North Lake Superior – The Literal End of the Road and OLD WOMAN BAY – ECSTATICALLY ALONE TOUR
Today, my second last day on the road, my drive around northern Lake Superior, was INDEED amazing.
Thank you to the sweet baby jesus and the bunnies…and also?
The kitties.
Let’s not forget the kitties.
It’s a long drive from Thunder Bay to Sault Ste Marie (7:25 without stops) and I wanted to do ALL the stops, so I left at 9:00am, because of the time change that makes the sun set at 3:00pm…or at least, that is what if feels like.
THIS is my favourite part of the Ontario drive.
MY FAVOURITE FUCKING PART.
I drove out of the Valhalla Inn in Thunder Bay, the place where I ALWAYS stay when I’m there, with an anticipatory smile on my face.
SIDEBAR: There is something truly cozy about frequenting the same motels/hotels on my repeat journeys, they are comforting touchstones along the road, which is especially nice when you are solo.
END OF SIDEBAR.
And yes, while these last three days of driving were and are relentless, I INDEED CHOSE to make the rest of this trip amazing.
If the weather is good for this part of the Lake Superior? It’s fucking magic.
And if it’s bad?
Listen to Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Thankfully, it was good.
WAIT.
It was MORE than good, it was perfect.
Well and truly perfect.
Temperature, 12 degrees.
Cloud cover, none.
Me? Perfectly dressed in one of my favourite outdoor outfits of many colours.
It was yellow and gold and pink and orange and blue.
THAT is a musical theatre joke.
And yes, I had to sing it over in my head a few times.
Also, my sleep was plentiful and my mood was good, this is a combo that is priceless for me…throw in the comfy, colourful outfit, and the weather? BOOOOOM.
Today, I stopped for the first time at Aguasabon River Gorge…and it was, indeed, gorge.
Lol.
Hahahah.
FYI: This is the point I’m at in my aloneness. Singing musical theatre songs while slaying myself and pep talking myself. AND it’s a very FINE line between the two. Like…super fine. Like…razor thin.
The Aguasabon Falls were stunning, the air was filled with mist…and the sun was blazing through that mist.
It was like a view from a movie.
How had I missed this before?
I strode down the wooden walkway to the gorge…of course, it was fucking a walk DOWN, which made me laugh, because we all know that means now.
You know what?
A lovely thing learned on this trip is to really give some thought to a journey down…the question to ask yourself is this:
Do you think the journey down is worth the climb back up?
Interesting.
LESSONS ABOUND.
Sometimes, too many lessons…but lessons all the same.
Anyhow, on my way down (yes, I decided it would be worth it and was right) passed a younger person making their way back up.
There was one other car in the parking lot, so I assumed this was the owner.
Carrying a camera, they smiled at me as they passed, and said
They: It’s really beautiful.
Me: I can’t wait!
And it was.
It really was.
I’m SO glad I stopped there.
It suddenly and wholeheartedly felt like an adventure again.
I even put on my Keen hiking boots, in celebration
It felt so much like adventure, that I did some ballet barre, as one does.
When I came back up to make my lunch sandwich on the roof of my KIA, as I do most days, the owner of the other car was ALSO making a sandwich on their tailgate.
We chatted about where we were at in our journeys (They were on their way to Lake Louise from Toronto), the middles of our sandwiches (mine was ham, their’s was salami) and how lucky we were to be having this weather.
We ate our sandwiches in companionable silence, then I was on my way.
It’s nice to chat a bit sometimes, as well as have someone to have a companionable silence with.
As I drove this highway today for the 10th or 12th time (I cannot remember exactly how many times I’ve been on it, and I’ve also driven it during the winter, for work, god help me) it felt like home.
It REALLY did.
My heart was steady, my stomach was relaxed, my brain was clear and excited, and my foot was not lead, I went the speed limit.
Yeah, so, I got a ticket in Banff, my second speeding ticket (that is so hard to type) in my entire life.
I’m too ashamed to have not been going to right speed limit to talk about it.
I wasn’t street racing…it was just…leaving town…looking for the on ramp…oy vey.
ANYHOW!!
I know all the places I like to stop on the North Superior Route.
I know all the places I stopped the second last time I drove it, three years ago, right after my separation, when I was raw as a new wound.
I know all the places I stopped when I drove it twice, with my ex.
I know all the places I stopped with Ari on the way out to Tofino, last month.
One of the reasons I wanted to drive here again, is because I love this drive so much, I want it to be mine, now.
Not the sad drive of three years ago, or the drive I made with my ex those thousands of years ago, both of which it will always be no matter what I do because that’s history, but NOW, I want the freshest feeling to be that this drive is the place where yummy adventures happen.
