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Manitoulin at last

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Espanola, Ontario, 2003.08.02

Today my mum and I set out at last to do the Manitoulin trip we've been threatening for two years. We headed off at 8:30 or so, and zipped up to Sudbury (zipped being a relative term: it's a four hour drive). Then across to Little Current on Manitoulin, where we learned that all of the accomodations to be had... had been had. We back-tracked a bit to Espanola and found the 'last hotel room' in town.

There are a thousand bikers with the "Harley-Davidson Owner's Group" in town. The weather hasn't really been cooperating, and I don't imagine the back of a bike (no matter how ridiculously loud) is going to be very comfortable.

When I went into a small inconvenience store and asked if they had ear plugs (our hotel is right on the highway), the fellow asked me if 'someone' was worried about the weather. I had to ask what he was talking about. It turns out that his wife keeps earplugs on hand for lightning storms, of which she's afraid. Dubiously, I took the battered earplug container. They may have been used, but they were remarkably fresh and clean. I used them.

rand()m quote

It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.

—Wendell Berry