forgot to mention on the previous day, that well, there are a lot of people at this little park. A lot of noisy people with music, the camp site up the hill is having some sort of dance party, and while the one next to me is pretty quiet for now, I can't help but notice they have a huge Napoleon BBQ and a Webber smoker sitting out. Around 8pm when I was turning in for the night, I heard' click-clock click-clock... CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK I looked out the window and saw a half naked man furiously pressing the igniter button on the front of the BBQ. I guess those igniters fail whomever makes them. I suppose they will be upset at me tomorrow morning when I rouse to make breakfast.

4:52 am

I've actually been 'awake' for about an hour apparently I didn't get enough fluids yesterday, something I need to remedy today. My mouth feels gross. I checked the outside temperature at 10.6 degrees. much cooler than yesterday. This is more like it. it is a reasonable 15 degrees inside the trailer. and the humidity is pretty low at 33%. Going back to what I was saying about fires in the boreal forest.. i can quite well see how it happens easily. I know a few people were having campfires here last night, I could smell wood smoke while I was trying to get to sleep. It wouldn't take much to get things going here. Surprised there isn't a fire ban, whomever sets the fire bans must be asleep up here. Anyhow.. I need to get breakfast going. I think I'll just have granola this morning as much as I want to go all out, I have a 7 hour drive ahead of me at least. I didn't get to see much of this little park. Hopefully I can spend a bit more time here on the return trip when there shouldn't be so many people, and I won't be as pressed to get to my destination before the office closes. Time to get at er, as they say.

6:00 AM

After a quick breakfast of granola, I quickly folded up camp, secured everything, and hit the road. I feel pretty good today, so I think I will make good time. This is the hardest part of the trip, it is a straight shot across highway 101 west to Wawa. There is a several hour section with no gas stations so gassing up is very important. After about a half hour drive, I feel the call of nature for the first time, and pull over by a small river where there's a commemorative plaque to mining in the area. Just like most of the pit stops in northern Ontario, the washrooms are white concrete bunkers which are pretty darn clean, I think they literally just pressure wash them with javex solution every week or so. After finishing my morning business, I took this opportunity to call my parents, since I wasn't sure if the email I'd queued up went through. They had got my message, mom was frantic thinking something had gone wrong since I called. I thought this was strange because usually she's frantic when I don't call. I mean, I'm going to be 44 years old this year. I've made it through near half my life without coming to a hard end, so you'd think I had things figured out by now? (no, nobody does, everyone has no clue what they are doing)

I took a few pictures of the memorial, since I couldn't read the faded text, after inspecting it on the back of the camera to ensure the text was legible (it was printed in English, native of some sort, and French) I got back on the road. Next stop was Timmins, where I filled up my tank at just over 50% and grabbed a 1 liter of water, a sports drink, and a small can of wd40 for my leveling jacks which squeak like crazy. There was a short surly looking woman at the counter. I went to went to pay. And my card wouldn't read. for the second time. Holy shit, I was slightly panicking. This is the only way I have to pay now, and I'll be in deep shit if I can't get fuel. After a few tries, she handed me a piece of paper and i slid it under my card, just like at mattawa, it read. It was a releif. I continued on my way, this was my last fuel-up until Wawa, which was roughly 4 hours drive away. The land out here is sparse, the road has no shoulders, and only truck and snowplow turn-arounds every fifty or so kilometers. Suffice to say, there was no 'pulling off' to dart into the bush for a pee. I continued to drink like a fish though, knowing from experience that dehydration when driving sneaks up on you, and you can't just immediately remedy it. I'd already finished off about two litres of liquid by now, and was on the sports drink. I passed the time here listening to 'three body problem' which i'd downloaded from audible before leaving scarborough. It is quite excellent and I highly reccommend it. I hope the author isn't going to get in trouble with the CCP.. he goes way deep into the horrors of Chinese Comunism. There's enough balance there that maybe he's ok.. but those guys don't screw around. The other thing I considered is the geology of this place, since the sun was now deeply buried in cloud, and there was the odd passing shower. You see, this place is still relitively flat, and this bears looking up when I get access to the internet again. From my basic, high school level geology understanding (and the good high school from the 90's, not the garbage they teach now) The glaciers came down from the north pole, and up from the south pole. They compressed, and ground the landscape down to nothing, except where the rock was too hard to do as much damage. You can see some evidence of that in Hamilton where there's mounds capped with hard dolomite that stick up like strange squat pillars in the otherwise flat landscape. When the glaciers receded, the meltwater left behind whatever was in the ice. The heaviest bits were left behind first, and you see them in erratics - huge boulders just left in the middle of a field, usually made up of rock that is alien to the area they are in. And the smallest stuff, generally came out last. And that is what I see up here, mounds and mounds and mounds of gravel made up of rock just as far as the eye can see. the earth is sandy as well, and it is hard for me to imagine the forest I see growing in it. Anyhow, I might be completely wrong here, there is a lot of mining up here so it is possible this is just redistributed for road works from tailings piles. Something else that I find interesting in all this, is I remember as a kid that we used to see blasting mats all along highways like this. There seemed to be always some construction going on, blasting the rock away from the road so it didn't tumble down onto it or just to widen it. Now this place is barren. The road is in pretty good shape, but it isn't new for sure. anyhow, there were roughly two proper roadside stops for this four hour trip, and I found myself being almost mesmerized by the sameness of everything. On one of the stops closer to Wawa, something else struck me as strange. Something that bothered me at a fundamental level. The river by this stop, was running north. I don't know why this bothered me so much. It took a while for me to even understand what it was, since i’m not usually fully aware of my compass directions. but I felt like something was wrong. I stood looking at it. I knew lake superior was on my right, and by all logic you'd expect it to run that way, but no, it was running away from lake superior. It just made me feel like something was wrong when I stared at the golden water. Maybe that wasn't it, I've seen water run different directions all my life, after all. but this indeed was about the third one I'd seen like this, running north. I guess I'll have to check again on my way back on Friday. It isn't like there's anywhere else to stop along this route!

