Steve’s Blog – Aug 3 –  RV life –  Thunder Bay, Ont. to Nipigon

The most common question that no one asks (😉) is “How the heck do you all live in that RV together for 3 months without killing each other?” Well, to begin with, murder is illegal and immoral. You should see our mornings – dressing, making coffee, making breakfast, interviews, gathering provisions for the ride – all without collision, without annoyance, and while preserving each other’s privacy. It is part twisted ballet, and part balletic Twister. But it works … usually. I am proud to say that we have maintained a zero percent murder rate. Zero. [Each of us could write additional details about RV life, but that would likely harm our exemplary non-murder status.]

We have big plans for today, but they are impeded by a troubling disappearance act of our highway shoulders. They are commonly 1-2 feet wide, and occasionally nothing. This is an essential highway, filled with transport trucks of every size, including wide loads. The divers have been outstanding thus far, but with the margin of error so small, the threat is just too high to rationalize away. Darlene usually drives to a distant meeting spot or the camp, and if she sees that the shoulder is sufficiently narrow or damaged for a large percentage of the ride, she will call. Today, we decided it is too dangerous, and we get in the RV. We will deduct this from our banked hours. 

Not all is lost, as the first 30 km were on highway 102 which had nice rolling hills. Jim and I smoke the route. According to Strava, I get the quickest recorded ride this year (5th all time) and Jim gets third this year (14th all time). Not bad for some old guys with PD. Jim doesn’t care about these stats, but I do: I use them to trick my brain to stay interested. I have learned lots of tricks to keep a lethargy-prone brain active.

We stop to visit the Terry Fox memorial marking the location of the halt of his cross country run on the highway nearby. The memorial is beautiful, with a nice vista, though it is highly ironic that you can neither walk nor cycle to the site – it is only accessible by car. What would Terry think?