Author’s note: Had a bit of a block and just didn’t feel like it, for several months. But let us continue now.

2:27 AM

The thunderbird is slightly angry, but not like it has been in my memory.  I awoke to thunder and heavy rain on the roof, some of which was splashing through the top vent, which I quickly closed.  nothing too bad though.  I spent some time rolling around trying to go back to sleep, and finally did, used to the constant drumming of rain on the roof.

6:00am

I woke up again, feeling quite well rested.  I guess this is what? 14 hours in total with the nap yesterday?  I don't know what time I passed out.  I did take a Sleepeze, which has a double effect of putting me under and since it is also an antihistamine, it helps control this stupid rash I get on the inner elbows during the spring and summer up at my parents.  Perhaps whatever it is is also here, because it really flared up during the hike yesterday.  This morning it seems to have mostly scabbed over.

I'm still not particularly hungry, but I know I need to provide at least something.  So I decided to go with just pancakes this morning.  I know, I should be getting protein, but I don't think I can stomach more right now.  I made coffee as usual, I have a slight amount of 'stick man syndrome' from yesterday, but it isn't as bad as I thought it would be.  I guess making sure I had that BCAA stuff before and after the hike may have really helped.  I eyeballed about half a cup of pancake mix into the collapsible silicone bowl I got for this purpose, and whisked in water with my fork.  I only have about 2 liters of water left now, so until I get the other container from Marathon I need to be super sparing with 'non drinking' usages.  I got the batter to a good consistancy, and then poured out a bit into the waiting cast iron pan, which had a bit of butter.  I got the heat a bit wrong the first try, a little black around the edges, but still edible.  Since I do not have plates, the resulting pancake was split in half and put in the cook pot to wait on the back of the stove grill for the other ~2 pancakes I made one at a time.  They turned out pretty good, other than the first, they were light, fluffy, and crispy around the edges from the butter.  While I was doing this, I had prepared my coffee, and sat down with some real maple syrup and ate.  Cleanup was pretty easy, I just used the leftover water from coffee making, plus the water that I collected from the tarp I have over the picnic table.  Once done, I packed up the kitchen, locked up the trailer, and headed for Marathon.  I left around 8AM, thinking that Canadian Tire would be open at 8, and after about a half hour I arrived.  I had mistakenly thought Marathon was where the Terry Fox statue was, you know, because the town is named "Marathon" but I was wrong.  It is funny how childhood memories flip together and get compressed.  The actual memorial is by Thunder Bay, which is over 4.5 hours away.  So, sorry Mr. Fox you won't be getting a visit from me this trip.  I arrived at the parking lot of Canadian Tire during what I hope is the worst of the windy part of the storm.  The wind is pretty warm actually, but according to my weather app (which now has signal) the wind is 20KPH and gusting to 60KPH.  This explains why my car is rocking sideways around 3-4 inches as the wind gusts.  I made the mistake of taking my raincoat off for the drive, and when I stood up in the parking lot to put it on, the wind nearly tore it from my hands as I tried to put it on.  I walked over to the door, and found that this Canadian Tire opens at 9:00 am, so I visited the LRV out front and snapped a tourist shot with my smartphone, before retreating to my car again, before *I* was blown away.  I tried calling my parents a few times but there was no answer, so I spent some time checking the next few days weather models.  Since tomorrow is my last day here I want to make the most of it.  Judging from the models, the worst of the storm should blow over tonight. I want to do the lookout trail, which is a short but somewhat steep one, and visit the dunes, which are along the trail.  This might mean this afternoon I can scout it, get some stormy pics.. and do it again tomorrow, though I think my chances of getting a clear sky at all are probably Zero;  But you never know, Lake Superior creates a zone of uncertainty in every forecast, and since it tends to boost or suck the energy of storms, this could burn out early and give me a nice day tomorrow.  I got my water bottle and some extra paper towels from the Canadian Tire, I was going to go to the grocery store and look around, but there's not really any point, since I have more than enough food for two weeks most likely.  So I decided to head down to pebble beach,  which had apparently received a massive overhaul with huge cedar boardwalks and railings.  The wind has died down some, but the waves are still coming in.  These are nothing compared to the huge ones that I experienced with my parents last time I was here, but they are still pretty impressive.  Considering the wind is coming straight into the shore I'm kind of confused why they aren't massive ocean sized waves.  I got some snap shots, and some establishing shots.  Nothing great, these aren't planned or artistic, just hand-held.. but maybe there's something here.  I went down from the lookout to the beach proper, and layed down on the stones right behind the ridge where they've been pushed up from the ice and waves crashing, so I was reletively safe - note there is another ridge pushed up behind me from when things are extra insane, but that apparently is not today.  From this vantage point I shot quite a few pictures at 'eye level' with the crashing waves, which will hopefully be interesting.  After getting a few more shots down the coast, I climbed back up and made one final attempt to call my parents.  This time went through and I spend about 20 minutes updating them on things, before heading back to Pukaskwa.  Oh, I did top off my gas tank, which was hovering around 50% as well, It pays to be topped up out here.  I returned to my camp site, to find the tarp that had stood through last night finally collapsed.. so I had to fix it.. some of the pegs and ripped right out of the ground, and especially interesting to find those were the ones I had to hammer in with my folding shovel because the ground was so hard.  After fixing that, I went back to the car, and unboxed the folding water tank.  I also pulled out the wet hoodie from my backpack so I could hang it up, and cleaned out the wrappers and such I had packed out.  I got the cameras and took them to the trailer, i will copy the memory cards to the big laptop and maybe edit some in the evening.  (it is copying over as I type this - multi-tasking!)  once that was done, I locked everything up and walked to the comfort station, which also is where the water tap is.  I had to do some other business, and once that was done, got some soap out of the dispenser, and waved my hand under the automatic tap. 'click'  no water.  I tried again 'click'  no water.  Shit! now I have soap on my hand and no water, I tried to shake some off.. but it wouldn't come off.  so i walked outside to the water spigot with my new tank, and turned on the tap - nothing.  Perfect..  I walked back to my site, empty jug and soapy hand.  I did wash my hands with water off the tarp.. but I guess getting more 'contaminated' water will maybe require me dipping the tank in the lake, which right now, would be likely to have me washed away.  I'll have to check later.  At least the clouds appear to have gone a bit higher, so the tree tops aren't obscured anymore.  This means going on that lookout trail this afternoon might be a good idea.  I'll have lunch and then decide what to do.

