What comes after Windsor?

My eyes aren't focusing any more. I've been staring at this computer for so long, my brain is no longer registering anything.

So, of course, it wanders back a month and a half ago...

I'm traveling down Highway 3 in southern Ontario, towards Leamington. It's a bit of a detour, but I'm going to see if I can meet up with a friend's wife's sister. I can't think of who else I know in southern Ontario, and, hey, we had fun once. I found her favourite sweater after she left it at a bar in Edmonton when we were all out for drinks at Christmas. I stayed later than her, and kept it, and gave it back the next day when I went over to see my old pal Nathan at his mother-in-law's/her mother's. She was happy to get it back.

So, long, boring story short, I figured that was reason enough to explore the area around Peelee Point and Leamington. It wasn't that much out of the way.

Unfortunately, it was almost 1:00 in the morning when I crossed the border from Detroit. Driving catatonic down the two-lane highway, I looked around hopefully, wishing Leamington would sort of move towards me at the same time, getting me somewhere I could sleep sooner.

I get into the little town in pitch darkness. The cute little streets are lined with little old two-story houses, some brick, most wood. The only thing open, though, is a Macs convenience store. I park perpendicular in front of the gas pumps and over a ton of parking stalls, and walk in through a cloud of mayflies (no, wait. That's the next store). Behind the counter, there's a grumpy-looking Fred Penner lookalike. I wander over to the cooler and pick a disgusting processed meat sandwich and a chocolate milk.

"Where's the campsite in town? I saw a sign on the highway saying there was something in Leamington."

"You're in Leamington," he replies.

I know that.

He continues. "If you go two blocks straight this way," he says, pointing in some non-direction, "you'll get to the Leamington one."

"Is that the one in the park?" I want to go to Peelee. I assume he'll know what I mean.

"Yeah."

So I buy and the food and a lighter so that I can light my campstove, and get back into the truck. Famished, I open the sandwich, devour half, then open the chocolate milk. I should really get moving, I think, so I put the chocolate milk on the dash of the truck, peel out of the parking lot, and fire chocolate slime all over the place. As it drips all over the maps and other garbage on the passenger side of the truck, I devour the other half of the sandwich while listening to the glug glug glug of milk dumping out. I can't reach it. And I'm too hungry. It's not leaking too fast, anyway.

Driving around like a stoner, I don't see anything resembling a campground. I go to a second Macs' Store a few blocks away, and get completely different directions from an unhappy-looking clerk. I follow her directions through downtown Leamington, past the huge brick Heinz Ketchup plant, past the little brick buildings on the main street, into another rural area. I go far, far, far. Nothing. I double back, turn at a different place, and get lost. I double back again, look around, and finally find a tiny sign for a campsite. It sits behind someone's house. I have no idea how to check in, or where to park, so I follow some signs to the office. But I don't see an office, so I go further, and turn into a dead end. I can't back up the trailer for shit, so I spend about ten minutes in the middle of the night in this quiet campsite backing up, stalling out the truck, backing up more, going forward, revving the engine, and accidentally honking the horn trying to get out of that little spot. Finally, I escape. I turn back towards the entrance, where I see a clear grassy patch across from what looks like a house, and some other trailers, near a row of tall trees that blocks in the edge of the campsite near the campsite's messy work area. I pull the trailer in parallel to the road, unhitch it, crank it up, and go to bed. When my head hits the pillow, I'm out.

The next morning, I wake to absolute silence. Well, there's regular sounds, like wind, and some birds, but really, nothing really loud. I think it might be 6:00 a.m. Peeking through one of the slots in the trailer towards the campsite, I see a beautifully-tended park full of trailers. There are still no sounds. Looking right a little, I see a little bug tent to the left of the closest trailer. Inside, there are two chairs. One is empty. In the other, there's something. I'm not sure what, because it's not moving at all. It has all the features of a regular human--eyes, legs, shoes, and so on--but it's sitting absolutely still, with its eyes open.

I get some cleaner clothes on, and step outside. The sky is almost blue, and the grass is amazingly green. I look around the trailer at the little tent. There's still no movement. I look for something in the truck, then look up. Stillness in the tent.

I start to cross the street, to go find the office, when a hand lifts from the arm of the chair.

