Friday 19th/Nov
Day 9
The morning was pretty chilly I got water from the lake and took the cat for a walk. We left at like 12 to 1. I made a two-part Tiktok of what it looks like in our bus here is the like to it on Youtube.
Part 2
On the way out we went for a short walk in Pukaskwa National park It was not as windy as the day before. We didn't take the cat with us this time because it is easier to walk without her. After our hike, we drove to Nipago and stayed at a motel for the night.
This picture is of were firefighters had a controlled forest fire.
20/Nov
Day 10
The motel was close to the Nipago river so we drove to Tim Hortons and then went and saw the river. There was a tower that you could climb up to see the river better so we did that.
The sleeping giant was our next destination to hike the giant. We biked to the summit before we started hiking. My bike tire was pretty flat so it was very hard to bike but I went mountain biking a lot this year so I still had the lag mussels. We started hiking at like 3 the sun was very low in the sky. We had a couple that was hiking behind us, we wore not the only ones on the trail. We walked to the feet because didn't have enough daylight to go to the head. The trail we hiked started by going up then went down into a valley between the hills.
Once through the valley, we started going up again. It was very steep we were practically doing lunges at one point, but it was all worth it for the view.
We didn't want to walk to the other side of the feet because we wore biking back and wouldn't have been fun in the dark. We got back to the bikes at twilight so we did end up biking in the dark I was the only one that brought a headlamp so I went behind well Avery and mom stayed in front so they could see. I was sweating like crazy when we went up the hills because of my flat tire I surprisingly could keep up. I was so happy when we finally made it to the bus. When we got back to the car there was a lair of frost on the ground. We drove to the Prince Arthur Hotel in downtown Thunder Bay for a couple of nights or so we thought.
History of the Price Arther Hotel
It was built in 1910 Being the of the first building in Thunder Bay to have a boiler (it is still fully functional to this day). They built a tunnel system going from the boiler to the train station and another hotel.
The tunnel to the train station collapsed when they built a highway over it but some of the tunnels still exist they sadly blocked them all off because they are ae no longer safe to go in. But if you wore to get in there you would see some bear skeletons of bears that wore just trying to find a nice spot to hibernate. The second floor is also hunted by a man who died in one of the rooms.
21 to 24
Day 11 to 18
We stayed at the Prince Arther waiting for Avery and my passports to come. We spent the days exploring the downtown area. The hotel was right across from the water and a fairly big park with an outside Tai Chi training center that has a hug ying-yang circle made out of stones and a circular arch.
A skateboard park that I used a lot with the short cruiser that we recently got. I got a lot of bosses there. Further down from the skateboard across from our hotel there is a fountain in the summer and a skating rink in the winter. They were working on it when we walked by and we asked if we could skate on it they said we could after hours if we wanted.
We did once it was a little bumpy, it was also fairly cold that night so we didn’t skate long.
On the 22 we walked to Hill park it has this really long steel slide that for some reason sadly could not slide down we just stuck to it. The park is up on a hill looking down on the downtown area.
On the 23 we went for a walk at Central Park we had to drive the bus there it has old buildings in the park that are from an old logging camp that were all locked for the winter. When we were walking my mom found a pink amethyst rock so we kept our eyes open and we were able to find a couple more we found some that were dark purple.
On the 24th of November when we went outside to our bus at 11 am the bikes on the back of our bus wore stolen. I went inside and told the security guard she told me to call the police station and she then went and looked at the security footage. They had two people stealing it on camera at 3:25 am the day before. I called and left a message well I was waiting and helping my mom shack some things out by the bus a man came biking by I looked at the bike and it was my bike I told him that he needed to give it back to me as I waved the security guard over. He said that he bought it for $20 so he gave it to me he then left saying that he wanted his $20 whenever we could give it to him. Well he was talking to us he mentioned that he could get us the other bike back if there was an award, we didn't want to give him money so we didn’t think much of it. The police called back well we wore talking to the man that had my bike I told them that the hotel had the thief on camera. He said that they would send someone over to get it that day. They didn’t come till a week later the day that we were leaving the hotel to start driving.
25 We went skating that night because the city workers that were working on the rink said we could skate on it at night. Avery and I skated, it was pretty cold outside so we didn’t skate that long.
26 We went for another walk in Central park Before we walked Polar met a doggy friend so he played for a little we started talking to the Owner her name was Anna. After a while of talking she invited us over for dinner. So we went for our walk then later we walked from the hotel to her house. It was like 6km one way. She invited her friend and his girlfriend as well she made curry for dinner it was very good. Turns out that Anna, her friend and her boyfriend were all pilots. So I talked to them about going to the Aviation College in Thunder Bay they gave me a lot of information on it. It was nice to be able to talk to some locals.
