To recap, our purpose in visiting the USA this year is to visit the four remaining mainland states we have yet to visit: West Virginia, Vermont, North Dakota and Iowa. So far we have ticked off the first two.

To get to the third state on our must visit list, North Dakota, we decided to drive through Canada, the southern parts of Quebec and Ontario and cross back in to USA on the eastern side of Lake Superior.

On leaving Burlington, Vermont we drove north along Route 2 which took us through very scenic roads, across bridges and islands adjacent to Lake Champlain. Sometimes we were in Vermont and after crossing a bridge we were in New York State.

Eventually we crossed into Canada at a small border crossing and immediately noticed that all of the signage was now in French. We were even greeted with 'Bonjour' when we stopped for morning tea.

The main reason we chose to drive through Canada was to avoid the very busy American freeways and the numerous and thunderous heavy trucks that use them. Our decision to pick this route really paid off - hardly saw a truck all day!

The first Canadian overnight stop was in Pembroke, a small town by the Ottowa River. The town had a pretty riverside area but the rest looked old and tired like it could do with an overhaul and the roads were more pot-holes than pavement.

Something that did make the town unique were the numerous murals painted on the walls of city buildings, many themes were covered from the early settlers to modern military memorials. A mural on one long building told the history of special events of the town.

Day two in Canada took us further west on Route 17. We drove by Lake George and beside the St. Joseph Channel. We discovered that there was a meteorite crater at Brent but did not drive the 30km each way to check it out. The Mississagi First Nation National Reserve was also driven by. We did however stop at a couple of Tim Horton Coffee shops for our daily cappuccinos. Tim Hortons is a Canadian coffee chain started by one of the most famous Canadian ice-hockey players of all time - Tim Horton.

After our 650km drive we arrived in Sault Ste. Marie, on the St. Mary's River and very close to the USA border. It is also very close to the edge of three of the Great Lakes - Superior, Huron and Lake Michigan.

We knew nothing about this city but soon discovered that the first female Canadian Astronaut, Dr. Roberta Bondar was a local who was educated in the local public school system. The town is very proud of her achievements (austronaut, neurologist, biologist, pilot, photographer, artist and researcher) and have named, buildings, entertainment areas and museum in her honour. There is even a statue of her that we came across.

Our quick visit to Canada ended in the morning when we crossed over the International Bridge back into the USA.

Most of the day's drive was beside Lake Superior, the largest lake by surface area in the world - no, we didn't ask Google, it was on our place-mat at our morning tea stop in Munising. From this town you can take a cruise on the lake to see the Painted rocks the area is known for.

Continuing beside the lake our next stop was Marquette. We noticed a huge structure on the edge of the lake on our way into town, so stopped for a closer look. At first glance we thought it might be Noah's Ark (just joking) but on closer inspection and after asking a local, we discovered that it was a disused iron-ore loading dock. We also found out that there was a similar one just up the road still in use so we checked it out as well.

Marquette was a very pretty town with lakeside recreation areas that were being well used.

Our overnight stop is in Ashland, Wisconsin. We didn't even realise we were in Wisconsin until we noticed the time on the GPS had lost an hour meaning we were now on Central Time. Our hotel has views of Lake Superior which we will enjoy, before driving on in the morning.

Where to next? You'll have to wait and see!