"Hello!"

"Hi," I answer, startled at all this sudden activity.

"You must have gotten in last night."

"Yeah. I wasn't sure if that's a campsite, but I parked there anyway. I didn't want to wake you up. Are you the manager?"

Here began the longest pointless story of whose trailer it was he was staying in, how his sister let them stay there because of something they had done, how they were originally from the Lake Michigan area, how his wife was from Space, and they didn't have a dog anymore...

But it started like this:

"Come in! Sit down here a spell, if you want."

So I did. Then I got that story. I tried to tell a story equally as dull, and kept failing. I was driving across Canada for the first time, and had had some adventures. They cringed at the Detroit part. They marvelled at the abandoned town part. They snored at the part where they fell asleep. They came back with something about Arizona, and the other half of their year, and something about tent trailers, or something...

Finally, I took my leave. He finally got to the part about where the office was (right around the corner, in a trailer), and so I walked over there. I was passing deep little lakes, placed four-by-four, regularly spaced, and surrounded by trailers on the outside, and criss-crossed by a road on the inside.

I walk up the the trailer office, and it's pretty much the same as the rest of the trailers--except there's some movement. A weird, not-fat '70s Canadian Rock-looking man comes out, and tells me a much better story.

He used to have a whole bunch of record stores in Toronto, and he made enough money to get by and save some more, and so on. It was a fine business, but stressful. When the ass fell out of the music business around 2000, he packed it all in, had a talk with his aging father-in-law, who owned a gravel pit and some greenhouses just outside of Leamington. He planted some trees, laid some sod, and put a few fish in the spring-fed pits left by years of gravel-digging, and started charging people to camp there. Old people. Quiet people. Retired people.

Some of the ponds had the fish he put in there. Others had had fish dropped there by birds--he'd never put them in there. You could fish if you wanted, but it was all catch and release.

As we stood there, talking and looking around, I realized that he had the best job in the entire world. There were no public toilets to clean--everyone had their own, and there were no noisy teens to police--nobody in the park was under 55, except me, the squatter. He got to sit around and read books with his wife next to a pond full of fish, and walk behind a lawnmower once in a while. He didn't even have to do that all the time, he said, because one of the old guys had his own lawnmower, and in his post-retirement boredom, he'd just push it all over the park along the roads, and further in, if people wanted him to, for free, and fairly often.

While we watched the massive bass and sunfish swim up to the shore expecting a handout, he said he really didn't mind that I'd shown up when I did, or that I'd parked in the grassy spot that he didn't really use for anything anyway. He said I could use the shower if I wanted, and that he'd only charge me $15 because I didn't use power or water. I fished my last 13 American dollars out of my pockets, and he shook his head when I offered to get the other two in town.

So I cleaned up, packed up, waved to my motionless friend in his tent across the road from me, and drove into town. I looked around for a while, and once I'd seen what I needed to see in Leamington (I actually wrote one of the earlier posts in the Leamington Public Library), I headed down to Point Peelee Provinicial Park. I stopped at Paula's Fish Place, across from the shore, had a fishburger, and enjoyed the progressively less subtle advances of the near-cougarly waitress. At one point, she said "I can't wait to get home and get drunk. Sure wish someone was there with me."

But, as Jack White sang, "I'm lonely, but I ain't that lonely yet."

Which wasn't exactly true, but I had other fish to fry, as they say. And I chickened out, of course.

Before I left the restaurant I made two calls to the Peelee Island Duck Counting Facility, to see if my friend's wife's sister had brought any ducks back to the office to count. There was no answer, so I left an inane message saying she'd missed her chance, as though it were her fault I hadn't bothered finding her number earlier and calling her sooner.

With that done, though, I drove down to Peelee Point Provincial Park.

The woman at the gate said it would be $6.80 to come in and take a look, so I parked half a block outside the park gates, crossed the road to a public beach access path, and walked onto the shores of Lake Erie. I walked into the park on the beach.

