Nearing home

Nearing “home”…

As much as my youngest would like it to be called ‘Ra-jee-na’ it is called ‘Re-jie-na’ and it is one of the most beautiful towns on the plains of Canada.  Royally inspired, it has great old architecture and a bridge that would be at home in one of the most sophisticated and historic cities of Europe.  The stately homes give respite to wide-open prairies where conversations swings from, “Is that a hawk or a raven?” to “Can we start looking for a bathroom?”  Unlike the magnificent Yukon, central Canada rarely varies, seldom changes, and to my untrained eye, never surprises.

To be honest, we were getting ready to be done with the travels and were looking to get on with the relocation.  We brightened when we hit border at International Falls, Minnesota, USA, which is one of the places that they generally mentioned as the coldest in the country: along with Marquette.  Northern Minnesota increased my comfort level.  In fact, the further east I went, the more relaxed I became.  It was probably a combination of the pressure cooker the Sitka Assembly presented to me the last few months and just that sired song of the Great Lakes.  I was moving away from one and toward the other.

The lake country presented a nice combination of hardwood trees and pines and added the rolling hills of iron country.  We hit a tipping point of where we could actually drive right through and wake up in Marquette.  But that would have been a long-tough day and I was actually planning on calling into an Assembly meeting that night, starting at 9pm local time.  We decided, as we passed a Pure Michigan sign at the border to spend one more night in the tent before getting to our new home.  Iron Mountain, Michigan was not only a few hours drive from Marquette, but it also has a campground in the middle of town with full services for $10!  The only catch was that there was a weather front moving in and high winds were expected.  We staked the tent down with special care.

Starting a meeting at 9 O’clock is  challenging and knowing that there is a good chance that it will run four hours makes it even tougher.  I settled into the front seat of the Subaru as Carol settled into her sleeping bag in the tent.  The wind soon started to blow and then howl.  Mocha grew nervous inside and Carol brought her out and put her in the front seat next to me.  She was no more inspired by the conversation about the city self-funding its debt than I was.  Getting out of the car to stretch my legs, I was immediately chastised by the Mayor, because apparently the wind was raising havoc with the speaker system by in Sitka.  I was not particularly good at figuring out the mute and unmute buttons.  Eventually I had to move the car right next to the tent to block it from the gale.  After a lengthy and needlessly repetitive meeting, I moved into the tent to anchor the other half and try to get some sleep before the next day.

It was a fitful night and the walls of the tent were battered by storm.  We found large branches around the tent that had somehow managed to miss us as they were torn from the trees.  Over and over I awoke to competing questions: “What the heck were we doing?” and “What the heck is the house going to be like?”