You know what’s fucking stupid?

Today I had glorious chance after chance after chance to stop at any number of unique Lake Superior beaches/rest stops/scenic lookouts/prostitute-friendly-zones/etc, etc, et fucking cetera, but I was hellbent on “making good time” while the weather and road conditions were in my favour.

Why?

I DON’T FUCKING KNOW!!!

I have zero motivation to get back to my shitty slave-job. I’m more than happy to never play the game of indentured servitude again. I talk so much shit about wanting to be free, adventurous, and ever spontaneous, but instead of listening to that ever wise inner voice whispering (sometimes screaming) into my enfeebled brain — “Mike! Turn here! Turn Here! You won’t regret it,” I just kept driving and driving and fucking driving, cuz a “responsible” slave-bitch gets back to work as soon as possible after a “holiday,” and doesn’t let the team down.

With gas-stops and coffee-purchases and random conversations with gay Dutch loser friends who have mental problems more disturbing than mine, it’s been a 14-hour day on the road, so I’m pulled over somewhere just west of Sudbury, calling it quits for the day and rethinking my motivations on Planet Stupid.

I kinda want to get more into philosophical ramblings at the moment, but I’ve learned my lesson about getting a blog post finished in a timely fashion when a shitload of irrelevant pictures need to be downloaded.

Well, not irrelevant, but conducive to “putting your money where you’re mouth is,” whatever the fuck that means…

So here’s how the Sub-Quest is going so far…

Tim Horton’s, Kenora:

FAIL!

Tim Horton’s, Sault Ste Marie:

FAIL!

Tim Horton’s, White River:

IRONIC MEGA FAIL!

Alright, enough.

We’ll see what Part 5 entails tomorrow. I may fake my death in the morning, but not committed to anything yet.

Cheers, freaks, see you on the flip side.

Okay, yeah, I know, I’m way fucking behind on my road trip posts, but cut me some slack. It ain’t easy being a one man team getting this ridiculous production together.

[Editor’s Note: Fuck you, Mike!]

I’m actually on my way back home at the moment. Just rolled into Thunder Bay, and randomly picked the first dark parking lot that caught my attention. Gonna van camp here for the night, and piss repeatedly on their dumpsters…

You know what’s fucked up? I’m looking at this stupid “petvalue” sign right now from the van, and I’m not sure if the “e” is burned out, or it’s just the weird angle I have, or if Pet Value is actually meant to be pronounced Pet Valloo.

I think I need some sleep.

Oh, yeah, I did find Huskie!!

Bye now.

[Editor’s note: Empty your bladder, settle in, and take frequent breaks ingesting the minutia of the following diatribe. Clearly the author is trying to compensate for whatever shortcomings he felt after Part 1’s post]

Alright, it’s Day 2. Where did we leave off? Oh yeah, that fucking moose on the side of the road that caused me to partially soil myself, motivating me to find the next available rest stop to get the hell off the two-lane-death-trap-mountain-road I was stupidly trying to navigate in the brutal darkness of a moonless sky.

I awoke at 6 AM in the visitor’s parking lot in Agawa Bay. It was still dark as fuck, but I felt fully recharged and ready to hit the road again. I was only an hour away from Wawa, and highly motivated to get a selfie with one of Canada’s iconic giant stupid statues that litter the Trans-Canada highway — the legendary Wawa Goose…

I figured it would be a leisurely drive — cuz who the fuck else would be awake at this hour? — but I was sorely mistaken. There’s nothing worse than seeing rapidly approaching twin beams in your rearview mirror just when you wanna cruise along at a couple K over the speed limit, with nary a care in the world.

Fuck.

As the douchebag speed demon rapidly caught up to me, I saw the sign for passing lanes ahead, so I didn’t get too perturbed. I timed his approach masterfully so he could blow by me just as the extra lane emerged.

But then that shitty-fucking-orange-bane-of-my-existence construction sign reared its ugly fuckface once again.

Drat.

Not only was the passing lane not open, the entire road was asphalted into a blackness darker than the pucker of Satan’s asshole. My only reference to demarcate the middle of the next 5 km stretch was a series of 2 inch yellow dots, spaced apart every 16 feet, that some douchebag engineer paid minimum wage slaves to paint on the road for “safety,” without realizing they turn invisible every time an 18-wheeler bears down on you from the other direction.

