Day 1!

Okay. I have to take a breath here and describe to you - without swearing - what my day has been like.

Well it started off at 6 am as I packed the last remaining items into my car, took out trash, wrote down travel directions, and said my last tearful goodbyes to my mother and Chris. Very, very hard.

My mother decided she wanted to drive up behind me to Barrie where I was meeting up with Carmen which was actually a really nice idea, I liked looking in the rear view and seeing my Mom's face so that was a nice, smooth transition.

I met with Carmen in Barrie (after getting lost of course) and met her family (amazing, funny, kind!) and had lunch with them before taking off! We were discussing how low to the ground my car looked to which I replied "I'm a cholo and it is a low rider!" Just kidding. FORESHADOWING.

Not 30 seconds after leaving the restaurant I heard a familiar but quiet rumble coming from the caboose. I ignored said rumble.

Maybe 45 mins down the road, in the words of epic surfer dude (YouTube it) "WABASH!" and the quiet rumble becomes an explosion as my exhaust and muffler become almost fully detached from the undercarriage. Carmen and I pull over and a really nice man who happened to have a flat lay on the ground and temporarily secured my muffler to my car and pointed us in the direction of "Crappy Tire" (Canadian Tire) where an even nicer gentleman pulled off my muffler with the strength of a pinkie, handed it to me and tied up the remaining exhaust pipe to the car because they had no muffler guy on at that time.

Sooo I made sure I could get to North Bay safely as I was, called a local muffler place and left a message warning of my arrival tomorrow morning, unloaded a bunch of canned goods that were weighing down my car at a Lion's Club and made it safely (noisily) to North Bay!

My muffler is currently sitting in a garbage bag in my backseat and I am in a crabby mood. For those of you unaware, I had the entire exhaust and muffler system replaced at the end of April when it fell off on the 403 on way to the last day of placement. Sooo needless to say I was ticked to see my still-shiny muffler come off with little more than a tug of a mechanic's hand.

Hopefully tomorrow I can get everything reattached at a minimal cost and time interruption to our tight schedule. Tomorrow we head to Matagami with a pit stop in Val D'Or. Pray for my car.

On another note, Carmen and I are settled in at the Comfort Inn in beautiful North Bay, right across the street from Lake Nipissing! After our highly entertaining dinner (drunk woman showing her bug bites on her bum) we walked along the beach and came back to the hotel to crash! Which is what I am going to do now!

Goodnight!!