After lingering for only as long as one’s tolerance for incense permits, you break out of the church into Manger Square where you are at once assaulted by Palestinian merchants offering everything from post-cards to rosaries. The juxtaposition of this scene is jarring to say the least. Twenty feet from one of the most holy sites in all religion, the scene of the incarnation, we are set upon like carrion. “You’ve seen Jesus’ birthplace, now how about a watch? No? Perhaps a pair of sunglasses?” I dare say the Wise Men of the gospels had less frustration getting out of town 2 millennia ago.

After running the gauntlet of consumerism, one cannot escape the irony of it all. In the gospel accounts, Jesus condemns the sellers of wares at the Temple, the house dedicated to holiness. Two thousand years later and 8 miles away we encounter a scene not much different really. Certainly, I do not begrudge the locals from making their living, but all the same, the whispers of the past echo anew.

The idea was to get up at the crack of dawn, load the car, and hit the road. The north shore of Lake Superior (Minnesota) is a very popular destination and we had to be on the road by 8:00am to guarantee getting a prime campsite. We (her) forgot to set the alarm so we didn’t wake up until a bit past 7:00am. No problem you’re thinking, just load up the tent, packs, food, etc. and hit the road. Well “someone” (OK, me) decided it would be a great idea to take our bicycles so the night before I went out and purchased a roof rack, thinking I would just slap it together in the morning. Ah but this was 1980 and the racks were not the engineering marvels they are today. After several failed attempts (and several scratches to the roof) it was installed…or so I thought. Car loaded-check, bikes on the roof-check, OK, let’s go. Backed out, hit the brakes, and the rack (with both bicycles) flies off the roof, bounces on the hood, and lands in the driveway. 45 minutes later (and after exploring all the dark recesses of my vocabulary) we were finally on the road.

For those of you who have never driven a ’79 Volkswagen Rabbit let me describe the experience. Imagine a car that has no power, skinny tires, and handles with all the precision of a bobsled. Now stick two bicycles on the roof and try to navigate the narrow, twisty roads of the north shore. Got the picture? We arrived at 3:00pm and of course the only good campsites left were the ones just off the main road. Well, we’re not exactly “happy campers” but what the heck.

It turns out I knew as much about setting up a tent as I did a bike rack. Figured it would be easy until I remembered one critical element missing from this trip…my dad. It appears there are a few tricks (to setting up his old vintage tent) that he neglected to verbally (or genetically) pass on. Well we figured it out just as darkness fell. I’m not going to go on about the food we forgot or how much trouble we had getting the stove to work because I want to save room for the good stuff. After a long day we were beat and just wanted to sleep. Being close to the road was going to make that difficult.

The “highway” between Duluth and Thunder Bay is a major trucking route. Day and night, night and day they go back and forth round the clock. We were so close to the road that every time one went by the tent would shake. Luckily it only went down twice during the night. Yup, lucky. The next morning I decided to go out for a bike ride. The roads around the lake remind me of Vermont and with the leaves just starting to turn it was beautiful. Turning off the main road I started up this side road, riding until the pavement turned to gravel. Stopping to take in some water (and the views) I noticed a rustling in the bushes. To my amazement out pops a young moose. Now I’m thinking “this is very cool”, but somewhere in the back of my mind I’m thinking “where’s mom?” The next thing I know out from the bushes comes…mommy moose. charging straight at me. Oops.

I’m not sure how fast I went and for all I know she might still be chasing me. The couple of times I did look (back and under my arm) all I saw were nostrils. When I got to the intersection with the main road I hit the brakes, went down and (still attached to the pedals) slid across the road and into the ditch. “How was your ride honey?” Umm… That night we decided to go out for dinner rather than risk the whole stove fiasco again. The food was great but for some reason there were a lot of flies in the restaurant. I asked the waitress about it and she said “Oh, they’ve been bad this year”. Hold that thought because I will be coming back to it.
The following morning we decided to take a drive to Grand Marais. It’s this beautiful little harbor town with a lighthouse you can walk out to. Most days it’s calm and peaceful. But Superior can get rough, and that day some big waves were coming in.

Well first I heard it and then I saw it. Heading right for me was a wave that must have been 10′ high. I grabbed the safety line, went vertical, and landed with a crash on the other side of the breakwater. Ouch. After I pulled myself together I thought, “now where did she go?”.

When the second wave hit it knocked her over my head and into the bay with so much force that both her shoes flew off. It took three of us forming a chain to pull her out of the water. Battered, bruised, wet, and with one shoe between us, we headed to the car.

Back at the campsite we noticed that most of the other people had packed up and cleared out. I spotted this kid running towards us and rolled (yes, actually rolled) the window down to see what was up. As he ran by all I heard was “flies…”. Turns out the problem our waitress had alluded to was an infestation of biting flies. Angry, aggressive, swarming, you get the idea. As the day warmed up they got a lot more…active. I won’t go into the details but suffice it to say dealing with our wounds under those circumstances was not a happy time.

It took us 3 hours to set up camp. Two days later it came down in 35 minutes. Oh, and I haven’t been camping since.

So what makes Townsville so awful besides the racism? Maybe it’s the desolate city mall which is all but abandoned and home to many vagrants who have scant disregard for verbally abusing anyone who starys near their path.
Or perhaps the city’s nightclub precinct is another welcome place to have obscenities thrown at you by drunken strangers on a weekend. The premier establishment “The Cri” along the strip is one of those humble ‘will-I-make-it-out-alive?’ kinda places with rednecks galore.
I also neglected to mentioned the crappy street architecture that adorns the nightclub strip. Its essentially garbage and scrap metal piled together in a tall triangle shape. I tend to resent hearing people saying; “That’s not art!” at just about anything. But I sometimes feel it’s valid in the aforementioned case of triangle trash to say they gotta point.

Townsville is also a city with an army barracks, air force base, and large nickel refinery meaning macho bravado (even amongst members of the female population) is the order of the day. So if a binge drinking, V8 Supercar loving, Big Mac eating culture is the primeval way of life you seek, you’ve just found Heaven.