[Editor’s note: Uh, Mike, move on. You have a lot of ridiculous pictures to download tonight if you want to get this insane rambling published]

Right, sorry Mr. Editor, we’re just getting started…

I rolled into Wawa as the day broke, happy to bask in the light of Jesus once again. I thought for a moment I might have passed the golden goose statue I so sorely sought, but then God sent me a sign… Turn Here, Bitch! Or maybe it said Visitor Information, Next Right. I can’t remember.

But here we are!!!

I decided to top up my gas tank before hitting the next leg of my journey, and as I pumped the last dribbles of dinosaur juice into my machine, I caught sight of a larger than life aesthetic abomination I absolutely needed to record for posterity’s sake…

Methinks it was the wisely rejected prototype for the Wawa Goose. The town council prolly realized that commissioning half blind children with learning disorders to build a statue was, in retrospect, a piss-poor decision…

Just one more stop before jumping back on the highway… cue the wild-west showdown music…

Did I learn my previous lesson about always using the drive-thru, and never again walking into what I thought was Canada’s most beloved franchise?

Oh fuck no…

I needed to see who was at the helm in this building, located in a town of 3,000 fur-trading descendants, or whatever the fuck reason they settled here….

Yup, nuff said. 2 for 2.

As I was the last one in line in the building, and Habib had nothing to do after taking my order, I figured he might just take 3 seconds out of his downtime to pour me a black coffee.

Oh fuck no.

The grizzled old fat bitch in front of me got her 4-cheese bagel, box o’ poison donut holes, and fancy hot chocolate well before any of the flunkies would consider breaking protocol of following the queue dictated by the monitors they worshipped so dearly. And once coming to the realization there were nine drones with headsets servicing the drive-thru of 20 vehicles that passed me by like a fast-moving Santa Clause parade, and one lonely bastard making bagels, bagging donuts, and pouring in-house coffee, I resolved (yet again) to never step physically into one of these buildings.

But then my disgust quickly turned to elation — I just stumbled upon an unexpected and absurd sub-quest to enjoy on my travels!

The mission? I’m stopping into every one of shitty fucking coffee houses I pass by, camera in hand, with the goal of locating, and taking a selfie, with an employee who’s actually a small town native, born and raised. Let the games begin!

Oh, and just to backtrack for a second — the only reason I called that woman a grizzled old fat bitch was because as she got into her car, parked beside mine, she whipped open her door and slammed it into the side of my machine.

I then heard the muffled words: “Roll it down,” as she stared into my eyes, like I was the one who did something fucking wrong here…

“It hit the metal,” she said. “There’s no damage. You can come out and check if you think I’m a liar.”

Jesus, why am I the one getting attitude here? Also, what the fuck does it hit the metal mean? The whole fucking thing is metal you fat old fuck!

“Um, okay, if you say so. I’m not that worried about it. Safe travels,” I replied.(Upon later inspection, she did indeed scratch the chrome-coloured guard that serves to protect against door-flinging cunts like her, lol)

Anyhoo…

Back on the road, the rising sun was quickly extinguished by ominous looking clouds. And before long, an hour-long inundation of sporadic torrential down pours made driving at night seem like a blissed-out stroll on a tropical beach.

I quickly learned that hydroplaning on a mountain road — although most likely less harsh on tire wear — was not my preferred mode of travel. Nor was I a fan of being pummelled by random tsunami waves generated by oncoming 18-wheelers.

But such is life on the road — where new adventure lies just around the bend…
Cue the Littlest Hobo theme…

With only about 7 hours left to my destination, I decided it was prolly time to chill and relax, knowing I had another full day at my disposal to get to where I wanted to be…

So I scoped out the next Provincial Park along my route, which turned out to be Kakabeka Falls (lol, kaka), and booked a campsite for the night.

Realizing there was enough daylight left to meander one of the hiking trails, I decided to forgo trying to find the namesake attraction to this park, and sought out “the Little Falls,” located at the very end of the longest and most “difficult” trail.

[Editor’s note: In Provincial Park hiking terms, “difficult” means having the endurance and lung capacity of a light to moderate smoker, and ability to step over random tree roots without twisting an ankle]

Also, “difficult” implies there’ll be a minimal amount of douchebags traversing the woods when you want to be left the fuck alone, so I was pumped for the trek…

I really had no expectations of what I would find at the end of the trail, as sections of it elevated rapidly, only to be met with rapid descents. Was I gonna be at the top of this thing, or the bottom??

Just then, I heard the trickle of water, and bam! There she was! LOL…

It was kinda pathetic and totally fucking cool at the same time. And I also realized that all the stressful rain I encountered earlier while driving was probably the reason this thing was actually flowing, instead of being a dried up rock face. Coolio.