The sand was soft, and the weather was a hazy and calm and warm. Healthy trees and bushes skirted the upper side of the shore. There were a few tampon applicators and dead fish and seagulls on the shore, but not too many. Keep in mind that in Halifax, dead and dying gunk washes up all over the place, since the city has NO sewage treatment at all. In the distance, two teenagers were looking at the bottom of one of their jet skis, which they'd dragged onto shore. With the wind and the waves crashing, and with me getting progressively more deaf, I couldn't hear what they were saying at all. Finally, when I got close enough, I heard.

"Have you got a knife?"

They were in wetsuits, and really didn't look threatening, but I don't usually get asked what I'm packing.

He motioned me to look at the bottom of his jetski. Somehow, he'd gotten one of the ropes he had tied to his handlebars tangled around the driveshaft of his machine. It wasn't really affecting how the machine ran, but it was wedged into the seal that kept water out of the works. He wanted to cut it out. I told him I didn't have knife on me, but that I had a jackknife and a machete in the truck. He looked at me funny when I mentioned the machete, but wanted the knife.

"Do you want a ride back to the truck?" He motioned at his still-functioning jetski.

"Um, sure." It wasn't all that far to the truck. I'd never been on a jetski before, either, and though I knew I'd like it, I was leery. He didn't have a lifejacket for me, and I don't do well in water since I almost drowned a few summers ago at a beach in Nova Scotia. And by almost, I mean, I panicked.

But I thought, "I have to stop being such a fucking baby!"

So I threw all my water-damageable crap into the sealed compartment. Then he'd get onto the jetski, I'd try to get onto it and tip him into the water, and then he'd tell me to get on first, and I'd tip it over, and then I'd get on, and balance it the wrong way so that he'd slip off while trying to climb on, and fall on his ass back into the water. But the water was warm, and I kind of wanted to go swimming anyway, so I really didn't mind. Maybe he did, but I didn't care.

Finally, we got on and went about 100 feet to where I'd hopped onto the beach. I fell off the back, revelling in the warmth of the water, and collected the knife from the truck. I got back on, fell off, got on again, let him accelerate, got thrown off by the force of the acceleration, and finally, we made it back to his friend and the other jetski. While two of us held it up, he hacked at the rope, dulling my knife on the driveshaft of the propeller. I'm certain it didn't do too much damage, but it's a nice knife. Who cares.

Finally, they got it all cut, but one piece was still jammed into the seal. So, teenager two started it up, and just roared around in the water until the piece fell out. We realized afterwards that he probably could have just pulled it out by turning the driveshaft a little bit by running the starter a little while pulling the rope, but since it all worked out in the end, it really didn't matter.

So, as Teenager One sailed me back to the truck, apologising for dunking me, I looked out over the water. It was blue and went on forever, and I couldn't see Peelee Island. I wondered what it looked like. The roar of the little motor in the jetski was surprisingly relaxing, considering how loud it was.

As I was about to hop off, I told the kid that this was the first time I'd been on a jetski. I couldn't tell him why that was--I really didn't know--so he offered to take me out for "a rip" or something like that.

I thought about it briefly. I didn't have a lifejacket on, and I didn't want to drown. I thought I might enjoy it if I were driving (maybe it's a control thing, or maybe it was the fact that I kept falling off when he was driving), but I declined. Something was pushing me onward, compelling me to move eastward. I didn't feel like spending any more time with these guys, for some reason, and I wanted to escape. I would have liked to stay longer at the beach, but it was a little lonely, so I changed my damp clothes in the bush, tied them to the metal loops inside the box of the truck to dry, and drove up highway three a little more, watching the sun go down as Lake Erie followed along.

Detroit, Detroit.

I didn't like Detroit when I was there. Perhaps it wasn't the place to go at midnight, but the way my schedule worked, that's when I got there.

The highway between Ludington and here was fairly uneventful--I got lost two different ways. The first time, I got lost because I asked for directions. I was already going the right way, planning to go perpendicularly across Michigan to Detroit, but a woman making pizza in Nowhere, Michigan told me I had to double back and take another highway. I hadn't been able to find a map of Michigan anywhere--not on a placemat, not at a reststop, never at a gas station. So I was going by memory from what I could see of Michigan on the Wisconsin map. And I was going the right way--down highway 10, a little highway that crossed through the state perfectly, and rejoined with the big highway that ran all the way to Windsor.
But I turned around, trusting someone who'd lived there for all their lame and lonely life.
Far too late to change course, I finally got my hands on a map. I realized I was driving almost parallel to Lake Michigan. My trip was going to be the sides of a right angle, istead of a straight, perfect line. The whole point of taking the ferry was to cut some time out of the American leg of the trip. And I was fucking it up again.

