< Sunday May 30th

Monday May 31st - Memorial Day

We awoke to clouds and the threat of rain. We'd known a day or two ahead that today might be rainy based on a weather forecast at visitor center. We fixed our hot breakfast and ate quickly to avoid getting rained on, and because the bugs were worse than usual.

We stopped off at the visitor center to check on more recent weather forecasts. A new one hadn't been posted for several days, but the woman at the counter went into the back room to pull a new one up. She let us come into the back room to view the forecast on the screen, since she didn't know how to print it out. It didn't look too bad, but didn't look spectacular either.

We used this day to make a trip to Wawa, at the northern end of the park (outside the park, in fact). The drive up there didn't take too long, which seemed strange, because the last time we were here, there was construction, so the drive to Wawa seemed interminable. The neat General Store I had thought was somewhere along the road before the park, but which we never came to, was in fact up by Wawa. So we stopped there, and I picked up a summer sausage just like the one I bought last year.

In Wawa, it was actually sunny, and on the warm side. We picked up some groceries, then poked around for the Library, which we figured would have internet connections. We got some bad directions from a young local resident, but managed to find the very tiny library next to the very tiny post office, where the internet connection was actually located. Ian went in to check on possible on-line maps of the Bruce Trail.

I had gone way past hungry and was chowing down on whatever was at hand when Ian got back from the post office. I'd actually gotten too hot and had to change into shorts. So much for rain! Once we'd exhausted the possibilities of Wawa (which are few if you have better things to do, but are probably many if it is raining hard), we headed back to the park.

We came to Old Woman Bay (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~ianjones/pictures/North04/North04-Pages/Image12.html), and decided to stop and relax and maybe hike. The bugs were terrible, and then it started raining. The rain was short-lived, and the bugs were confined to a small area, so we were finally able to sit on the beach and read for a short while.

Then we crossed the road to take the Nokomis loop trail, which was only 5 K. The views were pretty - we could see a long way across a valley, and could see a river and the bay itself. Although the climate started out warm and humid, it seemed like we turned a corner and things got very cold all of a sudden. I went from wearing nothing but a sports bra and shorts to wearing every piece of clothing I'd brought with me.

On our way back to the campground, it started raining pretty hard. Once we reached our campsite, we just sat in the car reading and snacking for awhile. Ian had tossed some pretty wicked spiced tortilla flats into our shopping cart in Wawa. We became instant addicts. After awhile, I prepped the tarp and picnic table for cooking. It was still raining, and Ian was pretty doubtful about trying to cook in the rain. I really didn't want to go all the way back to Wawa, and believed that we could cook in the rain since we had a tarp over our heads.

While we were cooking, the rain let up and then stopped. While dinner was cooking, I embarked on a chore which was to cause various amounts of grief and ire for me. I have always kept a wide-mouthed container in the tent at night to use as a slop jar to save me from having to get dressed and exit the tent just to pee. For most trips I've had a plastic container which I've had to throw away before we've flown home. But for car trips, I'd been taking a heavy glass jar.

When I set it down on the cement outhouse floor, it cracked, and when examining it, I cut my finger. Both of these events made me extremely angry. We were nowhere near a store, now that we were back from Wawa, and it pissed the hell out of me to have to get out of the tent every night to pee, after years of having the luxury of not having to do that. Plus I was very angry at myself for being stupid enough to use a glass jar.

So I fumed and fussed at myself for awhile. I'm sure glad *I* wasn't me, because wouldn't want to go through that sort of tongue-lashing.

After dinner, Ian was kind enough to clean up while I set up the fallen tarp over the sitting area. While it was still light, we sat on the beach, reading. When I took a look inside the tent, I noticed that there was water pooled on the floor. This had never happened in the Northface tent, so I thought this tent might be inferior, but then I realized that there was a non-porous plastic sheet under the tent instead of the legitimate tarp, which was hanging over the sitting area.

Ian left for awhile to make a phone call, and I sat under the tarp, in the sitting area, pumping well water, since all of our bottles were empty. This campground still had not verified that its water was safe to drink, so we'd been pumping water every day. As I pumped the very last bottle full, a couple walked by and offered me a spare gallon of fresh water. I told them I really didn't need it, but they really wanted me to have it.

So I walked back to their campsite with them. They were from Kansas, and the woman had the most peculiar accent. I was surprised that someone from a state not all that far away could have such a pronounced accent. I took it to be an extreme Mid-western accent. Her husband sounded more "normal". He was an English as a Second Language professor who taught teachers at a college. He was a pretty classic semi-cosmopolitan liberal intellectual. It was pretty amusing, though I'm sure he didn't see the humor.

Then I learned that the woman was from Germany. I had to laugh at myself for not catching this. The "We're from Kansas" had sort of thrown me off.
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