Day 33, Wednesday, September 21, SGPP (Sleeping Giant Provincial Park), Thunder Bay, Ontario

It feels like I have been on the road forever. I have grown accustomed to the routine, as the dogs have. Their frame of reference about what is home is well entrenched now. It is either the tents or the Defender. I wonder if they believe that this is the way it shall be from now on. Soon that will change as we start our journey home, which I guess started this morning (Wednesday) as we pulled out of that trail from Lake Bukemiga.

I returned to SGPP for one last night here only to find it extremely windy and cold, and I mean cold. Here it is the first day of fall and the temperature here right now is in the low 40s, and with the wind blowing from the lake it feels much colder. I made a wise decision in paying for the campsite last night and leaving my larger tent uo so that it would be ready for us when we returned today. I also made a wise decision to weight it down with rocks, because otherwise I would not have found the tent when I returned, the wind is that strong. And there is no way one person could have put up my larger tent in this wind, and my smaller tent is soaking wet from the rain last night. As I sit in the tent now (10 pm), the wind is howling outside and flapping the tent in all directions, threatening a good night's sleep, but I'll deal with that later.

I still have a long way to go before we are home, 1200 or more miles, but there is a certain sense of regret to leave behind that endless gray (often brown) ribbon of highways and byways, roads and trails, about 6000 miles so far is my guess. Tomorrow's ride will be along Lake Superior, where i hope to camp at the provincial par of the same name, but then we get on the U.S. Interstate system, where I will start to morph from the life of a nomad back into the role of a city dweller. No more northern lights, no more nighttime skies filled with stars, no more empty highways, hospitable people everywhere, no more campfires, no more running free for the dogs , and the list goes on and on. The only thing I will be thrilled to see disappear will be the $5.30 per gallon gas bills, but maybe that's what gas is in the States now.

I have not read a paper or watched the news on TV or the Internet since I left. I have no idea what the stock r market is doing, and really do not care. Who is running for the Republican nomination is not something I kept up with on this trip, or before. What Obama is up to is something I discarded long before I left. My first order of business when I return will be to get a haircut, take the dogs to the vet, repair and clean all my gear and the Defender, organize the almost 700 photos I took, and assorted other tasks related to the trip. Then on October 1, I will return to life as I knew it before July 5th, when I made the decision to take this road trip with my dogs. My hope, though, is that the best of what I learned by this trip changes me in ways that surprise even me.

This trip far exceeded my expectations, despite the problems, obstacles, and frustrations that found us wherever we went. But that's what these road trips are all about. The only disappointment was the useless satellite phone I rented, but that's something I will deal with later.

I am cold and so I will play taps and go to bed now. Well, maybe not bed, sleeping bag is more accurate. The dogs are already sound asleep, as they are 80 percent of the time on this trip anyway. Great companions, when they are awake.

Ed, from Thunder Bay, Ontario, which most people in the states never heard of.

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