Fun Times in Port Bruce

Shannon has seen my bad side on Lake Erie. My real bad side. I spouted just a few four letter words in reference to the great Lake Erie on our trip and a few choice words to God as well. I know my little sister did not appreciate it and she let me know. during out stop in Port Bruce I witnessed a side of Shannon many of you may not have seen yet, the HUNGRY side. This is a true story.

We had had two nights in a row where we had not gotten much sleep. We had stayed up late in Erieau trying figure out our wireless internet, to no avail and then hitching a ride with Jim to Port Stanley was also a very late night. We had two days of paddling under our belt and maybe 9 hours of sleep when we made it to Port Bruce. We set up camp quickly and took a nap as soon as we could. The trouble started soon after we awoke. The land we had chosen was the property of the only grumpy old man in Canada and we had to get off which sucked because we had to repack out boats for a 100 foot trip across catfish creek to the trailer camp site which costs 30 dollars a night! Once we had our site we decided to forget the cooking and grab something to eat at The Sandcastle. It seemed like a nice place but it turned out to be a portal to Hell and I am pretty sure a demon came out and possessed my sister for a short time.

Here is the dilemma that started us down a dark and hungry road. The Sandcastle did not take credit cards but it did take debit. Our debit cards did not work. We had enough cash on us for either the camp site or dinner and we wanted both. There was also no ATM in Port Bruce. This situation led us to hitch hike into the nearest town to search for an ATM which was very successful thanks to a couple of gentlemen who had just left the police academy. They drove us from Port Bruce to Aylmer and back but by the time we got back to The Sandcastle it was 8:45 and they closed at 9:00 which meant they had turned everything off and they were not going to serve us! At this point we had been trying to give this place our money for a good 3 hours and they knew we were trying to find an ATM but we were not going to get any food that night. Shannon had been steadily working herself downill ever since the nap earlier in the day and she told me that she was ready to kill puppies. I was laughing at this point because the situation could not have gotten any better and Shannon flicked me off for being so... giddy. Shannon wanted to kill the girl who worked at The Sandcastle and burn the place to the ground. I would have been ok with that as long as I was able to cook something to eat over the flames. We walked back to our site and Shannon just laid on the ground in despair. I seriously thought she might just die. It had been... maybe 6 hours since she had eaten and I was laughing, which didn't help. Anything I said was wrong and I thought I was going to be stuck cooking becuase my sister was completely incapacitated

Luckily for us Canadians are awesome. Some random guy asked how things were going and instead of giving the standard one word answer I was completely honest. I could tell by his face that he wasn't expecting an answer like that. He left but then about five minutes later he showed up with a giant plate of spaghetti! The demon in Shannon was completely exercised in a single instant and we had a very pleasant dinner filled with smiles and laughs. Next time I am just going to spend the camp site money first.