Whatever.

So I'm driving through Michigan, gritting my teeth, listening to music, and passing through what would be lovely country if I didn't want to build a highway through all of it at a 45 degree angle to cut three hours off my trip. I speed to get out of there faster. It's fun.

Detroit finally looms. That's not really true--Motor City is so incredibly big, buildings and malls have already blighted the countryside long before I get anywhere near it. But I keep driving. But it's time for gas.

Here's an exit.

Get off.

Get gas.

Scary man comes up to the station. He's got a lot of gold chains on.

Another scary man comes running up to the gas station. He looks excited, or nervous. Or druggy. Regular people are also getting gas, unconcerned.

What the hell am I so scared of?

Off across the overpass, I hear shots. Or bangs. Who knows. It was almost the fourth of July. I go in to pay, and make a joke to the clerk that he looks like he's in an aquarium, with all that plexiglass around him. He hates the joke, and says that it's bulletproof glass, not plexiglass.

I peel out of there, with the trailer in tow, and go off down the highway again. Forever.

Finally, signs for the Ambassador Bridge, my link to sanity and peace of mind and the lack of the right to bear arms begin to appear. I get closer and closer, watching the odometer to make sure I don't overshoot it. As I drive, I realize I'm veering away from the bridge. I look frantically out the side window, and eventually through the rear view mirror, watching the bridge shrink from sight. Where the hell am I?
An overpass appears. I roll up it into a wasteland with a red light. Boarded-up houses surround me, and, from the scrub and weeds on the driver's side, a crazy-looking woman gets up from her bucket-chair, fixes her hair, and runs off behind the trailer. Some kid rides by on a bike that is way too small for him. I am fatigued, and paranoid, and panicked. It would be horribly ironic or dramatic or cathartic if I were to die right here, so close to Canada, my home and non-sketchy land.

The light turns green, and I squeal the tires getting around that corner. My heart skips another beat when I get back towards what looks like a downramp, except it isn't going down towards the highway. More scary-looking people pop up, or walk around, going about their business, not really paying any attention to the insane man pulling the vacation-train through their ghetto neighbourhood. Finally, a block down, the ground slopes down a ramp back onto the highway. I stop sweating.

I make another wrong turn. Not majorly bad, but I've already had enough.

Finally, I'm approaching the brigde. That's the point I'm at now--it's not really me controlling the truck any more, it's the truck, with me cradled safely within, rescuing me from this horrible city where it was born, or at least, assembled. We reach the booth of the toll bridge, and the woman says "that'll be $6.75."

"Whatever you want. Want more? Just get me out of here."

She looks at me blankly, chewing her gum, her round, early-20s face sort of contemptuously indifferent, until I throw $6.75 worth of quarters and bills at her and roar away.

On the downslope of the bridge, I breathe much easier. I can feel maple leaves and poutine and friendly passive-aggressive Canadian vibrations soothe my soul, and sedate my nerves. I talk to a dirty-looking kid and a limo driver in an empty McDonalds parking lot, completely without fear. They tell me that, no, they won't let you in to go to the bathroom, because it's too late. I can order food, though.

"Can I order an empty cup? I'm not really hungry. I need the bathroom."

They get the joke. They smile. I'm back in Canada.

