

My grandmother and mother on the shore of Lake Huron

We then continued 158 miles (254 km) on King's Highway 21, several county roads, King's Highway 402, King's Highway 401, and King's Highway 3 to Windsor, Ontario, on the Canadian side of the Detroit River.

We stopped at what's now the Comfort Inn & Suites Ambassador Bridge but was then called the Relax Inn.

There was a steakhouse next to the hotel, so we ate dinner there. The walls inside the restaurant were decorated with license plates from every province of Canada and a good many of the United States, a fact which would become relevant the next day, but I'll save that for the next entry.

Total Travel Distance: 285 miles (459 km)