Friends and Family,
You last heard from us from from Calgary, Canada, when we had just begun our truck trip back to Georgia, where our sailboat is. After Calgary we crossed the plains provinces: Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. These are mightily flat and full of wheat. We camped each night in or on the margin of some vast field. Once the grill was saturated with grasshopper guts and the ground was crawling with black, lethargic crickets! The only city was Medicine Hat (named for a war bonnet that once imparted great powers to its Indian owner), but we passed through countless towns consisting of a grain silo and a few houses and stores.
Around Winnipeg the vegetation transitioned to low forest but the land remained flat. Then ponds and rock outcroppings started to appear. These features culminated in Ontario, which someone said is two-thirds water: lakes big and small, connected by beaver-choked streams. The land portion consists of rugged hills composed of ancient, Canadian Shield granite. The land is dotted with lakes, yet the lakes are also dotted with islands: 14,000 of them in Lake of the Woods alone, where we camped for two days on a pristine, forested isle. Loons called mournfully in the night, an ascending cry that slips from a lower to an upper register in mid-call. The days were hot and sunny, the water cool and tranquil. The canoe's oars and rowing station came in handy as we circumnavigated one island after another trying to comprehend this alien landscape. We want to return some day and explore Quetico Provincial Park, where in a lifetime you could never canoe all the old voyageur routes. And just across the border in Minnesota lies the Boundary Waters Wilderness.
We next drove around the north shore of Lake Superior, like a freshwater ocean with surf and rocky beaches, remote and undeveloped. Finding places to camp was easy: just drive down any faint pair of tracks into the woods until the highway noise fades in the distance then stop wherever we can turn the Isuzu around. We kept her undercarriage well polished driving over tall grass and saplings! Then we pull out the pantry (an ice-less cooler), the kitchen table (accordion case), our utensils kit, and the white gas stove in its little oven box with the pots and pans nested inside, and arrange them in a row facing the tailgate, so we can sit with them in reach. Dinner may not be any culinary magic, more likely macaroni and cheese with a can of peas. But we couldn't be more snug in our truck canopy bed, and, who knows, off among the mossy pines a moose or bear may even raise its head to the haunting wheeze of an accordion inexpertly played.
As an old sailor would say, we did our eastings in Canada but then we had to do our southings down through the States. We crossed at Sault Ste. Marie. Homeland Security welcomed us with an hour-and-a-half search and verbal grilling. They fingerprinted Steve to see if maybe he was Somebody they were looking for, but he wasn't. Sorry guys! We crossed at night so there wasnt any line, but the dozen or so personnel on duty had nothing else to do, so we didn't save any time.
Then we drove south through Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina, averaging a state per day. In Detroit we we gaped at the abandoned buildings, and Ginny bought the new Modest Mouse and Cure CDs with money she found on the ground. (She keeps Steve happy by downloading old Small Faces and Stevie Ray Vaughn cuts for him. We now have his and hers MP3 players.) Disdaining freeways, We wound up and down and back and forth through Appalachian backroads until we though our tires would wear out. We camped under a bridge one night, next to a burnt-down house (meth lab?) another. The weather turned cold and wet.
Last night we crossed into Georgia. A couple hours ago we pulled into Larry's driveway. Karen lives with him now, but they had the spare bedroom waiting for us. Their hospitality overwhelms us. We now have a few weeks of final boat work before us before we can set forth in Pepper, but we have a warm home to do it in. Thank you, guys!
Steve and Ginny