29
Day 19
We rented a car to go and look at some properties, we left at like 3. At the first property we met the guy there he made a trail along the border of the property. The land is 8 acres and it had a river flowing through it. There was a marker where it was the best spot to build there was a very nice view of some hills. After we went down to the boat launch on Lake Superior near buy to see the spot where we would put our watercrafts in. We went and saw the other property we tried to walk through the forest to the river but it was very thick and hard to walk through and was getting very dark, also there was a pack of coyotes that were getting very close, when we were walking back out my mom saw a coyote she didn't tell us till we were in the car though. We then drove to the border to talk to them about being able to cross. We went to the Canadian side and were told to go over and talk to the U.S. side so we crossed over and talked to them. They told us that we could not cross even if it was essential, but they told my mom to call their boss anyway to see what he said. We then headed back to the Canadian side, U.S said they would call cover to Canada to let them know we were coming through. When got over there we drove by the widow and no one was there so we just drove through, but that was a big mistake because the alarms started going off and a man came out of the building telling us not to move with a gun pointed at us. So we backed up to the window and they had to confirm it was us then we were on our way. That was very scary moment the border people are very intimidating.
30 to Dec 2
Day 20 to 22
We booked an airb&b for the next two nights so we could finally cook our food in the bus that was starting to go bad and because we were still waiting for my passport.
Avery and I went skating well my mom returned the car we took the cat and dog with us because in was nice and sunny outside the cat hid in the skate bag because there was to much going on. When my mom came back we went to the airb&b. The place was very neat and clean. It was a bottom apartment with no windows they told us that they were new to the whole renting thing. They were missing a lot of stuff in the kitchen that we had to bring in from the bus. We stayed two nights here, we paid for one more night but because you booked everything online we thought we would be staying another night but the lady upstairs texted and said have a nice trip. We asked her if we were supposed to be leaving and we were so we packed everything up as fast as we could and then left. The passport office of Thunder Bay finely called me back. They said the file finally arrived and we could pick up the passport the next day so we stayed at the Prince Arther hotel again.
3ed
Day 23
The next day we walk to all the little shops that we went to well in Thunder bay and took videos of them to add to the documentary. We first went to a cafe called the Groggy Toad It is run by a very nice couple, Sara and Cory. They had a lot of gluten-free and dairy-free options. We all got hot chocolate with whip cream, marshmallows and drizzled chocolate.
Then went to an indoor market that has a lot of pop-up shops.
After that, we went to a small shop that had lots of homemade lotions, perfumes, jewelry, shirts, and they have these robes that are hand-made with recycled silks by ladies in Africa. This shop is also run by a very friendly couple and they allow pets in their store.
The last store we went to was a t-shirt shop that also allows pets and they sell some jewelry from small business too.
I sadly misplaced the GoPro and still can not find it. I may have left it in the hotel room I’m not sure. So I don't have many videos from the beginning of our trip and I can’t take videos of skiing, but it was pretty outdated and I wanted to get a new one soon anyway.
We drove to Dryden because it was pretty late. We stayed at a Motel outside of right outside of Dryden the very nice owner let in stay outside in our bus for free, filled up our 5L bucket with water and gave us the wifi password. We kept polar on leash because the highway was right there. We had to cut up firewood that night but we forgot that the extension cord that we have would not connect to the saw so we had to use the hand saw. It wasn’t that bad, it was pretty windy outside though. It went down to -20 our coolest night sleeping in the bus.
4th
Day 24
We started driving at like 11 we made it to Winnipeg at like 7 and went through the first time difference we were now in Central Standard time zone. We stayed at the Norwood Hotel very close to downtown it was clean and newly renovated my only complaint was that all the plugs in the parking lot were on some sort of timer where they would only be on for 2 minutes then turn off for about 15, so everything in the bus was freezing.
5th
Day 25
We started smelling fuel coming from under the bus when we were in Thunder Bay but we didn't think anything of it because we have a jerrycan and generator on the back but we still smelt it so we decided to get it checked out. We took it to a truck mechanic shop to check it out the looked at it and it turns out that the fuel tank was leaking because it only had one strap it was supposed to have two straps. They told us to take it to a chevy dealership tomorrow. We walked to the fork because it was only down the road it was really cold outside mainly because it was so windy, but there also was a cold front that was going through.
