It was safe to say that the most perilous part of our journey was behind us (being in Regina) and we realized that we were getting REALLY close to our new home. So close, that if we reallllllly wanted to, we could make it overnight.
But then how would we have any blog posts?! Because that's the highlight of YOUR summer!
We were entering Great Lake territory. The drive out of Thunder Bay was nowhere near as eventful as the previous night. We were pretty low on food so we stopped off at a Husky restaurant about half an hour down the highway. It was surprisingly good for a truck stop diner! I remember it being hot as balls. I took over driving as Hilary's heart rate had still not come back to normal from the previous night.
The drive, was a drive? We probably listened to a whole lot of podcasts and got some more food. The details aren't important. What IS important, is how freaking gorgeous Lake Superior is.
Upon the advice of our friendly park employee from Sleeping Giant, we were in search of Agawa Bay campground. GO HERE. This was the drive in...
It reminded me of my first time driving into Vancouver, but somehow more water.
The drive seemed long and drawn out (like this blog entry) but after we has checked into the campground, it really didn't matter. This was our campsite...
Not only was it HUGE, but look at that view! (It should be mentioned, that the beach was actually across the road from our site. But the road is about as wide as a vehicle, so suck it.)
It really sounded like the ocean, there were waves crashing into the shore all evening. It reminded me of Tofino quite a bit. Here's the view at twilight...
Dinner was pretty good too. We made bush pizzas and fire roasted corn.
We unfortunately, could only stay here for one night. It was really a shame. If you're ever going through Ontario, make sure you go here. I can't stress it enough!
So yeah, that's the post. Sorry I don't have any good Archer quotes, or bad things to say.
We were past the halfway mark. At this point, there was no turning back even if we wanted to. Not to mention, the highway is only two lanes and they're not divided so everyone make sure you do pee pee's before we leave!
(Camp) Crystal Lake was pretty amazing. Hilary was mistaken, the cat was in the tent in Crystal Lake, not in Stabsville McDeathtown.
Here is a picture of how terrified he was to be inside of a tent.
So yeah, Thunder Bay is pretty harsh. They have a casino in their downtown (WTF?). The whole place, seemed out of a poorly done Canadian movie. Like, there was SOME effort put into it, but it just looked half assed and kinda ghetto. Whatever. It's called Butt-der Bay for a reason right? (that on may be a stretch)
So we supplied up and headed for Sleeping Giant provincial (I think it was provincial) park. It gets it's name, from this picture.
Pretty cool right? IT IS. It's about a 45 minute drive from T-Bay. Hour if you're hauling your entire life 20 feet behind you. We rolled in at a decent time and set up shop. Nothing too eventful the first night. However, we woke up the next morning to some crazy ass rain. We had (somehow) ran out of Bailey's for our coffee. Now, Bailey's is so perfect for camping for many reasons.
A) Who doesn't like boozy coffee?!
B) It's wayyyyy easier than trying to transport cream and sugar. You say, you LIKE sugar while camping? Is that what you want?
Point, made.
So I roll into town to pick us up some more Bailey's (it was actually a knock off that we called Carlton's, except that's not the real name, I don't know what the real name is), but in this case, town refers to, little store halfway to T-Bay that is an LCBO agent. "You mean I only have to drive 20 minutes to buy more liquor?!" Ontario's got it figured out.
ANYWAY IT WAS PISSING RAIN. Colossally. I was supposed to pick up firewood as well, but I figured, since it was pouring so hard, that the fastest setting on the wipers wasn't doing much, that I would save the $12 and hassle. I get back to the campsite and what do I find? FIRE. Hilary has SOMEHOW, managed to keep the fire going through this insane downpour. Hats off. Except not really, because then my head would get wet.
Where there's smoke, there's somehow fire.
Here's how hard it was raining.
We had a little friend! We named him Maurice. He was honestly kind of a dick.
Lunch was good that day too. Basically, we just drank beer and wrote postcards.
Eventually (5 hours later), we got sick of the damn rain. We're trying to escape it here, not be one with it. So we decided it was a good idea to head to town for dinner. Neither of us felt like getting soaked and eating out sounded like a really good idea. Little did we know....
The unfortunate part of this plan, is that we had to go to Thunder BAY to make it happen. We drive out of the campsite and it's twilight. Sketchy time to be driving, with all the wildlife. Almost immediately, we see a fox and then a deer. Hilary already put up those pictures. So I'm all like, "Hilary, drive slooooooow as a muthafucka." We make it to the highway and it gets so much worse. Instead of pavement, we drive on a CLOUD. And not like this...
It's more like this...
I know it's not a cloud, but that's what it was like. Semi's just FLYING by us, zero visibility (brite's made it worse) and of course the ever present night danger. Oh yeah, we also had only 1/8th of a tank of gas too. Suddenly getting drunk at our campsite seemed like a great idea. We made it to T-Bay, after about an hour of terror. It was 9pm and I do believe it was a Sunday. Guess how many restaurants are open in Thunder Bay on a Sunday? Let alone, 9pm?
