Road Trip 2013: Day 2

As I continue to post journal entries from my road trip, I find it interesting to note that every day of the trip there were various trials, whether it be rain, or camping in overflow because there was no campsites….yet, I so easily believed that the trip was worth the trials.  If only that type of thinking came easier in my day to day life…

Day 2: Pukaskwa to Sleeping Giant – 458 km driven
Today was a much shorter driving day. Knowing this, I didn’t get up super early(730), and I headed out down highway 17. I stopped at a few viewpoints along the way. There were several spots along the northern shores of Superior that reminded me of the Cabot trail. The windy roads right next to the rocks and the water with high headlands did the trick. Otherwise the drive see-sawed from either being exciting to just being normal northern Ontario roads. Either way it was only 2-3ish hours.

Once I got to Sleeping Giant I found out that they didn’t have any regular sites available so I would be staying in the overflow area, which was basically just the parking for the beach. In the end it wasn’t that bad. There are a few other campers in overflow as well so at least I’m not the only one. And once again, no campfire tonight as there are no firepits in overflow. I grabbed a quick lunch then set off.

I realized when I arrived that I was kind of low on fuel and the closest fuel was half an hour away. I knew I could make it with what I had, but wasn’t sure if I still could after driving around sightseeing for the afternoon. So I drove out again to get gas. Once that was over with I started my sightseeing. I hiked a short trail that I thought would be interesting, but it turned out to be super short, and pretty normal. The interesting thing about it was that it used to be a part of the old highway, and the pavement was still there, although it was super overgrown.

Then I hiked to the Sea Lion. It’s an outcropping of rock that used to look like a lion. Apparently it lost its head years ago to erosion, but the legs are still there, making it an outcropping of rock that has a small tunnel through the bottom. So I sat there for a while. I’ve been realizing that I’m already starting to just quickly blaze through this trip, and I need to practice just sitting and taking it all in every now and then too.

After the Sea Lion, I went back to camp, and had dinner. I used the cookstove since I couldn’t make a fire, and had soup. That was nice since its been decently cold here(less than 20 degrees). According to the weather network, its supposed to drop down to 7 degrees overnight! I used some of the spare daylight to organize the luggage in the car a bit more. Its been driving me nuts how hard it is to find things when I need them. It should be a bit better now.

I wasn’t really planning on doing anything else tonight, but was bored so I decided to drive to a lookout that I accidentally passed twice. So I’m writing this from there while I wait for the sunset. There is a great view of the “Sleeping Giant” from here. It’s interesting how different the bugs are here. I noticed at Pukaskwa that the mosquitoes seemed to be around at all times of day, even at the campsite…which is a bit odd. And now here, there are these extra bugs that look kind of like mosquitoes but are smaller, but they land on you then walk around, and they don’t leave if you shake your arm at them.

Anyways, tomorrow I have church in Thunder Bay, then its on to Manitoba. Should be interesting.