Posted on February 25, 2016 by triplepster

Tears, rush hour traffic, karaoke, a quaint bunkie in the woods, endless forests, and the epic waters of the great lakes… this has been our past two days.

Yesterday we officially started our journey across the second largest country in the world. Although we are not travelling the entirety of it, I can already attest to how MASSIVE it really is.

The plan was set, I had worked all of the logistics through my head (and whatever I forgot, my dad had figured out for me – he is awesome). Of course, with no surprise, the plan did not start out ‘according to plan’. It started with my goodbye. As you all already know I spent weeks saying farewell to friends and family, this was different. This made it all TRULY sink in.

My mom woke me up early to have breakfast with her before she left for work. I was tired, but it felt like any other conversation. We chatted about life and things in the news, family and politics. Then came the goodbye. I held it together enough for her to leave the house and then I broke down. It took me an hour to get back to sleep (which was only 20 minutes before my alarm). So, we slept in. Then I put my laundry in (still with plenty of time before estimated ETA), but apparently my parent’s dryer decided that it was a holiday, and no matter how long I tried to get it to work we left with a garbage bag of soaked clothes.

As a result of this our departure time was a few hours behind schedule. Thankfully, we had already told our hosts that we would eat dinner on the way. I then had to deal with the goodbye with my father. Talk about heart wrenching. As many of you know, my father and I have had a complicated relationship in the past. I am so happy though that the last 7 years or so have brought us closer than ever. That does however make it really hard to leave. It was a tearful and emotional moment that filled my heart. Then, before we got on our way we had to stop in London to return something to Best Buy, which meant of course I needed to stop by my mom’s work to get one last hug to last me the next five months! Then it was on our way.

Now, a few of you have put two and two together to realize what happened next… Toronto rush hour. So I napped for a bit while Aaron listened to podcasts, then when I woke we sang to our hearts content. Once we got out of that mess it should have been smooth sailing. There was one more issue though. I had planned our trip so that Aaron would get to see all the places I remembered cottaging, camping, boating, fishing and enjoying in my childhood and teen years. Unfortunately, thanks to our late start and traffic mess we were passing a lot of them in the dark. So I did as any logical person would do… as I would see a road sign in the headlights (Muskoka, Santa’s Village, Gravenhust, Huntsville etc) I would tell a story about it. I like to think Aaron was listening intently, using his whimsical, childlike imagination to feel and see all that he would have if it had been light (and if he was 6 years old), but I assumed he was probably tuning me out so I just texted with my mom about the memories.

By 9:30 last night we finally arrived at our own little paradise for the evening. One of my dad’s closest friends moved to Corbiel (outside North Bay) 13 years ago and they were kind enough to take Aaron and I in for the evening. I was very excited for this because their place is a slice of heaven in the woods, I didn’t get much of a chance to chat with them (or anyone) at the wedding and wanted to catch up, and it was a nice easy place to stop in order to ease into our trip. My instincts were not wrong, this was ideal. Tony and Nancy had us stay in their bunkie out back. So we had our own little room in the woods that in the morning we woke up to the most beautiful view of winter on a frozen pond in a forest. I felt like we were at a resort. We also had a great chance to catch up (and some delicious eggs this morning before we left). We were so grateful for their wonderful hospitality.

Since Tony and Nancy had heard that snow was coming to North Bay we decided to get an earlier start. We still slept in a bit, but got out in much better time than yesterday. It was a good thing because we had a solid day filled with driving.

Driving through the first portion of our Ontario end of the trip was both incredible, hilarious, and monotonous. As we had been told, towns were few and far between – and gas stations even fewer. There were not many people on the road and the distance between the “cities” at times felt like an eternity (especially when cramped crosslegged). It was interesting to notice that all the signs were in french, english, and an aboriginal language as well (super cool).

The first big city we stopped in was Sudbury. Aaron was going to drive right through but I forced him to stop (by bribing him with lunch) in order to get a greasy & freezing picture with the big nickel. Then we continued driving (minus stopping for gas and to let Wats-Bots out) forever. We drove through Sault Ste. Marie and I saw a giant statue of a cow getting a piggyback (cattle back?) ride on another cow. It was hilarious, the udders even engulfed the face… Aaron would not stop for a picture. So whichever one of you finds yourself there next, please do me the honours and get this ridiculous shot.

By that time we hit Lake Superior. Aaron and I were in awe when we saw it and the mammoth size it is. It was partially frozen in some parts, not in others, and yet regardless it was as still as glass. There were also moments that we saw almost mini icebergs, or what looked to be shattered crystals of glass in the broken ice surface. It was one of the most powerful and serene images. As we drove this windy road around the lake, in and out of forests, looking at ‘mountains’ (the Ontario equivalent) we couldn’t help but to compare it to our last big road trip. Northern Ontario is the much colder, less populated, slightly less scary version of driving the pacific coast highway in California. It is pretty astonishing.

Without boring you with the details of the next few hours of our drive I will just point out a few more microscopic moments.

Pancake Bay has a lot of signs leading up to it, and all of them have a strange mythical looking animal on them. Can someone please tell me what this horned deer/lizard silhouette is?

The forests are stunning.

There are a lot of moose crossing signs. I was very curious as to how the moose know that they only have 6kms to cross (which is what the sign says) or if they would get a ticket for J-walking or not following street signs.

There are so many enormous, ancient, glorious trees.

For all the animal signs I have only seen two birds fighting over a Becel margarine container in the middle of the highway, and a stag standing on a cliff in the distance majestically (think Bambi’s dad). Unfortunately it was too far away and we couldn’t pull over so I only got a mind picture.

I flippin’ love trees!

Aaron and I are mastering harmonies to pretty much every song/genre known to man (from Cannon in D, Dixie Chicks, musicals, The Guess Who, Tenacious D etc).

Are we out of the woods yet?

Now we have arrived to our motel in Wawa. It is quaint, warm, rustic, and has everything we need. We ate the most delicious Gluten Free pizzas from AJs Pizza, which we would recommend to anyone going through Wawa. Their sauce was unreal!

Now I am writing this up as quickly as I possibly can so that we can settle down for the night as tomorrow we have a big day of driving. It is going to be 11 hours minimum, so I am hoping we don’t sleep in.

So there is the microscopic look into our last two days. Praying for more clear skies and entertaining adventures.

https://amicroscopiclook.wordpress.com/2016/02/25/are-we-out-of-the-woods-yet/