SS Badger

The phone wasn't ringing today, and nobody was coming in for me to check their student loans. So, before I knew it, my mind was drifting back to almost two months ago, as I stood on the deck of the S.S. Badger, watching Manitowoc, Wisconsin drift away in the distance. Below me, in a hold that once held railcars full of cargo trying to dodge a freight bottleneck in Chicago, the truck and trailer rested peacefully, smelling faintly of the 15-hour drive and 4-hour nap I'd had. The blue waters of Lake Michigan looked almost midnight blue, and cold, not unlike the air on the deck. The wind was fierce, and the ferry was sailing into it.
I spent a lot of time standing around, feeling a little tired, and more than a little lonely. I'd just left Karen in Winnipeg about 19 hours ago, but again I was regretting not bringing a co-pilot on this transcontinental trip. But I found ways to amuse myself. Unintentionally, I'd dressed as a security guard--I had a black ballcap on, black shorts, a black, collared golf shirt, and a blue Wackenhut Security jacket on. Just standing and looking at someone was reason enough to make them squirm in the lovely post-9/11 environment. Up on the foredeck, A mother saw me, and threatened her young son: "If you don't behave, that guy is going to take you!" she warned, as I stood there, struggling with my digital camera. During the boarding, at least half the passengers, milling around, waiting for the boat to leave, joked with me, saying "what would you do if I tried to get on the boat right now?" They'd just look confused when I'd tell them I didn't care what they did.
So anyway, after 15 hours of driving, I needed a beer. I didn't, really, but in America, it's cheaper than pop, especially on this floating tourist trap. I paid almost $12 for macaroni and cheese, some sickening shaved meat sandwich, and something vaguely green. The beer was only $2. The dogfood was $10. Beer was actually a bad idea, though. I hadn't eaten in hours. So what was fatigue turned to seasick fatigue. I might as well have been drunk, because I went straight from sober to spins, with a little bit of gag reflex.
But that was boring, so I went to the museum onboard the ship. Despite the fact that there were spelling errors all over every display, it was enlightening. The ship was really old--like 50 years or something. It's the last coal-fired ferry in North America. It's actually an icebreaker, so, if we decided to, we could go full steam and carve a channel straight through northern Michican into Lake Superior. It didn't say that, but it should have. Sometimes, the truth is a little dull.
In the theatre room, or whatever you want to call it, they were playing the second Pirates of the Caribbean. This was surprisingly appropriate, and perfectly loud and flashy. I fell asleep through almost the whole thing, and woke only when I realized my bowels were emitting a green, glowing gas because of my horrible meal. I withdrew to the upper deck again.
Once up there, I watched the coast of Michigan approach. If not for all the other fat tourists, I could amost imagine that this is what the first pioneers from Europe saw (not this coast, but the same effect) as they approached the new world. The land went from a tiny brown strip on the horizon, to a series of white bumps and green dips. Slowly, buildings and a lighthouse came into view. And I was as curious as they might have been. This was all undiscovered territory for me, so I imagined having to clear a patch of land to build a cabin on, and farming and living off the land. But as I got closer, I realized none of this would be necessary in Ludington. This place had gone from some sort of industry town, to some sort of ghost town, and was entering its third incarnation as a crappy coast town with ugly condos all over the place. As I disembarked onto this disappointing new land, I wondered what time it was, and what there was to see around here.
Once the gangly teenager rolled my truck off the ferry, I wandered on wheels around the little town, noticing the contrast between the coast condos and the empty storefronts jus a block away. A policeman was blocking off a street; I asked him what was going on.
"Pet parade."
It was as though a light that only shone on shorn poodles and rabbit cages in wagons was suddenly, brilliantly lighted. Dogs with clothes on. Dogs with flags. Dogs squatting thoughtlessly as coils of steaming dog joy crept from their bodies. Rabbits. Cats struggling on leashes. Parakeets making that hellish sound they make.
Like myself, God, once again, was not pleased. He opened the skies, and let forth a deluge the likes of which Fluffykins and Barky had never seen, washing them away, back to their hellish suburban domeciles.
I, likewise, was washed north of town, where it stopped raining, right when I reached Ludington State Park. The whole point of the park was to protect the massive white hills I'd seen from the ferry. And they were massive. And beautiful. Sprigs of marine-looking grasses popped up where they hadn't been too trampled by humans, and other coastal-looking leafy plants popped up here and there. Lake Michigan stretched off as far as the eye could see, as black clouds loomed above. I looked at my camera.
It said I had one bar of batteries left. I couldn't see how; I hadn't actually taken that many photos. I took one of the lake. The camera shut off after that. I shuffled the batteries into a different order, and took one more. Then it shut off again. I waited a few minutes and took one last photo--by mistake--of the roof of the truck, once I got back inside. The rain had started again, and though I wanted to stay in this lovely place, I was lonely and wet and decided that the sooner I got out of the USA, the sooner I'd be seeing someone I knew.

