There was a bit too much commotion as I was trying to sleep so I had to use the air conditioner as white noise overnight. I'm not sure what all of it was about, but it must have been non-residents since most of the offensive noise-makers were not there when I woke up at my too-early hour. So it goes.
I didn't want to get to camp too early so I putzed around my room for a while. This was painful; I don't do lollygagging well.
You know why I'm whittling? Because that's what you do in a town where a yellow light still means slow down, not speed up.
I poked around online and came across an article referencing Twin Peaks which noted it was on over 30 years ago. My friends - most of whom were idiots - paid little attention to Twin Peaks. Thursday wasn't typically a go-out-and-try-to-find-booze kind of night, but I spent lots of Thursdays alone watching Twin Peaks. The show was popular with people I was acquainted with; these were the same kinds of people I was in AP Chemistry class with. I once snooped around online to see what some of these people were doing - their lives appeared as different now as mine does from late-teen me. It is tempting to see people and places from so long ago as locked in time. Aren't our houses and schools and friends supposed to remain locked in place, as if they had been frozen by some Narnian White Witch? Just as my high school (and frankly College) is barely recognizable from what it was then, so too are most of these people. There is a zero percent chance I would ever go to a high school reunion, and that is probably good. I'll never be who I set out to be, but I will always be who I was. I'm not sure where I am going on this non-sequitur, except that getting away from the chaos of work, away from the mundanity of days that pass without notice, away from the daily issues that make me shake my head is important. A few forced minutes in a cheap hotel room en route to my seventh bear hunt allowed me a few minutes to think about things in the third person - even if it was a phantasmagoria.
Enough introspection. I walked around outside a bit before it was time to hit the road. The sunrise across the water was gorgeous.
I was on the road around 7:00 which felt really late but was in reality at least an hour early. On my way out of Fort Frances, I saw the Tim Horton's and stopped in. I was hoping to get a bear paw (defined as a baked pastry with a filling made of dates and other similar things). I didn't see any, but decided apple fritters might be an acceptable substitute. I asked the lady if they sold bear paws and she pointed to the apple fritters saying they are what people call bear paws. Apple fritter it was (these are NOT bear paws). I don't remember the last time I had any kind of fried donut, but it was pretty good. It could have used a bit more apple and it was messy enough that I had to pull over to brush off all the glaze that fell off. I was still feeling quite Canadian by having gone to a Tim Horton's at all.
I drove a route I'm now familiar with. I thought about stopping in Kenora just because I had some extra time, but couldn't think of anything I really needed, so I took the bypass around. Route 44 was as bad as ever in most parts with a few repaved areas.
I listened to podcasts through the morning - mostly Hidden Brain and several involved loneliness which was a bit odd given that I have just spent the last couple days alone. I stopped for gas at the Petro-Canada and thought about buying more junk, but my stomach wisely told me it was not a smart thing to do. At the lower speeds on the smaller Canadian roads, my indicated mileage was even better than the previous day.
Soon enough I was at camp and Maureen happened to be leaving my cabin as I was pulling in. The sights, sounds and smells were all familiar.
I vegged in the cabin and lodge for a few hours. Dinner was turkey with all the trimmings while we all got to know each other. In camp so far is two guys from Iowa, three from Utah with another two from Pennsylvania (I think) still working their way here through the horror of commercial air travel.
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