It's Victoria Day. Which wouldn't matter one bit to me and I would likely not even have noticed if businesses didn't open their doors later as a result. My plans to stop in at the Tru-Value or even the gas station to restock on much needed riding food (granola bars, basically) fell through as a result. Thankfully, the general store was still open and I was able to get candy bars, oat bars, and a butter tart for the day. I should have got more. After leaving Wawa, as I'd been warned, I entered a deadzone, no businesses to be found.
Also as I had been warned, I had a lot of climbing to do. It was another climb and fall all day kind of day. And to make it worse, I had the wind in my face (come on Boreas, now that I could use you, you and Australis have traded off?). I've also had a nagging sore throat the last couple days (to go with my sore butt), and it's been giving me a little concern. But I've been downing some vitamin c pouches I carry with me and hoping it will pass.
For most of the day, while quite pretty, the scenery was also much of the same, forest, lakes, and more forest. I quickly entered Lake Superior Provincial Park and that was where the bulk of my day was spent. The park did have some gems for me though, some rapids, coves, and bays. I was largely away from the Lake itself, but then I would come upon those sandy shores and stand right next to it. There's been something I've had in my head to do for awhile as I've gone around the Lake, and I realized today my time with it is almost through. So at one of those, a popular cove full of scantily clad men and women playing in the sand and surf, I wandered off a bit to a rockier region, and I grabbed a couple rocks, one small and sharp(ish) edged, the other flat(ish).
And just as I etched my guilt into a rock and tossed it into the Pacific at Otter Point, I etched my jealousy (poorly, mind you) into a rock and threw it into Lake Superior. It's not an ocean, but it is the largest fresh water lake in the world (if I'm not mistaken?), so I think it can swallow up my negative feeling just fine. Just as with my guilt, I have no need of jealousy any more. It's weighed on me, thoughts of others being better than me, having taken better paths in their lives. But now I'm letting it go. Because I'm happy, for just the (crazy, weird, often bungling) person that I am. I've no need of jealousy, because there is no one else I would want to be. Whatever anyone else may think of it, the symbolic gesture was important to me. ...My emotional growth made manifest in the puerile act of chucking a rock.
I saw a moose off in the woods today. ...And I saw a bear standing right on the opposite shoulder of the highway, as if it couldn't give a damn about all the traffic. That pretty much killed the notion I'd had that they would avoid the highway, considering the only bear I've seen now in Ontario was right on it. At one point needing to use the washroom I got off at turn indicating one, only to end up on a very rocky road a good ways into the woods to actually reach said washroom. There were all kinds of noises in the woods, and I spooked myself a little, being for that moment so totally isolated. Of course, it was fine. ...And also of course, not so far ahead was another washroom (after miles without one) that was right off the highway.
At a look out toward the end of the day I asked some guys, who turned out to be from the Sault, how many hills I had left on my way. They told me many. And they weren't wrong. It was a hard push toward the end...followed by an incredible downhill where I was pulling almost 40, right into the Montreal River Harbor and the Twilight Resort. I paid my $33ish Canadian without complaint. I asked about trees to set up at and he wasn't sure, asked if I didn't want to check before I paid. But I told him there was no way I was making it on to another campsite tonight, so I'd sleep on a picnic table if I had to. As it turned out (with a little direction from another camp host actually) I found some workable trees and got my hammock, tarp, and bugnet all set up. One of the damn drawstrings to cinch the bugnet closed around the hammock edges came out all the way somehow. It was a tedious process, but I worked it back through millimeter by millimeter. ...Hear that, dad? You taught me something after all.
I ate some greasy fries and grilled cheese at their little cookery that really hit the spot, shoved the rest of my crackers into my face too, got a shower, and am now in my hammock, watching the sun go down. I'll sleep soon. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, and there are more hills, and there's a lack of businesses (with me running down on food, especially that's easy to eat), and I think I read this morning that the wind will be against me too. I should have used the payphone to get word out I'm still kicking. I still could. But I'm not getting out of this blasted hammock until sunup. I'll be back to civilization tomorrow evening and folks will hear from me then. Ontario has been awesome, but I'm ready to return to the states.
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