This is NOW the drive where I remind myself who I am, what I’m made of, and how far the road goes BEYOND my favourite, and historically challenging drive…all the way to the Pacific.
I also want to build the program inside me that reminds me heartily that I’ve driven and cared for myself the WHOLE way down that road…and back.
Spiritually and physically.
This afternoon, as the sun started to fall into the lake, I was listening to Brandi Carlisle’s LETTER TO THE PAST, when I rounded a mountain bend and spied one of my favourite places in the world, Old Woman Bay.
To be clear on TWO points, I was listening to the song on repeat for about forty minutes so it was not a surprise that it was playing AND, yes, I too cannot believe the name of my favourite place in almost the whole world is Old Woman Bay.
I know, right?
I’ve written about this place before, on here.
This place, whose name I didn’t know at the time, was the reason I went on my drive to Winnipeg three years ago, leaving the very moment after I signed my separation papers.
That was a truly terrible and cathartic drive, to say the very least.
AND I happened on OLD WOMAN BAY for the FIRST time, when I was driving back from working in Kamloops with my ex-husband, one hundred thousand days ago.
At least, it seems that long.
All those years ago, we drove around the same mountain bend, saw the bay, and I madly yelled at my ex to pull over.
As I stood on the beach that day, a million years ago, clutching my IPAD for some reason, I proclaimed it one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen.
It really was.
The sun was setting and it was fucking magic.
I stood there, in awe of my surroundings, and he took my picture.
THIS picture, the one below, was not the best picture, I have NO idea what my face is up to in it…but I loved this view.
I made the picture that was captured moments AFTER the following one, where I look cute as hell, my screen wallpaper for years…and though I just looked around my computer for an extended period of time for THAT picture, the cute one, I could not find it…so here is the weird-face one.
It is apt, I think.
OKAY, HERE IS THE ODD BUT TRUE-STORY ON HOW THIS PICTURE CAME TO BE IN MY POSSESSION:
Sometime, near the end of last year, just after the first time I wrote about this beautiful bay in a note on the Facebook, my ex sent me an email from a new address that I’d not yet blocked.
The above picture was attached to the email, with a short message saying how beautiful this moment was.
For clarity, today, after I visited Old Woman Bay and started writing this post, I went back into my “divorce and separation and fuck that shit” files (you gotta keep stuff like this because life…like this picture…is weird) and reread the email and checked the date.
The email and picture were sent to me on October 14th, 2020 and if I am keeping it clear and correct, this email and picture were sent to me about a month after another email from my ex that congratulated me on the sale of my house.
That I did not respond to.
It was two and half years since I found out my ex was cheating on me.
Two years after the terrible separation.
One year after the divorce, AND a bit longer since the last time we spoke at all.
But who is keeping track, right?
Well, humans, THIS is the kind of shit you never forget.
They are a part of life’s shitty date book…the kind that won’t burn.
This picture was attached to the October 14th email, with a short message saying how beautiful this moment was.
I never answered the email OR the oddly timed sentiment.
I don’t answer those emails anymore and haven’t for a very, very long time because, INNER PEACE, BABY.
ALSO, this aforementioned email and the weird-face picture meant that my ex was still reading my writing, looking at my shit, believing we had something soft to share with each other AND, most weird point of all, went back eight years or so through their pictures to find it.
Yeah, I know…weird, right?
Now, isn’t it quite apparent how weird my face was in this picture?
Does this LOOK like a beautiful moment for me?
THIS picture…scroll back up and look at it for yourself….is literally the picture featured beside a text book description of the phrase “Really NOT a beautiful moment for her”.
Maybe…and I don’t know for sure, mind…maybe THIS is how I was seen.
The email, the picture, the timing, and the sentiment that went along with it, spoke volumes to me.
I shook my head about it for a couple of days and it’s one of those weird things that pops into my head for no apparent reason in the shower, or in the middle of a long drive, or in an UBER, making my throat force out the sound, “Euhhuh”, in reaction before I move on.
I wish could have found the other picture, which I enjoy way better…but now that I think about it, this, THIS is actually perfect.
So, yes, I guess the point I’m trying to make, is this picture is INDEED APT.
When my marriage was over, when the ink was still drying on the sheets and sheets of paper that I had to sign to make my marriage over, when I drove away from the lawyer’s office in my ever intrepid KIA, I knew I needed to see this place, this bay again.
I needed to see that it was still beautiful, that it was real, that I could truly enjoy it, even if I was alone.
