Road Diary 03/06/23 - London, ON
Home. I arrived at 8pm last night in time to surprise @hillarywatsonmusic with flowers on her walk home from work. Perhaps my first ever truly successful surprise. And what a drive it was to pull it off.
I leave Comox at 11:30AM on Tuesday. Drive 1.5 hours to Nanaimo then take a 1.5 hour ferry to Vancouver, after which I drive 4.5hrs to Cache Creek, BC on the Sea to Sky (highway 99). It‘s one of the most beautiful highways I’ve ever driven. Sleep in my truck behind an A&W and gas station.
On Wednesday, I drive 10.5hrs to Medicine Hat and stay with friends @fontanacopy and Misha. I shower, eat a delicious homemade meal, have great conversations and sleep on a comfy couch.
On Thursday, drive 1700kms from Alberta to Ashland, WI, on the southern shores of Lake Superior — over 18 hours — a new personal record. Sleep in the truck in a parking lot on the lakeshore. I’d planned to stop in Duluth, MN, a couple hundred kilometres earlier, but when I got there I was feeling awake and knew that any extra hours I shaved off that night would be fewer on the final day.
Friday, I make it home. “Only” 11.5 hrs of driving. 3 Great Lakes on the way and I decide to swim in all of them— Superior, Michigan, and Huron. Enough years working with the @ce.beachrescue service and I know you don’t pass a body of water without getting into it. I’m half-tempted to try and drive extra hours to do Erie and Ontario too, but that seems irresponsible. One day I’ll do all 5 Great Lakes in a day, but not today after 3 full days of all-day driving. Still, the 3 lakes I swim in feel magical and refreshing and break up the drive.
I’m home by 8pm, and have a chance to cuddle Frida, drink a beer, and get my wits about me before walking to meet Hillary on her way home from work. Our reunion and the surprise timing (for her) is all I could have wanted it to be after almost 6 weeks apart. I’ve missed her and I’m happy to be home. My grounded home, the one with a physical foundation, the one that isn’t the road, as familiar as the road feels.
I’d do it all again I think. But next time I’ll do it differently.