Lunch was 'expensive' ramen ($1.99) and maple tea, with some Kool-Aid, because it is a bit spicy.  I thought, hey, I need some protein, and dropped an egg in for the last ~1 minute and still managed to over-cook it.  I guess you really need to take it off the heat for that to work.  The white fully separated from the yolk and somehow managed to burn to the bottom of the pot.  Titanium pots don't seem to do well with 'anything' that can stick.  I guess the oxide layer provides tones of surface area to stick to.  This is why the Stagg Silverado is still in its can.  Perhaps the last morning with some wieners, when I can just say 'fuck it' and pack it away with stuck bits to scrub at my parent's place.  Anyhow, the water situation is pretty dire, so after packing up, and deciding to do the headlands trail, I cruised by the comfort station again, to ensure I'm empty as there's literally no place to squat on that trail, and try to get water.  The water is back on! I filled the floppy jug most of the way before it got too heavy to hold the stupid mouth straight.  I now remember why these things are shit..  but if it is a container you only need sometimes, its good because it takes up hardly any space.  I returned to my campsite, just in time to watch the two idiots with the inflatable boat, truck off down to the lake with it.  Well, I guess they'll either get blown back to shore, or end up as a darwin award.  I locked up and proceeded to the water access, where the headlands trail's closest access was.  It seems the two idiots are just messing around near shore, it is fairly sheltered here, but the waves are raging just a few hundred meters away.  I started to wonder if I was the actual idiot, because;  Holy crap, this is dangerous.  the rocks are soaking wet, and covered with lichen.  I can barely manage to progress, and it is getting very sketchy.  I thought, well, I'll just find a nice place to stop, and sit and watch the waves.. maybe record some 360 video, its too windy to actually do a real video, and even if I had the lave mic on the water is spraying at me so much I'm sure it'd get inside the camera, because the door needs to be removed for the external microphone to work, and it is no longer fully sealed when you do that.  So I found a good vantage over Hattie Cove and held onto the invisible selfie stick with a death grip as the wind battered the little camera around.  The cloud deck was too low for much in the way of a good shot, so I just sat there, it was surprisingly warm even with the wind, and I was wearing my merino wool T-shirt under my raincoat which is an excellent barrier.  I sat like that for what must have been twenty minutes.  The clouds started to clear a bit, and the wind wasn't spraying rain everywhere, and in fact the rocks were drying quite fast.  So, I tried to push on a bit, and found the going was a lot more 'safe'.  The trail seemed to be pretty inconsistently marked, and I actually found quite a few side trails that could very well have been just animal trails, or places water had run and destroyed the vegetation.  This is a difficulty with places like this, because, if there isn't strict marking, people go off on anything that looks like the trail, and come to a dead end, and turn back - so now you have something that could have been just an animal trail, or an erosion trail, that people have walked on, so now it looks like the actual trail.  Compound that with thousands of visitors yearly, and you really can't tell the difference anymore.  This is another reason I say, have a map and a compass, or a GPS, or all of the above.  People might laugh at you but you'll be getting the last laugh, trust me.  Anyhow, there are some pretty nice views from this trail, and I found the Adirondack chairs, bolted to one of the best overlooks of Hattie Cove.  I did not partake though, because they were soaking wet, even though they are made of plastic.  Continuing on, the weather continued to clear, though the temperature is definitely dropping now, and the winds are becoming far stronger at least out here.  It could be because I'm out of the shelter of the cove, but the waves aren't huge so there has to be some cross-winds.  I can see the waves definitely have an 'interference' pattern to them out in the distance, so that must be why they aren't as huge as I remember.  They are still plenty deadly to the unprepared, that's for sure.  The wind being as it is would have taken my old clipper canoe and pinned it against the rocks so the waves could grind me to pulp there, that is absolutely certain.  I came back around the trail and ended up on the beach in Horseshoe Bay, where there's an old look-out deck, and a painting by the group of seven immortalized,  I looked at it every which way, and I'm pretty certain that it wasn't actually painted here.. some of the elements lined up, but most did not.  It looked like he was painting from a spot in the sky behind where I was, and there is no ridge like that back there I can see.  Anyhow, since it was still kind of gloomy, I decided to do some painting of my own - using light.  I set up my tripod and got it firmly set, and got out the ND100 square filter, and got some 30s open shutter shots, that should be interesting, they make the water seem a placid pool, when its actually a raging torrent.  Afterwards, I got out the 'bigma' and shot some more action packed shots to capture the waves crashing, far out in the distance.  I hope they are sharp!