But I didn’t know the name of it, or where it was on the route between the Sault to Thunder Bay.
Much to my great unhappiness, I couldn’t find it on the way out to Ari in Winnipeg…nope…BUT on the way back?
On the way back from that hard and wonderful week with Ari, after the finalization of my separation, two weeks after my hard and terrible drive west during which I did not find my storied bay, I came around the mountain bend, and there it was…just waiting for me.
It felt like it was presented to me as a gift.
I sobbed like a child when I found it.
The place was still beautiful and still real…even if I was alone.
Dear goddess.
Thank you.
It had not changed one bit.
Again, like many things in my new, weird, scary, life…it might actually have been sweeter.
I am gonna take a leap here and say it WAS sweeter.
I took this picture myself, on a tripod.
An Australian woman who was also appreciating the view, asked if she could take it for me…but I told her I could do it myself.
I needed to do it myself. She seemed to understand.
THIS was the day that I discovered that it was called OLD WOMAN BAY…and I laughed so hard when I saw the name on a plaque beside the bay, that I had to lean against my car to stay upright and not pee myself.
The same goddamned car I drove to it, today.
That KIA is a real goer.
AND the bay STILL hasn’t changed.
Not one bit.
When I drove around the bend today, and saw the sun blazing against the writhing surf, I whooped out loud for the hundredth time on this journey.
It’s still thrilling.
The journey and the Bay.
Yes, lord, there is still adventure…even in the last, tired days of this pilgrimage.
I am gonna go out on a limb here, and say that I think OLD WOMAN BAY measures up to any beach I walked, on Vancouver Island.
I parked and got out of the car, the wind whipping my face, and stood on the cold sand, so fucking happy to be there.
I was so fucking happy to see it again.
I was so fucking happy to see it again…happy.
To see it, when I was full to the brim with experiences…and joy…and choices…and good health…and a future that I was very excited about.
The last time I was there, three years ago, I wrote a song about it, a song that still doesn’t have music, but one day it might.
I will put the lyrics at the end of this post.
OH yeah, I fancied it a folk song, so it’s in a poet-ie rhythm.
AND I was full on melancholy…so, it’s fairly maudlin.
Fuck it, I still love it…and stand by it.
I took a NEW selfie today while standing on the shores of OLD WOMAN BAY…
…and then, after I stood for a while longer, I said good bye to her, and drove the rest of the way to Sault Ste Marie.
When the sun had set on the short November day and I got just outside of the Sault, I popped on to a side road to book a hotel of Hotwire and have a pee in the bushes.
I know, I’m now a bush peeing expert.
It’s faster, people…and on a drive where the bathrooms are NOT abundant, one must get used to making do.
I did the HOTWIRE Hot Deal, where you don’t get to pick your hotel, but the price is right…and there are ways to ACTUALLy quickly figure out which hotel it is (Thanks Ari) but I was so weary, that I took a chance.
When I got closer and closer to the hotel on my GPS, when my “I’ve been here before-ness kicked in”, when I drove up to the front door of the Quality Inn, I guffawed. It’s the VERY same hotel I’ve accidentally stayed at almost EVERY time I’ve stopped in Sault Ste Marie, specifically I stayed there just hours after every one of those pictures of me on OLD WOMAN BAY.
The first time I stayed there, it was the last time I made this trip with my ex.
The second time was at the end of my grand separation journey.
And here I was, again.
I checked in, and hauled my stuff up to my room as I do at the end of every drive day, bike, food and all, when I was done? I felt…comfy and cozy.
Yes, I did. AND oh, how I spun in a circle of joy in the middle of that room at the arrival of that feeling.
I’ve changed my life.
It was hard as fuck.
Also? It was thrilling.
I’ve changed my fucking view.
Also, hard as fuck.
Also, Also? Thrilling.
I’ve walked onto beaches, driven roads and slept in places that were haunted and declared them, like that chick in Poltergeist after Carolanne travelled back through the gooey tunnel of the afterlife, CLEAR.
Clear, motherfucker.
Clear.
Oh wait… CLEAN!! SHE said it was CLEAN.
NOTED!!
I dropped the last of my bags, plunked down in the hotel room arm chair, which was uncommonly comfortable, and scrolled through these three pictures on my phone.
The aim of this trip was to get to Tofino.
To start it with Ari, to drive to Patty, to continue on to Jasper, to get to Tofino, then to get home before the snowfall, while stopping to see Jann along the way.
That was the aim. THAT was the entire plan for this trip.
The power to choose where I wanted to go everyday was the candy of this plan.