6th
Day 26
My mom and I took the bus to the dealership in the morning, we got a shuttle back to the hotel. We then walked and got our brunch that we ordered I found this place called the Pancake House and they had gluten-free dairy-free waffles I was so excited because I hadn't had waffles for a long time, they were very good and bigger than I thought they would be. My mom got soup and salad from a cafe. Before we went and got our food we walked to a second-hand store it had huge rack of pay by the pound I thought that was really cool. We then picked up mom's food and dropped off our bags at the hotel then we went to get our food before heading to the hotel. The Pancake House was in an indoor Market that used to be an old train storage building. Almost the whole bottom of the market was a foodcourt with a lot of different food options. So of the places were full restaurants, the Pancake house was one of them. We took our food back to the hotel to eat it.
Later we went back to the Market to shop around there was a lot of nice shops, a very good spot to shop for christmas presents. There was a ice cream shop that had dairy-free ice cream so we got some there before we left.
7th
Day 27
We got the bus back this morning mom and I took a suttle to the dealership. We stay in for the afternoon because my mom had to do some work for her course. We walked downtown when it was dark to see the tree at city hall on the way we ordered food from the market so it could be ready when we got back. It was like a 20-minute walk oneway. When we got downtown we got had to go undergrown to cross the road. We had a very had a time trying to find the otherside of the road. We went up then back down becausew we were still on the wrong side of the road. The guy that was cleaning the floor told us where to go, but we still didn’t understand so buy the third time of passing him he stopped what he was doing and took us up the staircass that we needed to go up and showed us what way we had to go to get to city hall. We finely made it to the tree, it wasn’t as big as we fought it would be, but it was still very pretty.
8th
Day 28
We started driving at like 11:30 we stayed in Branden Manitoba at Meadowlark campground at a 30 amp back-in site there was no one else staying at the campsite, but the park was manly houses and we had access to a washroom with a shower and washing&dryers we found it very clean.
9th
Day 29
I took the animals for a walk in the morning it was a beautiful sunny day. Later that day when we were driving I called a motel in Regina to see if they had any full kitchens and they did but it was a smoking room so they said we could come to see it. We went through our second-time zone arriving at the motel at 9 and my mom went in and looked at the room, she thought it would just have to do and paid. When Avery went into the room she decided that she didn’t want to stay there I thought it was grouse as well the floor was filthy and so was the washroom and it smelt very strongly of cigarettes. So we asked for a non-smoking room and when we went in there it still smelt like cigarettes and it was not clean at all there was someone else's hair in the sheets and cigarette holes in the blankets. We told the lady at the front desk that we couldn’t stray there so we and we wanted our money back she said she could not give us our money back because we wore there for more than 15 minutes, we weren't going to leave them alone until they gave us bake at least a portion of our money she called the police on us but they said that this was out of there hands. We were able to get 40 back they kept 70 we were able to make them let us stay in the parking lot overnight.
10th
Day 30
We went to a laundromat and got soup for lunch eating it on the bus well we waited for our laundry. We then went to the Ramada hotel that I booked well we ate. It was very fancy when we walked inside it was a cathedral ceiling and had a big tree in the lobby. We put our bikes in the closet by the front desk. We took our stuff up to the hotel room when we got back from finely picking up my passport. The hotel was packed full of children for hockey tournaments so the elevators were very busy. We went down to the pool area and found out that you didn’t need to be vaccinated to swim there so after catching up with our friends in Nunuvot we went down to the pool. We took the stairs for fun, they were like a labyrinth of doors and different staircases. We swam for like an hour until a pile of kids showed up and the pool was fairly small so we left.
11th
Day 31
It has been exactally a month sence we left on this trip.
Avery and I walked to Starbucks at like 10 we asked for a late checkout the night before. We walked the dog through Victoria park and there were so many white hairs the looked like Arctic hairs because they were so big. Polar was very excited and wanted to chase them across the whole park.
We checked out at 11 and then went shopping downtown for like an hour or so. We started driving out of town I wanted to stop and look at this castle hotel the cost was like $800 dollars to stay there a night we thought it would be a very extravagant sight but it wasn't at all.
We then got something to eat and headed out of town. We made it to Moose Jaw at like 7 and stopped to look at the biggest statue of a moose in the world and the Snowbird statue because Moose Jaw is where the snowbirds originated from.
We were unable to drive anymore because the shifter was stuck so we decided to stay in the bus for the night then we would get CAA to talk our bus to the shop the next day. As Avery and I were about to go out of the bus to cut up some wood a Coca-Cola truck pulled into the parking lot all tight up in blue lights and Santa was diving it. A bunch of cars pulled in after the truck and one older guy came up to the bus and to compliment us on it and we told him our problem and he said that he could fix it. He was a pilot and a train conductor he said that he could talk me for a ride in his plane but the weather wasn't going to be good the next day so he couldn't take me for a flight. We ended up staying at the Quality Inn and Suites we got a room with a half kitchen it was very clean, spacious and newly renovated.
See you in the next post!!!!!
-- Backpackergirlz
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