Oct. 18th - Lake Superior Provincial Park.

We awoke on top of a dilapidated ski-resort just north of Lake Superior Provincial Park and from there we continued down the road through a bunch more run-down towns complete with nothing more then A&W's and Robin's Donuts. We ended up getting coffee at an A&W before going into the park and it was not worth our money. It really is sad up here to see so many businesses out of commission and at first we thought it might be the off-season but it seems as if it is more then that. The run-down and closed down abound along the Northern North Shore of Gitchee Gumee and by the looks of it have been for quite some time now. It is strange to see so much of this between so many beautiful parks because although there was some of this in Arizona and Utah between Zion, The Grand Canyon and Arches the towns outside of the parks themselves were doing quite well and were continuing to grow. With all these stretches of lonesome closures I thought that Greg Brown's "The Poet Game" was a fitting sound for such sights.

  With all this said we were greeted by nothing more then pure beauty once we passed the Park's boundaries and we spent the day soaking up nothing but charming views and enchanting scenery. The day was highlighted by a game of cat and mouse with a rogue rain cloud which had seemingly broken away from the pack and was marauding on its lonesome releasing bouts of showers. We continually drove out of its reaches but would stop to hike, photograph, and relish in the park until the cloud would catch us drive us back into our car. We stopped at many a bay and lookout including Old Woman Bay, Katherine's Cove, Agawa Bay, Sandy River, and Rabbit Blanket Lake. Lunch was taken at the Park's head office where we had a lovely chat with a Canadian Police Officer who said that just North of the Park had received a snow storm just the the day before. From there we continued on to one of our stops for the day, Katherine's Cove, where I was able to strip to my skivvies and wrestle with the waves for a mere moment before a quick jog along the shore. I was only in for a bit but I still get to say I swam in Lake Superior on October 18th and I know my mother, Louise, would be proud.

 The rest of the day held a waterfall, biking, waiting on rain, and a beautiful little cove which we decided to call our camp for the night. It was at this cove that we were able to watch a wonderful sunset with the turquoise waters lapping at the rocks before settling into our bed for an evening of reading and writing (more on that later.) I started Naked Lunch: the restored texts last night seeing as I had just finished a wonderful book titled Hell on Two Wheels which Ellen and Mark gave me before the trip (there will be a short review coming soon.) Although both are good books Naked Lunch is a bit of a whirlwind after the documentary style writing of "Two Wheels."