It was getting on to 2:00pm as I started to get back into the amazing hills and mountains surrounding the big lake, Wawa wasn't far. My fuel gage was at 1/3 ish and I was starting to get a little nervous. I was distracted to my right by a huge triangular mountain, and realized it wasn't that.. it towered above the natural rocks, and there were more of them. Tailings piles from an active mine. I didn't see what they were mining there. It looked to me like it was an open pit though, judging by the equipment I saw. I will have to see if I can find out later. Before too long, I was cruising into Wawa. Thankful as I was down to my last quarter now. The place seems to have sprouted even more geese statues since I was here last year. I filled up at the first gas station I found, which was a petro canada. The price was 1.83 a litre. I calculated my fuel costs at 1.80 I'm glad to see our horrible government can exceed my expectations even in this. I paid directly at the pump, and my card went through without issue. So maybe there are two malfunctioning card readers out there. I hope that is the case, I need to at least make it home before I can order a replacement. and then the fun of going around and updating all the insurance, CAA, etc to the no doubt new card number. I did add this card to google pay on my phone, but that requires the machines out here to support NFC - which is not entirely likely. The tap to pay on my card failed a few months ago, and hasn't worked since. So I guess maybe the card is just a defect, it is supposed to be re-issued next year anyhow.

This is the last leg of my journey, up through white river, over the massive brown pic river, and finally - around 3:00ish I pulled into Pukasaw and walked up to the main gate. It is manned by three young women, that couldn't have been much older than 16 years old, and one that was probably ninteen or twenty. Either that, or i'm just horribly old now. I was given a map, and a laminated card.. and told to go find a site, it is first come first serve. I found site 13, which is fairly secluded, with a power outlet. There will not be a repeat of killarney and being soaking wet and unable to dry out because my dehumidifier killed my battery. After a few false starts, I managed to back the trailer in where I wanted it, unhitched, and drove back to the gatehouse. To my terror, I heard 'clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk' coming from my right front wheel. Oh shit. The car finally got me where I was, how could this be? I replaced the struts, bearings, knuckles and brake pads and rotors all reasonably recently. Would I be stuck out here? Not horrible.. but I can't stay here forever. I pulled up to the parking area by the gate house, and did a walk around. There was a huge stone stuck in the treads of the right front tire. I thought 'shit, is it a puncture?' nope.. it was just wedged in there. no issue. with a sigh of releif I told the girls my site number. The nervous and youngest one was on the till. She said 'that site is taken' and I said, no one was there, and there was nothing on the sign... so she had to call the older girl over to help her out. She was able to remove that person who had apparently left a day early or something. my total bill for four nights is just $120. That is FAR and away cheaper than the provincial parks. She noted that the campground is 'B.A.R.E' certified, and that if I left food or anything like food out and unatended, a staff member would confiscate it and put it in a lockup, leaving a note behind. I usually leave my water jug out.. but I guess I won't do that either, it will stay in the car when I'm not around. I returned to my site, and began the process of setting up. I picked up the trailer and rolled it back and around so the back faced the road and blocked view of my table, then I pulled the picnic table over closer and strung up my tarp covering the table and just outside the trailer entry way. I pulled it very tight and put extra lines to keep it strong. I barely missed stepping in a huge pile of Dog feces. Disgusting. I got one of the garbage bags i got from Killarney a long time ago, turned it upside down, and picked up the offending offal, and then tied it tightly, putting it in with the garbage bag in my car, and tied that as well. there's