I KNEW that exorcising the ghosts of my beloved Lake Superior Route would be part of it, but I really did not foresee how perfect it was to end this pilgrimage.
Honestly?
I’m going to be over the moon when the mention of any part of my marriage, is a thing of the past.
Specifically, I would LOVE to finally catalogue and shelve the long list of lessons, healing scars and the all-over rebuild that was a result of it’s bitter, confusing, heartbreaking, trust stealing, devastating ending and ALL the million subsequent aftershocks.
Folding the long chapter of my marriage into colourful story of my life, is like my history with Northern Lake Superior route, true and undeniable, but something to learn from, acknowledge and sometimes appreciate the view and memory of (I know, who knew, but it happens on occasion).
I will NOT let the marriage chapter, including the emotionally UGGGGGG few years after, turn into a long term injury that seems to NEVER get better, a pain that flares up again and again to be endlessly endured with teeth gritted and tight muscles.
No, I will not.
I AM SO CLOSE TO THE END OF THIS CHAPTER, I CAN FUCKING TASTE IT.
But it didn’t just happen.
Like the last three days of this fucking adventure, it was FUCKING WORK.
I sat there in the hotel room in Sault Ste Marie and looked through these three pictures again and again.
I saw a woman who, with great intent, took hold of her life, who continually decided to hold the fuck on when the journey took a fucking seemingly life threatening turn, who learned to trust the forecast for “better days ahead” in the middle of shit weather, and who searched for the thriving part of life, past the surviving part.
In short, if I may…AND I VERY MUCH MAY….I saw me.
That’s me.
Take a look for yourself. : )
NOW, THAT IS A BEAUTIFUL MOMENT!!! !
God bless the journey, you guys.
GOD bless my warrior heart.
While I was indeed in woman in the first picture of the three at one point, I’m NOW the embodiment of the last picture…and I love both versions…all three versions, in fact.
In retrospect and NOWTROSPECT.
I closed my phone, shucked all my clothes, turned on the travelling Bluetooth speaker that Thom gifted me before I left, programmed some beloved music on my IPAD, and jumped into the shower, washing the dust of the day off…and found myself 100% tired AND happy.
I felt CLEAN all over.
This trip was the REAL celebration of the 50th birthday that I wish I’d had, but had three years later, the cherry on top of the birthday month that I just celebrated every single day of.
This was the jump from the plane, the bungee off the bridge, that signalled the end of one thing, and the beginning of another.
I know…such a lofty story, right? But I claim it.
I CLAIM IT!!!!
TOWANDA!!!!
I’m so excited to get home, I only slept for four hours last night, here in Sault Ste Marie.
FOUR HOURS.
FUCKING FUCK FUCK.
So, I’m going to have something caffeinated (not my usual perimenopausal jam) and get on the road to Toronto.
I can stop along the way, and have a nap…but it seems I’m not getting another smack of sleep here, so why toss and turn.
Home.
Home.
Home.
Home.
Home.
Home.
She calls.
I love Toronto, if I may add that thought to all the above.
That is something else I’ve really learned along this way.
While I love seeing other places, I love Toronto.
SPOILER: TORONTO!! YOU GUYS, A LOT OF PEOPLE DON’T LOVE US.
But that’s okay.
Only WE have to.
Thank you.
Thank you for following along. For cheering me on. For sending me messages and notes. For being my witnesses to this grand adventure.
Who knows where I will go next?
Oh wait. I totally know where I’me going. I am going home. To bed.
I am weary. I am, again, full. With a smile on my face. And caffeine in my blood. FUCK. I hope I can sleep.
UPDATE! I slept till 1:30pm the next day.
November 10th, 2021 – S.M.
Sault Ste Marie, ON
“SPOILER: TORONTO!! YOU GUYS, A LOT OF PEOPLE DON’T LOVE US.”
hahaha! Crazy ain’t it?
I too love my beautiful city.
Maybe you have to live IN Toronto, like really IN it… to appreciate it’s beauty.
Not in the “GTA/burbs” only driving in on the weekend to tourist traps, chain big box stores/eateries, and gridlock, but IN a neighbourhood, named and defined within for several blocks by the people that settled there decades ago, filled with small independent shops, and restaurants, and a sense of community, where you know the names of or at the very least recognize faces of the people round you.
I too have traveled and lived in many places around the world, but I am ever so happy to arrive back in the 416.
Toronto is home.
Yes it’s a slogan, but it is my TRUTH.
YES!!!!!!!
and that trio of photos made me cry with the happiness of a woman who has walked (driven) the same path…
How empowering to have photographic proof stepping into yourself and who you were meant to become. <3