DAY ON THE ROAD

Friday, July 18th, 2025

Highways Forever, N. Ontario

This tall, lean fellow didn’t look like he had it all together.  He saw me walking and started cursing. As he crossed the street, there was no shortage of colourful words directed to me.

“Why don’t yah go back where you came from?”

I wasn’t going to be silent.  “I’m from here – born, raised, and bred in this country.”  He carried on in a cross way with mouth and legs.  A cigarette can was in his way, so he gave it a kick landing the can on the street after it had a good roll.  A trash bin was next.  On and on he went.  That was on Queen St. in The Soo before our troupe all converged before a day on the road.

Flooding had taken place on the Trans Canada, Hwy. 17.  That meant a detour, adding hours to our journey which began at 7:30 AM and lasting till 12:10 the next morning.

Om is one of our group and has a birthday today.  Along the road we secured an ice cream cake which melted and dripped on the trunk of our van.  We call that snan, a sacred bathing with milk.  In some way, vehicles are diving when used for a mystic mission.  That’s the way I perceived our trip.  It’s not mundane, although we had to contend with a medium-speed leak in one of the tires.  Out in the north, there is little to no cell reception.  People are rare.  There’s more wildlife out here.  In the town of Chapleau (pop. 1900), we were in the centre of the largest game or wildlife preservation in the world, a 700,000 hectare area.

To our delight, we spotted a bobcat, a bear cub galloping along, an adult bear munching on berries, a bald eagle, and millions of bugs; and for me, the most ferocious was the man kicking a tin can.

MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU!

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