America by Night

America always sets my stomach churning. Not in revulsion, by any means, but through my fear of their xenophobia. What would that be? Autoxenophobia? Who cares.
Getting to the border at Emerson was easy enough--Canada is calm and friendly and familiar, at least in my mind.
But baseless fears and borders lead to acid reflux. As I passed into Pembina, North Dakota, the guards waved me into a tall rolling-doored garage, asked me a bunch of questions, and then threw me into a room with one-way mirrors, telling me to wait while they searched my very terrorist-looking 1971 Sportcraft trailer. Two minutes later, they come to ask me how to open the trailer, and throw me back into my fishbowl. Three minutes later, they come in, and I tell them that I'll close it for them so they don't break it. For once, their stone faces crack, and I see they're relieved they don't have to figure out how to do it (--don't ask me why--it's the same process as putting it up, only you turn the little black handle in the other direction).
Granite jowls and drooping drawers restored, they wave me through.
I'm unhappy. I can't explain it. I don't feel comfortable in the US. I know it's exactly the same landscape, and all the same plants, as I saw directly north of here, but if not for the cheap, cheap gas and hot, hot exchange rate, I'd be aimed for Thunder Bay and beyond, content in the fact that nobody had their eye on me. Paranoia.
So as night falls, I try to find maps for every state I think I'll be passing through at gas stations, hotels, and rest stops. I find a "North Dakota--Western South East Lower Lakes Area" tourist map and guide," but it describes only the 500 square feet of the rest stop, and mentions the gas station I'd already stopped at.
Finally, I just look at the bottom of my map of Manitoba, which goes all the way to Fargo, ND, and from there follow the Interstate to Minneapolis-St.Paul. (Sidenote: while there, I don't see any dodgy overpasses like the one on the W35 that collapsed yesterday--probably because it's dark. )
Oh--And I'd forgotten to mention that in Winnipeg, I'd looked online and found a ferry that crosses Lake Michigan about four hours north of Chicago. In theory, this shortcut would cut eight hours off my American odyssey. But it leaves Manitowoc, Wisconsin in 15 hours. If I don't catch that one, I have to wait an extra day, and, well, like I said, I don't want to be there that long.
So, replay everything I've said in your head, only consider that I have only 15 hours to get about 1,244 km, and reset your mindset appropriately.
Right. So, I'm barreling like a retard through the northern United States, asking stupid questions and looking for maps, and night falls. Fireworks are going off sporadically in random places off the highway, with it being July 2 and all. Americans and other drivers, seeing that I'm a tourist, pass me, assuming I'm going slow because I'm pulling a trailer. But I'm not! I'm averaging about 120km/hour, not counting the on- and off-ramps I take to search for maps. I bypass town after town on ring roads or circumferential highways or whatever other name they've given their land-raping strip of traffic-easing pavement and overpasses, when, in mid-Minnesota, fog like tar falls over the land. It becomes impossible to see 10 feet in front of the truck.
Do I slow down? Would you?
I suppose I do a little, but only because everyone else is in the way. I'm down to the dregs on the iPod, or at least to stuff I haven't listened to ever before, so Me First and the Gimme Gimmes--doing a ska cover of Sloop John B (and a million other ska covers of easy-listening songs from the '70s) guide me through the soup covering the highway. After playing chicken with a BMW for a while--he'd speed up, then I'd not change speed, and then he'd slow down, and then I'd go exactly the same speed, and then he'd give me the finger, and I'd just turn off the dash lights so it'd be harder for him to shoot me.
All the way into Wisconsin, the fog never let up. Myself, on the other hand, well, I was fading fast. After doing an illegal U-turn just past Menomonie, WI, after sleeping past an off-ramp, I got on track for Manitowoc, but realised that I wasn't really watching where I was going at all, and wasn't really interested in being awake. Unacceptable! I cranked the wheel, and roared on three wheels (two truck, one trailer) into the parking lot of a gas station in Weston, WI, and got a mouthful of the worst coffee I'd ever had, a gutful of the shittiest packaged sandwich I'd ever pushed past my gag-reflex, and enough gas to get to Manitowoc without stopping again.
