From:  Chris Hoke <mineralrock@yahoo.com> 
Subject:  day five, canada-minnesota 
Date:  Fri, 13 Oct 2000


day five was yesterday.
i was too tired to write when we went to bed, so i'm
writing now. it's fifteen pm, dad's going for a run 
and i'm writing my daily journal thing.

yesterday we started out... at the walmart in Thunder
bay. did i mention thunder bay sucks?  what a fucking
hole. of course, i'm a prick who only wants the best
things in life, and thunder bay doesnt' cut it for me.
ah...i'm a snob. we woke up as dawn was approching,
drove south across the border and stopped for coffee
at the side of the road. we have a morning ritual
which consists of me staying in bed untill dad tells
me "allright, that's enough, up with you" or something
to that effect, and he makes coffee while i clean up
my bed, my area and the rest of the rv, making sure
everything is put away. it's very important that
nothing is shaking around and moving around, cause
the slightest bump could send projectiles in a number
of directions. so i have to make the rv shipshape while
dad makes some strong strong coffee, and that wakes me
up enough to not be a goddam prick. i am a prick in the
morning, i'm short with people and morose and all i
really want is either a hot 20 minute shower (usually
not availiable) or another two hours in bed (out of
the question)  but at least i'm not pissy b/c of drugs
and whatnot. that would suck. so we have coffee at the
side of the road, just inside minnesota, couple of hours
north of duluth on highway sixty one.
we had our coffee and i cleaned it up, and then we
drove some more, stopping along at some parks and
whatnot, looking at the lake. lake superior has an
average temperature of forty degrees.  if you want to
know how cold that is, i suggest filling a bath tub with
cold water, adding a bucket of ice, and jumping in.
yeah. fun.  we jumped right in, but only once.  when we
read that the avg temp is forty, we had a good chuckle.

we drove and drove, stopped for gas and ice cream and
what not, and kept going till we saw some road called
"pine lake road" or something like that.  we drove on
this dirt road and got out for some exercise, dad
running and me biking. hybrid tires are shitty on
gravel, i'll tell you that.  "limited traction" is the
order of the day. we nevertheless had a good half hour
exercise, and then drove on to gooseberry falls. we
walked around and saw the falls, pretty and stuff, but
there were tons of people. after walking around we felt
dirty, no showers in a couple of days, even though
jumping in lake superior felt like a shower. so we
showered in the bounder, our maiden showers. and they
were nice. 4 minutes, tops, but who cares?  when you
feel clean, you're ready to face the day.
then we drove on, and we were fucking hungry.  it
was 1 or so, and we stopped into this place called
"betty's pies" oh shit, i had raspberry rhubarb,
it was heaven, i'm telling you. the burger was ok,
the fries were not good, but the pie....man good
stuff. we were reading about the middle east, oh, it's
horrible.  those people, they're so filled with hate,
and fucking arafat, he needs to die, he's such a
goddamn coward, i swear. if you don't believe me,
just read the fucking newspaper, it's all there.
yeah, so then we drove on, listeing to louis l'amour,
which always makes dad want to have a smoke, it being
all western. i guess that's like me and bob marley.
i hear "punky reggae party" and i want a fucking
spliff. oh well. i'm so happy, i really don't want
the drugs, i don't need em.

so then we got through duluth and drove southwest to
the twin cities, minneapolis-st. paul. wow, they're
pretty big.  we went to the fucking mall of fucking
america, holy shit, i'm coming back in the dead of
winter, it was something else. they have an indoor
amusement park in there, camp snoopy.  it was too
much fun.  we got some more books on tape, and other
stuff. i milked dad for a copy of car and driver, and
he was like "you sure know how to press my buttons"
yeah, and you like it, dad. funny.

we were laughing as we left this huge mall, this
monstocity of american ingenuity. who would think of
building a mall with an amusement park inside? and
four floors of stores? over five hundred?  shit,
it's amazing.  all those jobs, jobs jobs, man it
was cool.

so then we drove to downtown minneapolis, and ate at
this restauraunt called aquavit. holy fucking shit,
it was so good, i couldn't believe it. it was all
ritzy, we wore sportcoats and felt spiffy, and i
wanted some friends of mine to be there, and my
sister. dad's kinda rushing me to finish, so i'll just
say he had a six course tasting meal, and i had a
lobster roll and a fig crusted lamb loin.

god, i love food.  after we ate i felt like i could
die, i really could, that's how good i felt.

then we got back to the bounder and passed out.  i had
some really bad dreams that kept me up, but oh well.

now we're in a park near downtown, it's one forty in
the pm, and dad just got back from his run. i'll update
you about today later, but there's stuff to be done
here.

as always::::::
***/***/**** or mineralrock@yahoo.com

keep in touch kids, i love to hear from you.

chris