The return was along the coastline, and the wind was just howling, I could feel the water evaporating from my eyeballs, there were tears coming down my cheeks that were dry and gone before they even reached my beard.  But I found a spot, and set up and got some more 360 footage and some more handheld shots.  I nearly lost my lens cap when I accidentally dropped it and the wind took it and threw it about 20 feet behind me into a crag! From now on those go in my pocket!  I finally returned to my campsite after about another 20 or so minutes of hiking.  My feet are sore again, and itchy.  I really think these new keens I got aren't as good as the old ones.  In fact, tomorrow when I go on my last planned hike - I'm going to wear the old ones and see if they're actually more comfortable.  Sore feet are hard to deal with when hiking, they make everything worse.   Anyhow, I'm in the trailer now.. its 10c outside and I'm running my little 500w heater to get the temperature up.  It is brighter outside, but still overcast.  The radio says that it is supposed to rain overnight, but should just be overcast and windy tomorrow.  We'll see.. I saw something that looked like blue sky hanging out over something that couldn't possibly be the sleeping giant to the north west when I was up on the headlands, I'm good with mixed sun and cloud, because it offers far more opportunity for interesting shots during the midday period.

I guess I'll have to get off my ass now, as it is 5:00PM  I am finally hungry again, but since I had such a lavish lunch I don't want to overdo it.  I am down to about 1 Liter of drinking water, and all my canteens are empty.  Guess I'm going to be boiling - a lot.  10 LBS of propane was a great idea if I do say so myself.

I had Mac n cheese with a hotdog in it, and then after cleaning up I started the boilathon.  I have two containers that hold one liter, and two that hold 500ml and that is four rounds of boiling.  Once those were full, I added one liter of boiled water to the blue jug, which has my remaining fresh water.  I guess it isn't fresh anymore.  Boiled water tastes 'flat' to me, but mixing it with fresh water should help a bit..  I edited some photos with luminar until around 8:30 pm and then retired for the night.  The temperature is dropping outside pretty fast.  It is already 8c degrees outside.  My little heater is keeping the inside relatively nice at 18-19 degrees, so no worries there.  One of the problems with my trailer is, it is too well sealed.  I mean, carbon dioxide builds up inside if you close the windows doors and roof vent, so to keep my home-away-from home from being my tomb, I have to keep the window and vent open.  I've experimented with a C02 meter, and while I can only get the levels very low by leaving the door open (might as well just sleep under the stars)  I've found that I can keep the levels moderate by leaving the top vent open a crack, and the window open by about 1/3.  This is a good balance between fresh air and not freezing, but I want to figgure out a better solution, like a floor vent.  The problem with that is keeping critters out, and not letting rain in when driving.  I need to find something that can be closed and waterproof during travel.  The idea, is that since C02 is a heavy gas, it should just find its own way out the floor vent, and since heat rises, the cold air should also find its own way out.  I need to spend some time on this topic and see what others have done.