I woke up this morning with the same sort of feeling I used to get when I woke up the morning after a great week of Camp Hermosa. I opened my eyes and had the disappointing sense that the trip was over, and all the excitement that went with it. I was surprised to be feeling this, as during the trip we both were looking very forward to getting home. I am glad that we're home, and I'm glad that I don't have to drive anywhere today. But I think I'm disappointed that the vacation is over, and that life will quickly return to normal.
Here's a quick re-hash of our trip. At the onset, I thought that I would have lots of time to blog and post pictures, but it turned out quite differently. We were busy every day! We would wake up and drive, and by the time it was dark, we'd still be driving. We drove a lot, and didn't really leave much time for anything else.
I'll give a short overview of our progress from the time we left Stratford to the time we arrived back home in BC.
Tuesday, Sept 22nd
We woke up in Stratford, and had a lot to do before we left for Whistler. I got my new car stereo installed, and I seem to remember there were lots of other things I had to do too. We aimed to leave at 12 noon, but ended up pulling out at about 1pm instead, so that wasn't too bad.
We stopped in Bradford, ON to visit a friend of Carmella's from high-school. We stayed there for about an hour, then continued on to Huntsville where we stayed at Carmella's Uncle Jon's house. We told him we'd arrive around 6:30pm, and that's exactly when we pulled in.
Carmella's aunt and uncle were great, and made us bbq chicken and hamburgers. After supper, they treated us at the local ice-cream stand where the ice-cream in a baby cone was as big as a softball, and a small size cone had two of those stacked on each other. They were really happy to see Carmella, because they hadn't seen her for fifteen years and were really happy to get re-acquainted.
Wednesday, Sept 23
We awoke with the birds, and ate breakfast with Carmella's aunt and uncle. We left as they were leaving for work, probably around 8am, so that worked out well. Our goal was to make it to Thunder Bay, which according to Google Maps is a 1200Km route that should take around 14.5 hours. We powered through Northern Ontario, and had to navigate through a lot of construction delays.
About halfway through the trip, we decided to jump into Lake Superior to mix things up. We were tired of driving at that point, and needed something exciting to occupy our minds and lift our spirits. We found a road, drove down it, and had a quick dip. It worked, and buoyed our spirits immensely.
We arrived in Thunder Bay at about 11pm, and quickly found a motel with vacancy. We were sleeping very quickly after hitting the pillows. It was a lot of rocks and trees, and was our worst day of driving. There was nothing really to look at, and the towns we drove through didn't offer too much to divert our attention. It would have been insufferable had we not went for a swim in Superior's bracing waters.
Thursday, Sept 23rd
Since we hacked through boring Northern Ontario the day before, we gave ourselves a morning for checking out Thunder Bay. We would be aiming for Jasmine's house in Winnipeg, which would only take about 8 hours, since the distance we'd be covering was a paltry 650ish kilometers.
Thunder Bay has about 12 000 Finns living there, what is claimed to be the largest community of Finnish speakers living outside of Finland. Carmella is Finn, so we wanted to take in some of her culture.
We had breakfast at The Hoito, a breakfast restaurant staple that I remembered from my year at Lakehead University in 2000-2001. It's in the Finnish Labour Temple that was built in the early 1900s, and might be called something different now. When we arrived, there were Finns speaking Finn outside, and trappings of Finnish culture in the nearby stores.
We got pancakes, which Carmella hoped would be Finnish pancakes. They should be flat and thin, with a crust around the outside. When they arrived, they were! This was exciting, and we both enjoyed them. Carmella said that Finns don't separate their food on the plate, and that was confirmed when our eggs came plopped right on top of the plate-sized pancakes.
We enjoyed looking around the restaurant and picking out the Finns. Most of the employees were Finn, and a lot of the customers too. Carmella's hair and cheek-bones fit right in! There were also non-Finns there too, so I didn't feel like an imposter.
After the Hoito, we went to Kanga Sauna, another Thunder Bay institution. The Finns love their saunas, and at Kanga's you can rent one of about 18 saunas in their building. You get it for an hour and a half, and are able to enjoy authentic saunaing.
While at Lakehead, our whole residence house went there one night. We got a large size sauna, and fit about 20 people into it. There were multiple rooms, including one with a table for conversation, and the main sauna room.
Carmella and I got a small sauna, which also had multiple rooms, punctuated by the main sauna room. You are allowed to dump water on the sauna furnaces here, so that's what we did. I've never been so hot in my life! If I ever doubted Carmella's Finn heritage, I wouldn't be able to after seeing her not even sweating while I was dripping from the tip of my nose!
We occasionally sit in the sauna at the rec centre here in Whistler, and it fails miserably to the authentic sauna we had in Thunder Bay. It's not even as hot as the entry room in our Kanga Sauna!
We really enjoyed Kanga's, so I bought a Kanga's t-shirt. We stopped in some some Finn stores, and then drove to Winnipeg. It was pretty boring, and took longer than expected to get out of Ontario.
We were happy to see the Manitoba border, as it was some tangible evidence that we were actually driving across the country. We spent the better part of three days driving through Ontario, so it was nice to finally see something different.
We had told Jasmine that we'd arrive around 8pm, and that's exactly when we pulled up to her house. Her parents were there, and made a great supper for all of us, and the rest of the evening was spent chatting over some wine, catching up. Everyone was really hospitable, and it was a great finish to a great day of Finn culture and a bit of driving.
Friday, Sept 24
This day promised to be a day of epic-driving proportions. We aimed to make it from Winnipeg to Calgary, a trip that is 1300km and should take about 14 hours.
We left Jasmine's house at about 8am, and stopped a few hours away in Brandon, MB for some breakfast. I forgot my phone in the Komfort Kitchen, so that was frustrating. I realized before we left town, so that was good.
We started in Manitoba, drove through Saskatchewan, and ended up in Calgary. We were going to stay with Uncle Andrew there, but called it off when we realized we'd be arriving in Calgary after midnight. We planned to find a dive motel to sleep in, and were happy with that. Carmella called a friend from snowboard school to set up a coffee meeting the next morning. He offered us a room in his place, no matter what time we arrived! So that was excellent.
There wasn't much going on this day, just a lot of driving. We made it through three provinces, and stopped in Medicine Hat for some pizza before charging on towards Calgary. That 300ish K was the toughest, since I was so tired!
We chatted with Bruce, Carmella's friend from snowboard school, and then went to bed. I slept really well.
Saturday, September 25
On Saturday morning, we left at about 9am. Since we had an insignificant driving day in front of us, so we decided to go to Drumheller, AB and check out the dinosaur bones. Drumheller is in The Badlands, an area carved out by the Red Deer River. The Royal Tyrell Museum is there, and showcases the dinosaur bones that have been discovered in the area.
*edit*
I'll finish this later. The words aren't coming so well at the moment!
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