Day 5

We wake up, shower and break camp by 10:30. I told you we aren't morning people, didn't I?
While Gord is showering, I have a visitor - he crawls all over the picnic table, climbs in the bag of food, and promptly runs off when I reach for the camera.
He (or someone who looks just like him) comes back and poses for us just as we're about to leave.


We get gas and breakfast (Twinkies...They're almost food), drive for a bit, and stop at Old Woman bay, where Gord decides he's clever and takes a picture of Old Woman Bay and his old woman. Ha. Ha.

It's quite cold.

There's a picnic area, but we've been sitting down for days, so we walk around taking pictures while we eat our gas station Twinkies. And hear a bird whistling the unmistakable first three notes of "Iron Man". You can't hear those first three notes (I AM I..) without mentally hearing the next two (I AM I..RON MAN!) Gord tries to teach it the missing notes, but it doesn't catch on. We both have Iron Man stuck in our heads for the rest of the day, only Gord now sings it "I am IRON BIRD".

Guess what happens next? That's right, Bob Ross!

A HAPPY LITTLE SQUIRREL!
(ground squirrel, whatever)

Happy little squirrel smells Twinkies.

Happy little squirrel bites the hand that does not feed it Twinkies.

Luckily, Gord's finger is calloused from the bass, or the happy little bugger would have punctured the skin.

Today's counts:
Roadkill: 5
High 5's: 1 ( Our enthusiasm is waning)
Caffeinated beverages: 4

We end up at the Norvic Motel, about a half hour east of Sudbury. They allow pets, so the cats can get out of the car and hide under a bed! They also have internet, which is an unexpected pleasure. And brings unexpected bad news. Back in May Gord had got tickets for the E.S.T (Esbjorn Svensson Trio) show at Place des Arts for June 30th, and we'd planned our trip around that. It's a band Gord has wanted to see for years, and they never come to Calgary (no one does), so this was something he was really looking forward to. Tragically, Esbjorn Svensson died in a scuba diving accident on June 14th. Gord is depressed, because a lot of the musicians he really wants to see live are dying, but it's expected because they're quite old. This is one musician who should have been making great music for decades yet. We console ourselves with pepperoni pizza and Much Music's Video on Trial.

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)

Day 4

We left the Travelodge in Thunder Bay @ 11, went to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast and had the slowest sandwich maker in the world get us the first vegetables we'd eaten in days. Granted, they came with a lot of bread and meat, but some is better than none. On our way out of town, there's a huge line up by the side of the road - some radio station is giving away free gas, and they've got the barely dressed girls out in force to promote it. But the line looks like it'd take about an hour to get through, so we pass.
Then the Mist hits, and we can't see a thing. Is this normal around the great lakes, or have we stumbled into Stephen King territory?By day 4, I am sick of driving, and we're making good time, so we stop often today. There's also more to stop for - lakes everywhere. There are so many lakes, they're running out of names for them. We pass by, in quick succession, Dad Lake, Baby Lake and Mom Lake. A few miles later - Orphan Lake. Perhaps he can be adopted by the parent lakes up the road.

Here's Lake Superior, or rather, a tiny tiny portion of it.

This is 4 photos poorly stitched together.

We passed Winnie The Pooh, not sure why, I thought he came from Winnipeg, but anyway...


We see one deer today, just as we're coming out of a construction zone. He waits for us to stop and bounds across the highway. That's all - there's NO roadkill today!
high 5's: 1
Caffeinated beverages: 5

We stop in Marathon to gas up, and because we want to find a campground tonight, we hit a grocery store.
"I refuse to eat any more bread. NO BREAD, do you hear me?!?!"
"Smokies?"
"I'm not paying thirteen bucks for a can opener! Find pop-tops."
"Where the hell are the forks? WHY don't they sell forks here?...OK, we're buying 200 plastic forks."
"Chili and beans?" "We'll keep each other warm tonight."
That's pretty much how it went.

We wanted to make it to Wawa by nightfall, and we luck out and see a sign for a campground, and end up in the lovliest spot ever.
(Can't for the life of me remember the name of the place....Wawa RV Campground? It's a yellow and red sign, anyway. That's helpful.)

This one is Gord, getting fancy with the photography.

All I know about Wawa is that it's home to one ex-Flame, Chris Simon. You can see why he's so angry when he has to leave it. It is so quiet here, you can hear the river and it is barely moving. Even the birds call a little quieter.

And we're camping. We have a tent. I thought I packed some matches in our 'camping box' that's in the back of the CRV, but I didn't. The good matches are somewhere in the middle of the UHaul, and I'm not opening that can of worms. Luckily, I found an old survival candle from Cosmos, and it has a pack of very old crumbly matches. We have an air mattress and sleeping bags. We have a pack of damp firewood. We have wiener sticks.
So, clearly, we are not prepared to camp. We should have lighter fluid, a bbq, a lantern, a hatchet. We have none of these things. To top it off, we made some silly assumptions, like that there would be a grate over the fire pit on which to put our cans of chili and beans to warm them up. There isn't, but that's not going to be an issue if we can't get the fire started.

And here begins the politest fight Gord and I have ever had. I told him not to start the fire without me, and he agreed. I then started the fire without him. (which was wrong, and I'm sorry). The fire was going. Gord poked and poked until it went out. Gord started another fire. I poked and poked until it went out. We are very polite about poking each others fires out, "Oh, I just want to put this piece...ooh, what a shame. Perhaps if I...uh oh, now it's out. I'm so very sorry, dear." "that's quite alright, I'll just let you start it again?"
We've never shied.....ok, I'VE never shied away from a fight before, so why the reticience? Maybe because we are more than 2000 kilometers from anyone we know. Maybe because literally fighting with fire could cause scarring. Either way, we're both more pissed off and more polite than we've ever been with each other. It's a strange mix.

What finally happens is that, in after school special fashion, the fire that lasts is the one we build together. Aaww. (vomit)

We get a fire going, and I immediately rip into the pack of smokies and start cooking. You can tell they're good by the hiss of grease hitting the logs. There's a lot of hissing going on. We pop the tops off our can of chili and beans, and Gord shoves them in the fire. We think for a second, pull them out of the fire, remove the paper from the cans and put them back in the fire. We take a drink from our coke cans and top it off with rum (which of course I remembered to pack with the camping stuff. I told my uncles I'd remember I was an Albertan, and no real Albertan camps sober.Who needs matches? WHERE'S THE RUM?!)

We eat our first smokies, grease dripping off our chins and fingers. We eat our second smokies, dripping on our pants and shirts. Gord pulls the beans from the fire, and we proceed to drip beans on the picnic table and our pants. The same with the chili. We're going to look like dirty, dirty hobos in the morning, but that was good eats.

We put the fire out and go to bed, and some time during the night realize - the air mattress has a slow leak. Ah well. Those were good smokies.

Gas to get 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 @ 137.0
Ignace $39.80 @ 143.9
Thunder Bay $52.00 @ 143.9
Marathon $44.00 @ 145.0