Home Soil!

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

START:  Welcome Stop Campground, Winnipeg, MB - 10:30 a.m.

STOP:  KOA Campground, Thunder Bay, ON - 8:45 p.m. (!!)

WEATHER:  Le poop.  Overcast all day.

Between the thunder storms (only I heard the thunder this time, so on behalf of the rest of the fam: suspicious) and skitter slapping, there wasn't a hell of a lot of time left over for sleep last night, so the record leaving time of the day before will fondly be remembered as a one-hit wonder.

Before heading out, we made a pit stop at the ol' sani-dump to empty out the grey water tank, since Mike's shower sent it over the edge and the tub remained half full of water while the sink drain was right to the brim.  So once that was done, we were back on the highway headin' east.  We almost hit the rhubarb because Dad had a sudden urge to go Go-Karting, but we cleared the lane end in the nick of time and were no worse for the wear.  We were all thoroughly bummed, however, to learn that Neil Young was putting on the second of two concerts in a row in Winnipeg that night, only having heard about it the night before.  The pleasant newswoman stated there were still some tickets left, but we knew they wouldn't last long after that since the first show had sold out in four minutes.  It would have balanced out the trip quite nicely but I GUESS we'll live.

At roughly 12:45 p.m. we crossed the border and found ourselves back in Ontario!  Now, either Beula was just happy to be home or thinks she all that because not long after crossing the border, she literally started tooting her own horn.  We were just driving along, with Dad's hands both clearly visible at opposite points on the steering wheel, when she would just start honkin'!  I took it upon myself to combine her spontaneous honks with some enthusiastic waving at whoever we happened to be passing at the time, which was fun for awhile but she started getting a little out of control with it so we had to pull over and disconnect the wire.  It was a good thing too because shortly after, we passed three cops on the side of the road who had pulled someone over and we didn't think repeatedly honking at them would have gone over too well.

We lost our third and final hour at around quarter to six, bringing us abruptly to quarter to seven and putting us back on par with home time.  I realize we haven't actually been losing hours of our lives on the way back, as Dad has pointed out, only giving back the ones we were so quick to accept on the way there.  But that's fine, we don't want your stupid hours anyway, Canada!

We blew right past Ignace, which held the only RV Park I could find on Google, since it was still pretty early and Dad wasn't quite ready to call it quits yet, and before we knew it, we had been driving for what felt like days and ended up making it all the way to Thunder Bay.  As you can see from the start and stop times above, it's the longest we've ever gone in a day, so we were all pretty exhausted by the time we finally got there (putting me in no mood to deal with an inquisitive child who stopped by on his bike while I was outside trying to guide Dad onto some blocks to level us out.  Kid:  "Are you guys leaving?"  Me:  "No, we just got here."  Kid:  "Oh, so you're setting up?"  Me:  "Yeah."  Kid:  "So you just got here?"  Me:  "YEAH!"  Kid continues to loiter and stare.)

Mom made us a dinner of mushroom soup and grilled cheese and we spent what was left of the night resting our weary, travellin' bones.

Me, reading about what the campground had to offer:  "They have a pool, a gazebo, an outdoor chess set, mini-putt, rent-a-cycle..."

Mike:  "Rent-a-psycho!?"

Me:  "Rent-a-CYCLE.  Yeah, you can just go and rent a psycho for the day."

According to Google (which I just keep running back to), we're 777km away from home now, but even though we managed to get roughly that far today, we'll most likely be splitting up the drive and spending the night in Wawa tomorrow - which means hoooooooome on Thursday!  It's hard to believe it's almost over already - and hard to believe we've been gone for 40 days at the same time.  Who goes on vacation for 40 days!?

Letting the good times roll,

P.S.  Shemp does not appear to be adjusting to his adoption very well and has suffered some hardships over the past few days.  Not only can he only hop backwards (and barely) unless tilted forward on his beak, but he also lost an eye somewhere along the way.  Hang in there, little Shemp.  We're almost home.