Made my way back to camp, and realized the actual tourist falls were just up ahead, so I decided to check out why the parade of day visitors were dropping 10 bucks a pop the see this thing.

And you know what? As much as I hate douchebag tourists, the 10 bucks woulda been totally worth it. Pictures don’t really do justice to the raw force and magnitude of nature’s spectacles. It was pretty fucking sweet…

Back at camp, it was time to settle in and get some writing done. I decided to forgo putting the tent up, as my little home away from home would be sufficient again for yet another night — generator, bed, pizza blanket… what more could a degenerate hobo ask for?

That’s all for now. Part 3 at some point, featuring a stop in Kenora to find Huskie the Muskie.

Happy trails…

There’s no embellishment when I say it’s been a looooong fucking time since adding a segment to the Adventure category of this stupid-ass blog, so I’ve decided to document the trials and tribulations of driving from Goderich, Ontario to the suck-ass town of Winnipeg, where I’ll be attending my kid’s glorious triumph of marrying the woman he loves.

I’ve got plenty o’ time to get there, as the wedding’s on Sunday, and today is only into the last throes of Thursday. But once I hit the road, the madness of reaching my goal tends to overtake my common sense, which usually means driving an unnecessary 12 hours a day to get to where I want to be.

Hey, Mike, relax, enjoy the journey, stupid!

Yeah, yeah, I know, shut the fuck up Mike, I’ll do what I wanna do, bitch!

My brain doesn’t really have a half-assed mode, unless I ply it with various amounts of drugs and alcohol. Even after a 15-hour shift at my soul-numbing slave-job working as a flunky sous chef, I tend to be running circles around my douchebag cohorts who are incessantly whining about how tired they are after their piddly 5-hour shift that they mostly spent fucking the Benmiller dog in it’s gaping ass.

But nevermind that.

I don’t have a lot of time to get these notes down, as I want to grab some Z’s and hit the road early again, so let’s quickly muddle through the highlights of the journey so far…

Fuck, I’m way to verbose. I want to write a shitload of subtle details, and I want to add images, but time is a factor here — I’ll edit the visuals in later. So if you’re a subscriber, sorry loser, this is just gonna be text, with nothing to distract your brain from actually reading without a random stupid meme to break up the print. Also, love you!

The first noteworthy observation was a quick stop in Espanola to get some gas and grab a cup o’ joe. I decided to walk into the Tim Horton/Wendy’s structure instead of going through the drive-thru, as I thought it would be a more efficient process than dealing with the parade of cars rolling off the highway, and I needed to stretch my stumpy legs as well.

Holy fuck, I couldn’t have been more incorrect.

There’s something about cruising through rest stops in Northern Ontario that I love — it’s the friendly faces and cordial demeanour of the punk-ass teenagers, and elderly alike, who work their shitty, minimum-wage gigs because they either have dreams of moving to the big city, or they’re just content to find their niche living in a small town, earning enough fake plastic dollars to fund them through whatever goals and/or acceptance in the life path they’ve chosen.

The Tim Horton building was NOT that.

Good fucking god, it was so fucking NOT!

I want to be clear here that I’m not some racist asshole who gets bent out of shape when the local gas station/pizza place/convenience store/coffee shop is systematically bought out by “entrepreneurs” who weren’t born in this country. Kudos to you for being ambitious. My fucking problem with these assholes is that they treat me like I’ve done something wrong if I want to say hi, make small talk, smile, or say anything that doesn’t involve getting the fuck out of their face as quickly as possible — they seem offended by the very fact I have the audacity to use their service.

No words, no eye-contact, no basic humanity. Just pay for your gas and get the fuck out, you white-devil cunt…

That was the basic experience in the Espanola Timmy’s, and I surmise the Indian family owned the Wendy’s side as well, because not one local kid making student wage was in sight, just a group of pissed off humans, speaking broken English, who seemed seriously angry that I even dared to order a coffee, which ultimately took ten minutes to receive, because Lakshme couldn’t pour it himself, he had to assign my name Nike — not Mike, Nike — to a computer screen that gave me a fucking waiting time behind all the other cunts on some third world tour bus who ordered bagels and donuts and shit without onions that needed to be serviced sequentially.

Also, I came within 3 feet of slamming into a moose that was the size Godzilla, no embellishment.

So I decided to park, and wrote this.

Day 2 tomorrow, see you then…