And We're Off!

Friday, June 18th, 2010

START:  Porcupine, Ontario – 12:30 p.m.

STOP:  White Lake Provincial Park – 6:30 p.m.

WEATHER: Downpour; clear and sunny; storm

So, as it turns out, posting might not happen as frequently as I had led you all to believe.  Turns out THERE’S NO RECEPTION ANYWHERE.  Luckily I brought my trusty notebook with me to keep track of all the day's events.

So it’s Friday morning, we’re almost ready to go and oh, what’s that?  The steps  that are supposed to automatically raise and lower decide they don’t want to work anymore.  So after much grunting and cursing on Paw’s part, he McGyvers them up for the time being, resulting in one small step for fam, one giant leap for momkind. 

One hour to go before take off.  “Mike, are you up?  We’re getting ready to go here!”  Stunned silence.  “Yeah.  Oh.. what!? It’s Friday!?”  Sweet baby J.  Not like ya had a month’s notice or anything.

Finally, after what seems like days, we’re loaded and ready to go!  A quick stop for Gravol, booze, and doughnuts and it’s nothin’ but open road.  A moment of sadness occurs when we go to honk at someone we know and the Cucaracha doesn’t play.  WT le F.  In all of Dad’s stereo installing, something must have been disconnected.  That something being the soul and lifeblood of Beula.  NO BIG DEAL.

We chose the route through Chapleau and then Wawa and saw some wildlife along the way.  A total of two bear, one rabbit, and two (maybe four) moose.  Passing a side road, Dad yells out, “Shit!  That looked like two moose in the ditch back there!” and frantically looks around wondering if Beuls is capable of a quick U-e in the middle of the road for a photo op (h'oookay).  Mom: “Two goose!?”  Me: “I don’t think he’d be having a big panic attack about taking a picture of two goose.”  Dad: “I wouldn’t have said two GOOSE.”  Hahaha... r-tards or what.

Roughly six hours later, we arrived at White Lake Provincial Park, approximately two hours past Wawa on the way to Thunder Bay.  It was pretty close quarters as far as our neighbours were concerned but aside from a handful of screaming children and a pack of rambunctious dogs, it was peaceful and serene.

Dad got a fire going with dead wood lying around in the immediate vicinit, which the park rangers really enjoy.  It’s not like they sell firewood at the park or anything.  So Mom’s down in the bush walking back with a handful of branches and a white truck pulls up.  Not knowing it was a park ranger (der) I yell out, “BUSTED!”  Needless to say, he told us to stop doing what we were doing while we played the dense, “Oh, we didn’t know" card, with the saw Mike had just been using laying on the ground in plain sight. HEYO!  And so begins our journey as the illegal firewood bandits of Canada.

We ended the night by watching RV (how apropes) and frighteningly enough, the realistic parts of that movie will exactly mirror our lives for the next month.   But we survived our first night, thunder storm and all.

On to the next!

(I experienced extreme frustration trying to maintain reception long enough to upload one stupid picture to no avail, so for the sake of my sanity and safety of everyone on board Beula, the pics will have to wait for now!)

Letting the good times roll,