Canadian Shield: Big Lakes. Big Bugs. Lotta Cops

There’s always clues, we just don’t always see or hear them. Candace use to tell me this in her own way, as in “... Bob, you’re not LISTENING!...’. At least, that’s what I think she said. After a day-long ride, I tend to decompress by trying to look somewhat engaged, but typically drifting off somewhere thinking about pronghorns, or whatever. Well, while at Brian’s, he was busy sharing some history and mentioned buying a case of insect repellent. Now, why didn’t I latch on to that? Many of us grew up in the Canadian Shield and this should have been an alarm bell. A “CASE” of repellent! We’re not talking Molson’s here. Repellent comes with a XXX across the labels: ”DEET: DO NOT USE IF UNDER THE AGE OF 18; DO NOT LICK YOUR FINGERS, DO NOT PICK YOUR NOSE; WASH YOUR HANDS BEFORE GOING TO THE WASHROOM”. This should trigger a reaction of some sort. Sadly or rather expectedly, I missed the clue until now.

So, here I am sitting at a gas station, cooling down and minding my own business when I realize I’m being savagely attacked by these females. There trying to bury themselves into my triceps and suck my blood. One of them suckceeds and buries this 2 inch shaft through my arm and out the other side. Naturally I flicked her off but it didn’t come off quite like I hoped. While most of her flew off, her head and shaft remained deeply buried in my arm. I guess she’s going to Nova Scotia. I’ll get used to her.

There`s a few OPP officers in the northwestern Ontario. There`s a few every 10 kms. I travelled 3 prairie provinces on this trip totalling 1680 kms or so and I saw no police, not one, nada. I crossed that Ontario line and although I had been warned, I wasn`t prepared. Lotta cops that have to deliver on some mandate or other. Well, we pay people to answer these types of questions and the Ontario gov`t obviously gave this some serious thought because you can`t have that many officers idle. I believe that had a large part in the right-left combination of the ´lotta cops, low speed limits` strategy now keeping so many public employees busy. The highway speed drops to the point where your fuel consumption actually goes up because you have to shift from 6th gear (in my case) down to second or third just so you don`t lug the engine. Try explaining that to the newbie cop: I was doing 120 in the 80 because I`m doing my part for the enviroment, saving fuel, etc.

Let`s call a spade a spade: I haven`t seen the rest of the province but this part of Ontario is a police state. If you doubt it, try shifting into 4th.