So about that motel I stayed in last night. One cannot be too picky driving this route through Ontario. The towns are extremely small. I would see a sign for what I thought would be a large area and then literally blink a couple of times and I would be on the other side of it. Looking ahead on the map earlier in the day I saw Terrace Bay and thought that sounded like a nice place big area to stay in. I was wrong. By the time I got there it was dark and I drove for a minute and realized I had passed through. So I backtracked and looked at the 2 motels I had to pick from. Neither looked stellar. But I was afraid I might not find anything for quite some time and it was pouring rain by now. One, the Red Dog Inn, had a sign saying "recent renovations", so thinking that may be the lesser of two evils, I pulled in and ran in through the rain.
The lady behind the counter was on the phone. Clearly a personal call. She looked up when I came in and then kept talking. And talking. And talking. Finally I cleared my throat and stared her down. She looks at me and says " Want a room, Hon? ". Grrr. I nodded and said " yeah" with an inflection of voice that I hope said "duh" and she told whoever was on the line that she guessed she had to go. I registered and drove in front of my door and went in. I know that I have stayed in foreign countries and that I haven't always had the best accommodations, but I expect a certain amount of cleanliness when I am in my own country. I did not find it here. The room had that stale smell. OK. I can live with that. Then I went in the bathroom. All I wanted was a good shower and a dry place to sleep. I looked in the tub. Hair in the bottom of it. There isn't much more about a tub that grosses me out more than someone else's hair in it, unless it's family or friends. OK. I wiped it out with some toilet paper. Then I looked up. I was wrong. Someone's used soap in the corner of the tub grosses me out more. More toilet paper. Disposal. I considered leaving at this point but as I said, choices are limited ( although this morning I saw several places up the road about 20 minutes that looked from the outside to be nicer....but I digress). I got some pizza from the pizza Hut express that was right in the motel (you can have a pizza Hut express but can't have courteous staff and hairless, used soap - less bathrooms? ) and soon went to sleep for the night.
In the morning I got breakfast at the motel (thankfully hair-less) and was on the road before 7 am. That is one of the good things about not tenting - you can pack up much quicker and be on the road. I am sure Terrace Bay was pretty. I never saw it. The fog was so thick I could barely see 5 feet in front of me and the rain continued. The radio still was doing its aimless search through all the stations, finding nothing to stop on. I have a cd in the player but I had been hesitant to put it on. It's one of Dad singing, a selection of songs that he recorded himself in his living room with a cassette player. He had been hoping to record a cd sometime in the future. Mom had it done over onto cd format at Danny Crain's place. The quality is not the greatest because of the home recording but it is just Dad and his guitar. The overcast gloomy morning had me there already so I punched the cd button and skewed my vision a little more with tears along with the fog. I sang along when I could and wished that I could be Dad's back-up singer just one more time.
I was in Thunder bay by 9 am and stopped at the Terry Fox memorial site. What a great Canadian. I felt privileged to be able to be near the spot where he ended his amazing journey. I took a couple of pictures and then hit the road again. My plan was to reach Kenora where I was hoping to finally get some hiking done. Weather had conspired against me so far, but it was calling for clearing in the afternoon so I plugged onwards. The rain played chicken with the windshield wipers. I would put them on a regular speed and it would slow down and they would start to screech. So I would put them on intermittent. It would downpour. We played this game, the rain and I, for what seemed like hours. Oh the fun we had! We giggled and laughed.....
Meanwhile, Gary Sinise kept me company, reading to me for a while. Then I sang songs from my I pod selections. I sang both parts of " If I had a million dollars" by the Barenaked Ladies, which did occur to me was likely wrong....you probably need to pick one part and stick with it. I was pleased to discover I could still sing all the fast part of Enid. I did all the hand gestures that Kara and I made up when she was little to Holly Cole's song " Everything I got belongs to you" (I am sure she would be thrilled to show any of you that ask ☺). Again, I was a little bored. The landscape is changing for sure. Getting into more scrub tree sections. And I could hear the "out west" inflection of the voices already here in Kenora. They would say I have a back East inflection likely, but we Easterners know the truth.
Time slipped back another hour somewhere along my travels today so now I am 2 hours behind home. Got to Kenora, set up camp at a lovely campground and then set off to find a hiking trail. And guess what? It started to rain. So I am in my tent WITH WiFi, if you can imagine, and after finishing this I do believe I will watch some Netflix. Not as cold, so far, as the other night so all should be good. Very close to the Manitoba border here so will be hitting the 'Peg tomorrow and Mountain Equipment Co-op.
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