a garbage room by the comfort station, according to the map, so i'll take it up there and toss it when I go brush my teeth. Tarp strung, I then put the battery in the trailer and hooked it up. Then I plugged into the power receptacle outside, and turned on the breaker. Inside, I connected the secondary DC disconnect I set up for the Renogy inverter/charger under the bed - and took note that it didn't over-discharge the battery. The thing must have a huge capacitor array in it. Hopefully those never go kaboom while i'm sleeping, or things might be over pretty quick for me! finally, i pushed the controller button on the panel and the inverter came to life. The battery charge meter started rising - 1 amp, 5 amps, 10 amps, 50 amps, 70 amps - and then.. nothing. I was confused.. I started to hear 'electical noises' from the fuse area where I'd just installed the 200amp DC fuse.. but that shouldn't have blown. The amp meter shows a constant draw of .7ish amps. Did I blow the fuse at the post? I went out and checked, no.. I reset it anyhow, and confirmed that I was getting power due to the idiot light on the extension cord. Not sure what is going on here, but I am getting power from my outlets, so things must be ok? I hear the inverter working, it has a pretty loud hum. the fan cycles from time to time. I guess i'll just have to get used to that noise. I really should have gotten the 2000W model, but this one was cheaper.. 3000W probably should be fed by 30A may have to do something about that if this doesn't work out. I pulled out the manual and read the display, it is currently in 'bypass' mode so that means power is directly coming from the plug outside. Only issue appears to be the voltage from the plug is only 110V it should be 120V hopefully this doesn't damage the unit.. if the humming is so bad I can't sleep, i'll have to shut it down. I wanted to try and run my 500W heater overnight when it gets chilly, but if I can't, i'll just have to man up and live with it. It is nice to have the fridge running on AC as well, since it can run at full power and keep things cool more effectively. Anyhow, I made myself dinner after this, tonight its mac and cheese, and tapioca for desert. I'm pretty tired, but I headed up to the comfort station to brush my teeth, toss the dog poop.. and the girls didn't tell me what to do with this stupid laminated thing, so I stuck it in the post. I pulled out the weather radio to see if I could get the weather for tomorrow, since there's no internet access here. Seems like tomorrow is going to be cold, blustery and in the afternoon rainy. And then the rain is supposed to continue until friday. Great. Well, we're used to this by now. Tomorrow is the best day to challenge the white river gorge, so that is what I will do. I will turn back if it gets too difficult, but 6 hours at Killarney didn't kill me last year, so I don't think 8 will this year. The trail has a 15m rise and fall as well, which doesn't seem like much. I'm most concerned about the beach sections, which will do most people in. If it is super windy, walking along where the waves crash isn't really an option since the waves will be taller than me. Sometimes these beaches are all fist sized boulders as well, which isn't easy either. I can't remember which from when I was a kid.. so I guess I will find out. It is 8pm now, I'm dressed in my sleep clothes with the door open. The sun is peeking in but is golden yellow and will set very soon. I've prepared for tomorrow about as much as I can, filling water up etc. Oh yeah, and there's a boil water advisory here.. so I'm going to have to do with what I have in the blue water container and then I guess I don't know.. I don’t have a large container other than the blue jug, and i don't have any large pots either.. I guess I'll have to empty the blue jug into my good containers, and then fill it with bad water and drink out of the clean containers until there's room for water in them, boil enough to fill them and continue on. I'll have to javex the thing when I get it home.. or else, maybe go to the Canadian Tire in marathon and get one of those collapsible jugs for clean water. I could possibly do that on Wednesday, since that day is supposed to be pretty bad. It could all blow over in an instant though. Have to keep up hope.