Day 37 – A little light housekeeping

After 8000km, we finally have a sound system! Mike and Alexe splurged on $14 computer speakers and some sweet camo duct tape and got this party started. It’s kinda too bad we didn’t have it a few hours earlier for our epic drive from Thunder Bay to Fort Frances (yes, epic for us is 350km) but at this point we’re used to silence while we’re on the road. Or, to be more precise, nothing remotely like silence — a numbing cacaphonic blend of rushing wind, thumping and clanging of metal ramps in the bed of the truck, engine roar, a loose belt whining, the trailer hitch grinding and clanking, and the whirr of the inverter charging our various technologies. So let’s just say the stereo is great for anything under 60km/hr, and after that it becomes another interesting background rhythm.

The drive itself was pretty glorious — highway 11 is a nice cruisy road. We stopped halfway, in Atikokan, for gas and a nice lunch at the White Otter, and then kept on going til we hit Fort Frances. Beautiful endless causeways lead into town along highway 17; there’s a real striking difference in the amount of lake there is around here… like Muskoka only on a much larger scale, and with the highway right in the middle of it all. It’s a stunning drive.

It was far too hot for too much exploring in Fort Frances, but we found a motel (originally we were planning on camping in the next town, but at this point we all really needed the air conditioning) across the street from Canadian Tire (hence the speakers and camo duct tape) and hit the beach at sunset, only to see three white pelicans flying in tandem low across the lake. That’s normal here! I’m really starting to feel I’m somewhere else.

After some cold beverages and wild rice soup at Le Rendez Vous on the waterfront, we crammed back into the cab of the truck and pumped up the jams, singing along to old soul as we cruised the strip back to our motel at twilight.

Tomorrow — Heading back in time at the Kay-nah-chi-wah-nung Historic Centre!

Photo by Alexandra Sawicki

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