Yeah, we went to a Safeway and bought a chicken. It was AWESOME. Then I went back in and bought us a cheesecake sampler. It was no 50% off cheesecake, SARAH, but it sure hit all the walls.
Now we had to drive BACK. Keeping in mind, that it was now darker then when we had left. It seemed that things had cleared up, so that was looking good.
Pull onto the highway and now it looks like this...
Cloud City, complete with Star Destroyer.
After ANOTHER perilous journey, we finally reach the access road to the campsite. That one, is the dangerous one. We don't have any semi's in front of us, hopefully battering the moose out of the way. Now it's just mano a Jeepo. We saw 6 deer I do believe? Three crossing in front of us, and some more scattered alongside the road. (I realize, that that picture in no way represents how terrifying the drive was. I simply meant, the road was Cloud City)
I know what you're thinking and yes. I used my pants as a restroom. Someone's gotta do it.
Obviously, we made it back safe. So I hope you weren't like, looking for a story. Noooooo no no no. It's all fine. We made it. Went to bed. The lightning that night, was so bright it was lighting up the inside of our tent. Shit's cray.
We packed up the next morning, said goodbye to Maurice and upon the advice of a helpful park employee (oh yeah, we did that too), headed off to Lake Superior provincial. Agawa Bay campground. Tabernacccccc the pictures....
Reliving that, has browned my trou, so with that, I will end this update.
As if we needed motivation to book it, we had a storm front chasing us out of Manitoba. We managed to keep just ahead of it, but the CBC was announcing a storm warning in effect for pretty much everywhere. So as we approached Kenora we had to come up with a game plan.
Welcome to Kenora
Being in Kenora was akin to this moment in cinematic history: "Hi... I'm in Delaware"
We needed to find a place to camp before the weather hit, but really didn't want to set up camp in the rain. Staying at a motel was seriously going to eat into our traveling budget, and the weather looked like it might hold out, so we grabbed a bite to eat in town and kept on truckin'. We were hoping to find another campsite just off the highway (and prayed to God it was going to be better than our last site).
They don't call this, "Land of a Billion Lakes" for nothing. Also please note the X-(sha)Wing.
Not too far out of Kenora, there was a highway sign advertising a campsite that had Wifi and we were sold, seeing as our last site didn't even have toilet paper. Also there was (A) more than one sign indicating it's location and (B) it looked like someone had actually paid money for them to be made and maintained. So already we were doing better than last night. As far as we could tell we ended up some place close to here (see below) since the Garmin had basically given up trying to locate us.
Welcome to Crystal Lake:
It was so good it earned larger font
This place had an actual official-looking office
After signing in and setting up camp, we walked down the to beach. No one else was around, so figured it would be okay if we cooled off some beers in the lake. We sat out out here, drinking and watching a loon fish for it's dinner. It was nice to actually feel like we were on vacation for a while, just enjoying the moment and each others company. Finally we were being rewarded for living through the previous night. Also that "storm" seemed to blow over or dissipate or whatever since it was a pretty clear evening.
I really wanted to say here another night. But Cam talked sense into me, since any kind of town was a good ways out and we were running dangerously low on supplies.
(Okay this is a serious side story, but I'm at the airport right now trying to fly back to Montreal from Halifax where I've been visiting with my sister before she moves to Europe for school. Hence the back to back updates. Anyhow, there's a man sitting behind talking on the phone that sounds EXACTLY like Bill Murray. I don't even want to turn around in fear that it isn't actually him. A girl can dream.)
Back to the story...
Oh, they even had a beach volleyball area
It was something like $20 to stay here for the night. Needless to say, if you're in the area, sort your life out and stay here. Do it.
Before we go any further we need to have a little chat about "Night Danger". Which makes me think of "Night Moves" which obviously makes me think of "Night Cheese". If you aren't familiar with 30 Rock, there's no time like the present.
Anyhow night danger is a real thing in Ontario (apparently) and they like to tell you about it. A LOT. I'm going to spoiler Sunday (yes I know it's only Friday) again and tell you right now we never saw any damn meece, that's the plural of moose right? Not even one. Not even a little bit.
We did however see a few black bear bums, a couple of deer, at least one buck and a foxish thing. Here are the ones we got photos of:
Okay you're definitely going to have to blow this one up, but I swear there is a animal in this photo.
And this is obviously a deer. We had to drive really slow to get this photo.
I really want to do the Thunder Bay entry some justice since I have a friend who is really looking forward to it so I'm going to leave you here for now. If all goes to plan, I'm going to be back in Montreal tonight so it might be a few days until I update again. Don't fret, this has been a lot of fun, so I promise it'll be under a week for the next update.
