At any rate, we embarked on our Journey South and East on the last day of July. In the fifteen minutes before we were being picked up for the bus terminal, my cats got loose outside. Now, my boy-os are not outside cats, although they have both done some time in the wilderness. With keen ears, I heard the excited mewing of Choco and we went around the front to see if we could find them. Gareth returned to get the jars of cat food for shaking and we called them by their names. It didn't take long to discover them in the neighbour's yard, which is very much like a forest full of undergrowth and narrow spaces between trees and saplings. I went around the front and into the yard to try shooing the cats back onto our grounds, while Gareth kept calling and shaking the food.
Twee, who has the heart of a wumpus, didn't take long to decide that food was a wonderful idea. He cut through the fence and bounded down to my apartment door ready for snack time. Unfortunately, Choco, younger and more timid, was not quite so ready to spring off and found himself suddenly alone in the 'wilderness' without his bosom buddy, Twee. He started to cry out, panicking, and I began to fear he might dart out onto the road in his confusion. I kept calling his name and crouching down with my hand extended, trying to get him to come to me instead of looking for Twee. Finally, he did and I caught hold of him and grabbed him to me. Choco's not one for being held, but in this case, shaking with fear and still mewing like a kitten, he held still while I struggled out of the neighbour's yard, around the front (by the road), down into our yard and around back to my apartment door.
Talk about unnecessary stress !
The bus ride was surprisingly fun. 85 hours long, with only one decent stop (four or five hours in Edmonton, the rest were an hour or less), and yet, fun. The scenery was incredible, the rest stops often amusing; movies were shown and the sorts of games we played in elementary school (like squares and hang-man) were a good way to pass the time. The interesting thing about that kind of a bus trip is that when you have no fear of missing your connection because you're on the same vehicle for ages, you relax totally. We could sleep when we wanted, and managed to get quite decent sleep each night with a good afternoon nap every day.
In Edmonton, we had time to kill, so I called up Brian and made him come collect us for dinner and adventures. That was good fun ! We found a tasty Yemeni(?) restaurant near the bus terminal and then played in a big park before going for coffee on Edmonton's hip strip. This was a great way to break up the first leg of the journey. In Saskatoon, which is a pretty little city in Saskatchewan, we discovered that the bathrooms at the bus terminal had showers we could rent. They weren't great, but for three bucks a piece, we had a private room to bathe, get changed, and refresh ourselves.
Saskatchewan and western Manitoba were the highlights of the trip for me, with some of the most beautiful rolling scenery I've ever laid eyes on. Seriously, nevermind the flatness - it's not boring the way people make it out to be. There were fields of many colours, dramatic river valleys, fascinating industrial farm architecture and damn, we watched a massive storm system roll in - the same system that brought tornadoes to Ontario, I think. We literally watched it on the horizon for hours before it finally rolled over us in central Manitoba.
Ontario was just damned big. It was exciting to cross the border, but the excitement quickly faded when it took six hours just to reach Thunder Bay. Then the bus follows the north shore of Lake Superior, which is as beautiful as people say it is, though quite difficult to photograph from a moving bus, and that goes on forever. Here's a nice shot from my deviantArt gallery.
Lake Superior is enormous. It took fourteen hours or so to get from Thunder Bay to Sault Sainte Marie, which is about when I started to get excited. At Sault Ste. Marie, the architecture began to look like the old Ontario structures I've grown up with and there were hardwood trees once again. I almost started to cry I was so happy to be 'home'.Of course, Toronto was yet another eight or nine hours away and we had to stop in Sudbury first. At Sudbury, I started to develop a migraine headache from the rise in humidity. While not as bad as when I had the migraine on the plane, having one on the bus kind of sucks. It was forgotten for a time upon arrival in Toronto. We'd slept soundly (hooray for painkillers !) and I woke up about ten minutes from the Bay Street terminal. Tall buildings surrounded me and I was really home ! It was about six in the morning when we piled off the bus and into a cab for my friend Alana's.
We had a bath at her place, because she doesn't have a shower, and then settled down for a few hours of napping (and I tried to sleep away the migraine). As it turned out, everyone I knew who gets migraines had also had one - only theirs were from the humidity clearing ! That's how dry the Yukon is in comparison. At Alana's, our friend from Realms of Despair, Trevor, who came in from Massachusetts close to Rhode Island, arrived while we were napping. Despite the pain, I enjoyed going out for breakfast with everyone and it felt good to be walking around in stinky Toronto. I had no idea just how stinky, but it really doesn't smell good unless you're passing flowers.
And from there, we prepared for the RoD Reunion, but that's for another entry. I will hopefully come back and add photographs, or at least links to where you might find them.
