The drive evening and day

 Really the trip started yesterday when I left Ottawa at 8 pm in light rain for Emily's folks' place at Round Lake.  Doing this short drive on Friday made the trip two hours less today.  On the Friday night the rain was light with a medium downpour in Kanata through to Arnprior and to Renfrew.  I took highway 60 at the turnoff from Highway 17 to Highway 60.  This is the road I am most familiar with so with the limited visibility of a dark night.  It was an OK drive.  The rain stopped further down highway 60 and there was less traffic.  I kept scanning for animals coming onto the roadway and saw none.  I arrived at Round Lake around 10:15-30 pm.  We chatted for a bit and then I went to bed. It took a while to fall asleep.

Saturday September 7.

We hit the road around 9:15 am and it was overcast with some light precipitation.  All the way the weather was dropping to a low of  5.5 celsius around North Bay.  The wind was brisk.  But we briefly had blue skies and then it would quickly cloud over.  The drive was long and boring.  I was constantly on the lookout for animals along the road but with no luck.  We had several birds such as several groups of Wild Turkeys and near the end of the day, a Turkey Vulture.  We had some crows, maybe some ravens.  Toward the end of the drive we saw several Merlins on the hydro lines.  We made two quick stops and arrived at the Station Inn around 4:30.  We checked in and brought our stuff in.  Tomorrow will be cool so will have to dress warmly as we tour around Cochrane and play tourist.  We saw many many American Starlings murmurings in the townsite.  Conchrane is a small northern town with several hills and a small lake of sorts in the middle of the town.  We look forward to tommorrow and the Polar Bear Habitat.  We meet up with the rest of the OFO birding group tomorrow at supper time.