After we decided that spending the night anywhere near Regina was a waste of time, we carried on like wayward sons to Manitoba. Tamara, I really wanted to sing out loud just then and it really made me miss you. So after driving for a lengthly amount of time we were all beginning to feel pooped and started looking for a place to spend the night.
We seriously contemplated hunting down the Towlers to see if they'd let us set up camp in their yard. However we decided this might be a bit strange seeing as (A) we have no idea where they live (but honestly how big can the town be?) and (B) coming up saying "Hi there, we know your son, mind if we stay the night?!" is more than just a little awkward.
I'm just shocked that I now know where Souris is in the world. There are some places you just think you'll never find yourself. This was one of them.
Not far up the road from here is where we found that super stabby-vibed camp site that Cam mentioned. Here's a picture of the road where we needed to exit to get to this place, this basically sets the tone for the rest of the evening. See those trees to the right in the distance? That's where we camped.
Our time here wasn't all bad. After getting eaten alive by no less than 800 mosquitos, we did a little grocery/supply shop in "town" and this is where we bought a sweet axe because our hatchet was super useless. We drove back to the site just as dusk was settling in, and made dinner. This is when Cam had "nature" call, and I was justified in bringing 6 rolls of toilet paper across the country with us. Not that he needed all 6, but stranger things have happened. After losing a few pounds, Cam and I went for a stroll around the camp ground where we saw all those abandoned campers and a weird little chapel looking building. Like who wants to visit a chapel/get married 25ft from the Trans-Canada highway? One of the weird cats, the one that always had it's mouth open, followed us on our walk. I don't think I can stress enough how weird this place was. I am disappointed in myself for not taking more (or really any) photos of this place.
After we settled down to sleep, the mangy cats that were wandering around the campsite began yowling so we decided this was as good a time as any to test out sleeping with the kitten man in the tent. He was pretty good about it and after a few minutes of exploring all 6ft squared of the tent and attempting to escape out of every "window" we all hunkered down and fell asleep.
This is the only photo I have of this camp site. It paints a pretty decent picture. "Can we please get the hell out of here now?" Yes kitten man. Yes we can.
So like I said earlier, we booked it around Winnipeg and the rest of Manitoba for that matter. We had planned to stay at Whiteshell Provincial Park for the next night, but we making time so we set Thunder Bay as our next destination.
666 km from destination - arrival time; midnight... how metal
For the record we weren't even close to getting that far on this drive. But you know what that means...
the next blog will feature (some of) THE BEST PART OF OUR WHOLE TRIP (except for Thunder Bay... really that place wasn't such a good time).
TLDR - this is how we feel about Butt-itoba:
But stay tuned, Ontario was a pretty alright time.
We're in Montreal!... and have been for like 3 weeks.
Sorry for the super delayed updates to the blog. Internet access for the later part of our trip was super hard to come by as regional parks haven't walked into the 20th century yet. They're really making it hard on those who aren't going to the woods to escape urban life. Also, being unemployed is exhausting and takes up way too much time for such activities as updating blogs. My friend Tamara (who has the most amazing blog, it makes me laugh out loud... a LOT. Check her out. Seriously, do it) talks about how hard it is to keep up with her blog all the time and I never really appreciated what she was talking about until recently.
So where did we leave off... I guess on how much Thunder Bay sucks? Wait hold up. I haven't told you anything since EDMONTON! How is that even possible. Okay so back to Saskskaksatoon. It was all that Cam said and more. We went camping over the weekend and it was a lot of fun. Here's the Cole's Notes:
The drive out of town we drove past about 50 kms of trains
And a town called Young. Like a boy named Sue, it wasn't quite what I expected.
We ate about a million bush pies.
Kept on top of our health with government approved medical examinations.
Swam in water saltier than the Dead Sea - no joke
Made sure to share our food and drinks
Noted the highest point in Saskatchewan
(Actually this is the highest point. They turned a land fill into a ski "hill" - equal parts sad and gross)
Before we knew it, it was time to round up the kitten man from the top of the cupboards and GTFO.
Pick your evil.
We decided that we hate ourselves, so we drove through Regina on our way to Manitoba. Despite being called, "the city that rhymes with fun" by every 6 year old ever... there is no fun to be had there. At all.
In fact we drove through it about as fast as we could. Oh, also we downloaded some sweet new icons to the Garmin while we were in Saskatoon with internet access. Tome, I feel you'd really appreciate this. We also have an X-Wing and seriously contemplated buying the Vader voice for $10. It might still happen.
So we booked it through Regina and took the Winnipeg by-pass. Thank lord because we really wanted to have nothing to do with that place. They must pay people to live there.
I'm getting tired, so that's it for now. I promise to update again within a more reasonable amount of time. Sifting through photos takes a surprisingly long time.
