The Truck Got Stuck

So today we decided it was time for us to do something fun. We were in Thunder Bay last night, and they have a big booklet on "Fun things to do in Thunder Bay, " so we perused that and decided on the "Panorama Amethyst Mine." It's the biggest amethyst mine in North America (it has a staff of FOUR whole miners!) and it sounded cool - you can mine your own amethyst and there's tours and stuff. Nowhere did it mention 8 kilometers of dirt road to get there. So we turned off the highway and started down. About 5 km in we round this corner and see a massive hill. Massive doesn't even begin to describe this hill, and it goes on and on, around corners, with big dropoffs on either side (getting the picture?) Well, after coming that far, and not really having room to turn around, we decided to go for it (after all, we made it through Roger's Pass!) About twenty seconds later we knew we were in trouble - the truck was going slower and slower and then backwards. Shit. We put it in reverse and began to back down. And then we got stuck. Damn stuck.






These pictures don't even do it justice. We were standing there looking at the truck, jammed up against a pile of rock and sludge piled up along the road to stop people from going over into the ditch, when an old crotchety miner drove up and called us stupid. He was on his way up to check on the mine, so he told us to sit put, block the tires and not touch anything - he was going to get the cavalry. About fifteen minutes later we saw the tractor coming down the hill. Hooray!





We were hoping they would just straighten us out so we could get out of there, but they towed us up and around the first corner. Now there was even more hill, and absolutely no way to back down it. The miner guys were looking at us like we were crazy for feeling dubious about the next hill (and I think even muttered the words "what, are you scared?") so we got up as much speed as we could on the little flat and zoomed up the hill. We almost made it too. So they hooked us on again, and towed the truck and trailer the rest of the way, moving cones and redirecting traffic along the way. When we finally got to the top, we went into the gift shop, bought a post card and a souvenir, then turned around and left. Couldn't wait to get out of there, but we did pause long enough to have this picture taken:



The rest of the day was relatively uneventful, but we did see the birthplace of Winnie-the-Pooh, which is a very small town with three gas stations. We had to stop though and get our portrait taken with the Pooh statue!!



Tonight we're in Wawa (which means tomorrow we'll be going South of Wawa) (for those videophiles out there) Go...Wawa.