...Thunder Bay/Sleeping Giant

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.