Notes from the Passenger Seat

Blogging from the road, good tunes, feet on the dash, hot coffee in hand…or, you know, cross-legged in the passenger seat with warm-ish tea next to me, but those are minor details really.

I’ve got a few days of catching up to do, which is good ‘cause we’ve got a long drive today: Thunder Bay to Winnipeg (~8-9h).  It’s taken us a week just to get out of Ontario, and it’s definitely going to be bittersweet crossing that border into Manitoba; really time to say goodbye to the province that’s been home for the last twelve years…

The past few days we’ve made good time and distance.  After spending two days in Owen Sound exploring the Bruce Peninsula, we set off for Sault Ste. Marie.  Arriving in the evening, we found a cheap/decent motel and crashed for the night before setting off for Thunder Bay.  Sault Ste. Marie to Thunder Bay was a long haul, but made infinitely better by the addition of a few hikes and a few sightseeing stops along the way.  There are two parks en route to Thunder Bay, Pukaskwa National Park and Lake Superior Provincial Park.  Not enough time to see both, we decided to go with Lake Superior.  More specifically, we wanted to see the pictographs and Old Woman’s Bay in the Park.

We weren’t able to see the actual pictographs because of conditions; the paintings are on a rock face, located where the water meets the land.  Seeing the pictographs means a treacherous walk along a slippery rock ledge, nothing but an old rickety rope to hold onto and waves crashing over your feet. Exciting!  Pictographs or no pictographs, it was a beautiful spot nonetheless and we managed to get a few nice photos.  I was mesmerized by the swirling water and crashing waves just beneath the rock ledge.  It’s always humbling to be reminded of the sheer power in that water.

Several kilometers later, we came to Old Woman’s Bay.  Not quite as impressive as the pictographs, it was still a nice spot to get out and stretch our legs.  The Bay is named for the old woman’s face that can be seen in the rock face.  We didn’t spend too long here; walked around a bit, snapped a few photos and then climbed back into the car to make our way to Thunder Bay, still several hundred kilometers away.

The driving was interesting to say the least.  We encountered every type of weather you can imagine on that drive: spots of sunshine, monsoon-type torrential downpour, and snow - Mother Nature was definitely keeping us on our toes.

After hours and hours (and hours and hours) of driving and a quick stop at the [infamous] Wawa - the halfway-ish point between Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay - we finally arrived in Thunder Bay around 9:30pm.  The city lights made for a warm welcome after spending the last 2-3 hours driving in the dark on the winding #17 highway, looking out for moose, and evading aggressive truck drivers.  We found a place to stay on Air BnB and lucked out with a lovely host who gave us a list of things to do, see, and eat(!) in Thunder Bay, but I’ll save those adventures and photos for the next post.  This one’s far too long as is!