Day 6

We had originally planned to drive fast enough to give ourselves a day off and still make it to Montreal for June 30th, but since we don't have a show to go to, we now have 2 full days free. We can't get our apartment in Montreal until the first, so we check online for campgrounds near Ottawa, and find the Ottawa Municipal Campground. Gord calls and charms the pants off the girl on the phone, and gets us a site for 3 nights. We leave the motel in a light drizzle that becomes a downpour. Just as we're heading into North Bay, we spot - HALLELUJAH, A Canadian Tire. Not that there isn't one every 50 feet along the Transcanada, but we've just realized that we need to recover and retie the mattress. We have a mild tiff in the parking lot, and I make Gord stay in the car while I head into Canadian Tire to get new tarps, matches, duct tape and more bungee cords. How did people manage before bungee cords? I also picked up a new non leaky mattress, because I'm too delicate to sleep on the actual ground.

We fix the mattress, tie it down tight and head to the Sobeys across the parking lot. This time, I stay in the car while Gord gets groceries for the next few days. It's day 6 of constant togetherness, and it's about time for a break, even if it is only 15 minutes each. He comes back with more smokies (this is why I love him), more cans of chili, and bananas...Actual fruit. Not just something that claims to be 'fruit flavoured'.

We don't take a lot of photos today until Gord sees this building:


Which is where the Ottawa Senators play.

We get to the campground, find our site, and set up the tent. Gord goes for firewood while I blow up the air mattress. Here's where our natural camping ineptitude strikes again. The wood is all stored in these chicken wire pens, in plasstic bags. It's been raining all day. The wood is damp.
Also, while I picked up enough duct tape and bungee cords to be the next Red Green, I forgot all about those handy little things called hatchets. This wasn't such a big deal in Wawa, where each bag of firewood had tiny little kindling pieces, but here at the Ottawa Municipal Campground, you get giant logs. So we sat at our damp picnic table and peeled little strips of wood off the rough hewn logs. Soon we had a little pile of damp strips of wood and very sore fingers. Surely we could make fire with this! Having learned my lesson in Wawa, and also having decided that there's no way anything was going to burn, I graciously let Gord build the fire.

So here's how it went down:
G:"Yeah, these sticks aren't going to light."
L: "Hmpf"

Silence

G: "I would really appreciate some help."
Ok, now we're talking (or, we're talking now that he realizes HE NEEDS MY HELP. I win)
"Throw some more matches in."
"Are you sure?"
"We've got 500 of them. Throw a handful in. That'll work."
"Okay."
We have a brief display of match heads flaring and going out in the damp damp firepit.
"Now what?"
"We have toilet paper in the car..."
"How much?"
"4 or 5 rolls..."
"OK!"

I get a roll of toilet paper, and bring it back. We proceed to take a couple squares, crumple them and tuck them under the wet sticks, light them...add more toilet paper, watch it burn, add more...thinking that if nothing else, this should dry out the sticks and then they too will burn.

And we're right, but it takes 2 rolls of toilet paper to do this. Don't anyone tell my dad that I wasted 2 rolls of toilet paper like that. Well, not wasted. While Gord was crumpling and burning, I cooked 2 smokies over our toilet paper fire.
We do finally have a fire going - ok, one of the drier logs is on fire, and the rest are just there for show. Gord shoves a can of chili in as close to the burning log as he can without burning his hands. I did come prepared - I came with a guy who will stick his hands in fire so I can drop hot chili on my pants. That's Love, that is. We eat the chili and I'm about to say "Lets put out the fire and go to bed" when the fire goes out. We go to bed.



Gas to get us this far:
Calgary $33.00 @ 131.9
Medicine Hat $39.00 @ 130.9
Swift Current $40.00 (I'm guessing, we lost the receipt)
Regina $37.00 @ 139.9
Moosomin $34.00 @ 139.9
Winnipeg $40.00 (again, no receipt)
Kenora $42.50 @ 137.9
Ignace $39.00 @ 143.9
Thunder Bay $52.00 @ 143.9
Marathon $44.00 @ 145.0
Wawa $47.49 @ 141.9
Sault Ste Marie $37.00 @ 136.9
Wahnapitae $50.68 (doesn't say, can't remember how much/litre)
Stonecliffe $48.00 @ 136.9

Day 1

Starting from Calgary

Gord looking thrilled about this.

We were tired, and in less than stellar moods, so we didn't even bother to get a picture of the whole rig, Honda + UHaul. But it's there. We would never have got this far without a fight if it weren't for Kevin, who helped us move. Kev's the man, we would never have made it out of Calgary that day if it weren't for him.

Starting Mileage: 277267KM
Gas prices in Calgary: 133.9

We're not sure how far we're going to get today, we don't leave Calgary until 3:30pm and we're already tired...We were up at 7:30 and WE ARE NOT MORNING PEOPLE. We are cranky, and need a nap, but we've got to keep moving on, like the Littlest Hobo.

We're keeping track of:
Roadkill: 7
Caffeinated Beverages: 6
High 5's: 2.5
Sign of the Day: "Free Spirit Taxidermy"
(spotted somewhere between Brooks and Medicine Hat, I think. We did not get a picture of this, but it's there)


We stop in Medicine Hat for Gas (130.9, yeah baby), shout out to Earl, who told us we could be in Montreal in a few days....Sorry we let you down Earl. We're lazy.

We head out of Alberta and take this picture, thinking it'll be the last one we see for a while...

But it wasn't. Saskatchewan is not entirely flat. There are some very pretty green rolling hillsides in the province.

"So far, it's not as flat as I thought it would be.
I don't know what the fuck everyone was talking about."
-Gord

We get into Swift Current by 10:30 that night and get lost in the downtown (?) area...it looks like Ogden. We try the Holiday Inn, but they're full, so we end up on the other side of HWY 1 at a motel that we can't remember the name of. The motel doesn't allow cats, so the beasts have to spend the night in the Honda, but they do have...

Snazzy Religious Indoctrination! Hell yeah ;)

And about 10 minutes after getting our bags into the room, we have fight #1, and it's a doozy. We're up til 2AM. I'll spare us the embarrassment of details, especially since it was clear come morning that it was just the stress/tiredness/homesickness cocktail we'd been drinking all day that caught up with us.

Gas to get this far:
Calgary $33.00 @ 131.9
Medicine Hat $39.00 @ 130.9