Roaring back onto the highway, I look at the clock. I've got an three hours to
get 150 miles. That's easy, I think, until I convert it to kilometres and realize that's 240 km. Still possible. Pedal to floor, eyes set to full pay-attention mode, numb ass to shut-up-because-nobody-cares mode, I get back on the highway.
By now, the fog has lifted. The horizon brightens, and as the highway clears, I become zen. I can make it, I chant. From somewhere in the iPod's cavernous stores appears Scott Joplin's The Entertainer. I put it on repeat, and begin a nirvana-like trek into inner peace, knowing that at the correct speed, and with the right amount of robotic diligence, I can make it.
For no reason whatsoever, with the daylight comes God on a lightningbike, trying to flood the earth and kill me with lightning. Bolts fall around me as I'm driving up the highway. Some of them hit close enough to follow from sky to earth, with thunder loud enough to be heard inside the truck at 100 km/h.
Do I slow down?
Well, I can't really see, and the windshield wipers can't really keep up.
So I keep going 100 km/hour. I clench my buttocks to avoid fouling my pants during hydroplaning sessions, and with one eye on the road, and one on the clock, I barrel through Wisconsin. The music shifts again, and Steve Earle's instrumental "Dominick Street," a jaunty onomatopoetic distillation of a fun childhood day, clears the sky and dries the roads. I roll into Green Bay with an hour to spare, and with the song on repeat, I barrel through morning rush-hour traffic and get my first glimpse of Lake Michigan. It's big, it's blue, and it looks like a lake. But this lake only has one side. Cool.
Welcome to Manitowoc, says the sign. I've made it. I miss the exit. I take the next one. I turn the wrong way. I have 30 minutes. I squeal the tires. I back up in someone's driveway. I retrace my steps. I drive too fast through the sleepy old town, cursing the kids/Yankees/tourists who stole the sign that tells me where the stupid ferry terminal is. There it is. No. There? NO. Oh. There it is. 7:49. I have 11 minutes to catch the ferry. I walk up to the door. It's locked. I walk to the pay phone. It's locked. That's stupid. No, it's not locked. But there's no answer when I phone the information line posted outside the building. I look at the truck and trailer, marvelling that they're both still in one piece.
I stand there.
What the hell do I do now? Did I miss it? The parking lot is empty, and the buildings are all locked.
Some sort of police or security people drive into the ferry parking lot. I wave frantically at them. They wave back, smiling jerkily. As in like jerks.
I stand there.
It starts raining again.
In my mind, I take a cast-iron pipe, and begin smashing ...
No, no. I don't. I sit in the truck.
Shit.
I go to sleep almost instantly.
Four hours later, someone bangs on the window. "Do you have a reservation?" someone asks.
"Huh?" I ask deftly, wiping the drool away and noticing that I can't bend my neck.
"Come inside."
Inside, a pretty young redheaded teenager tells me there may not be room.
"Huh?" I ask, using everything I learned in journalism school.
"We'll try to fit you on, but you should have had a reservation," she says in an accent that's a little twangy, but nothing like the Fargo accent (people in Fargo don't have the Fargo accent, either, I should mention).
Something snaps.
"Why would I want a reservation for a ferry that's four hours late?" I ask, but in a voice that sounds far more resigned than angry, since I'm too tired to act anything other than tired.
Her turn. "Huh?" she asks, using all 11 years of school she's had since kindergarten.
"Why. Is. The. Ferry. Four. Hours. Late?" I chant, fairly curious.
"Sir," she twangs. "The ferry left Ludington, Michigan, at 8:04a.m. this morning, on schedule."
Red. Face. Bashful.
"8:04?"
"Yes."
"On time?"
"Yes."
"Ludington?"
"The ferry travels from Ludington to Manitowoc. It does so on the schedule posted. Today, it left..." blah blah blah, I was a retard, the schedule was online, I can't read.
So, anyway, three hours later, I watched as they drove my truck and trailer onto the SS Badger, the last coal-fired car-ferry in commercial service in North America. As the coal trucks filled the hoppers below the car deck of the ferry, I thought to myself, "well, at least I know I can drive 15 hours straight with two bathroom breaks and several different natural calamities attempting to disrupt everything."
Then I thought, "What an idiot."