We wanted to visit an amethyst mine on the outskirts of Thunder Bay Monday afternoon, but the day was getting long and Google said that we wouldn’t make it before closing. While our planned campsite was further west, we decided instead to stay in Thunder Bay and come back to the mine in the morning.

Fun Fact: Walmart allows RVs to camp/park in their parking lots. There are people that travel the country in RVs, migrating from Walmart to Walmart like modern nomads in their unceasing search for plastic goods and cheap starchy foods. We’re going to try it sometime when we’re desperate for a campsite, but I worry about homeless persons or worse. Surely there is a symbiotic class of people that prey upon the RV herd, culling the weak while they sleep under the big neon W.

While there is a Walmart in Thunder Bay, we chose the KOA instead. The one in Sault Ste. Marie had seemed clean, if strange, and I thought we might try again. It turned out to be pretty nice again, although strange in the same RV way. Why do people drag houses out into parking lots and live in them? I’m willing to bet that they actually have more greenery at home with their own trees and lawns. I have a theory that people are holding on to the childish joy of living in forts, and rationalizing it as adults with RVs. Our little pop-up is a real David next to some of the Goliaths that we see.