June 9^th, 2025: Day Five

Distance Traveled: 5.9KM
Days in Hotel/Motel VS Campgrounds: 2/2

It’s 9am even though my laptop says 7am. I just went to Starbucks and was disappointed to only find a Canada mug and not a Thunder Bay mug. I have two choices before me right now. I can go and do a bunch of things like check out downtown and maybe go to the historic site, or I can take the day and recharge my batteries and plan for the trip ahead better.

I have been rushing this trip and even though I said I was going to blow through the prairies I feel like my mind is racing too. If I go and do a bunch of stuff today, I am not going to have any time to figure out what comes next.

I have two travel options. One is that I go along the border while heading east, and the second is that I barrel straight through the middle. The benefit of going straight through is I’ll save some money, as things are bound to be cheaper….in theory. The downside is it’s going to be boring…but boring is cheap. The benefit of going the same way there and back is I can get a taste for things and hit anything that I missed.

I guess if I played this dispassionately, I would take the northern route. The boring one, allowing me more flexibility after. I could buy some extra rations here in Thunder Bay and really make a go of it, keeping my budget as low as possible.

Distance and Time on the Southern Route: 3386 KM (1 Day 10 Hours)
Distance and Time on the Northern Route: 3015 KM (1 Day 7 Hours)

Basically, no difference.

After writing everything out, the smart move would be to stay in. Stay in and plan and not spend another dollar. I have two slices of pizza left over…I literally remembered about the continental breakfast with three minutes to spare and snagged a couple apples, a muffin and bagel with a bowl of milk for a smoothy. I know it’s not the healthiest but it’s free.

I think washing the clothes in the sink was a total failure. They won’t be dry by tomorrow at this rate.

I remembered the hotel I stayed in, in February 1995, and went down to capture it and The Sleeping Giant. The hotel looked like shit and so did the whole block. I texted Sarah and told her it’s hard not to look at this place and think “man, what a shithole”. Even the guidebook, though it encourages you to sightsee here, says that it’s known as the best place in Ontario “to drive though.”

I came back to the motel first and wrote the above but after a quick internet search found a few places to shoot The Sleeping Giant from, after my failed attempt of just wandering around.

There was a lot of smoke and/or fog. I’ll try again in the morning from the same spot or the Terry Fox Memorial.

Someone took my parking spot, I’ll have my eyes glued to the peephole in an attempt to get it back by morning. Doubtful.

June 10^th, 2025: Day Six

Distance Traveled: 295.8KM
Days in Hotel/Motel VS Campgrounds: 3/2

Today’s entry was originally written on my phone because the camping area is bug infested and every time I open the hatch I let a dozen of them in, and the computer is in the spare tire compartment.

I started the morning off by trying to gas up. As I said to Sarah:

“Before I left Thunder Bay, I tried gassing up and the button wouldn’t work, and the guy came on the mic and was trying to tell me something but between his accent and the shitty microphone/speaker and the wind I couldn’t hear him, so I kept asking him to come outside and tell me in person.

I keep telling him just come out here and tell me in person, that “I can’t understand you” and he’s just rambling and talking over me, and I just got the impression that he says that I’ve got to come inside and pay. I said no. It says lift the nozzle and press the grade to begin but I do that, and it doesn’t work and then the gas thing times out and so out of spite I left the hose lying on the ground and drove off.

Then when I got to the other gas station, a woman tapped on my window and while carrying a box of Cheerios and said that she owned her own home, but she’s just coming under some hard times and is wondering if I could give her fifteen or twenty dollars.” I told her I was on a budget, and she turned around without saying anything and went on to the next person.”

After that I went to the Terry Fox Memorial and got some great shots of the monument and The Sleeping Giant which made up for the hazy ones from the night before.

I’ve seen The Sleeping Giant since I was a kid, but I’ve never been on it. It’s a Provincial Park and there is a rock formation on a trail that looks like a sea lion so I set off to attempt my first real hike.

During my time I saw four deer and despite the terrain I did really well with 30-35lbs of gear.

3.2KM with a 58-meter ascent.

I thought my national park pass covered it, but nope. When I tried to pay the girls at the station saw no and that I “already got away with it,” and we had a chuckle.

After that it was a smooth ride to Terrace Bay. I gassed up and realized there was no camping right in town so I backtracked about 12KM to a family-owned setup called Stop Along the Way near Schreiber.

The bugs were crazy, and I couldn’t find my Off Bug Spray right away but when I did, I unloaded a steady fury of aerosol death like Tony Montana.

Thunder Bay itself was a disappointment but a necessary one. I needed time to solidify my route and realized I need to stop chasing ghosts. Brant Street is nothing what it was. Thunder Bay is a shit hole, and I need to stop looking fondly at a place I only spent the first 4 years of my life in.

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