Drive Home - Day 7: Wawa

If I had known what day seven of our drive home would bring us, I might have stayed in bed in Schreiber! It started out well… We left early enough, drove to White River that morning, filled up with gas, and went on our way. Little did we know that I had left my brand new, blue leather wallet in the rest-stop bathroom!

We didn’t discover this until two hours later, when we stopped at a chip truck for lunch, at a campground called Twilight Resort. What a disaster! No wallet, no money, no bank card, no credit cards. My cellphone had no service, so no calls, no data, no Google maps,

nothing! I walked into the campground office, feeling distraught, to ask to use the phone – but where was I expecting to call?? I had a good idea that I had left my wallet at the gas station – it was our last stop, and I had made purchases, so it had to be there. But how was I supposed to find their number?? Old fashioned, no-tech options to the rescue again? Nope, the phonebook did not cover White River.

The attendant could tell by this point that I was pretty upset, so he asked if he could help. I asked if he had WIFI, and he immediately gave me the password. Using my cell, I was able to find the gas station on Google Maps and got their phone number. I called with the campground landline, and they had my wallet! Hooray!! – but now what? Did I backtrack two hours to get it? Did I continue without it, and have them send it to our house in Markham? What did I do for money? We would need gas, food…AAAAARGH!

The lady on the other end of the line, at the gas station in White River, suggested they send it by bus to Sault Ste-Marie, where I could pick it up at 7:00 pm. This would delay us by five hours, and I should have just done this, but the campground attendant had the idea of meeting the bus in Wawa which was only an hour back the way we came. The bus would get there in the next two hours. I thought this made more sense and would save a bit of time…

So there we were, sitting at the bus depot in Wawa waiting for my wallet. While I sat in silence, my brain started spinning… This wasn't going to be free; there would be some kind of charge for this. How much would it be? How did I pay? Would I need cash? I went inside the community centre, that was also the bus depot, to ask and found out that there would be a charge, and that I would have to pay at this office - which was currently closing. Wait, what? Closing? How was I supposed to get my wallet? Oh, the driver would lock it up in the shed outside. It would be safe until someone came back in the morning. Noooooo! This could not happen. Couldn’t the driver take the money and give me my wallet? Probably not, maybe, it was at his discretion. Oh no, not good.

"Ok Google, what is the number for the bus service from White River to Wawa??" Got the number for Greyhound, gave them a call (small consolation that I actually had cellphone service in Wawa). In a nutshell, it was going to cost about $40, there was no guarantee the driver would take the money or give me my wallet that night in Wawa. There was a good chance I would have to wait until morning, but where would we sleep? Hold on a minute, the bus still hadn't arrived.

It was going on an hour late, where was the bus? I called the gas station in White River. Oh, the bus HADN'T LEFT YET! "Excuse me? You are telling me my wallet is still there in White River? Hold on to it – I’m coming!!!"

I jumped back in the car, we drove back to White River, and there was my wallet, safe and sound, behind the counter at the gas station! We were sooooo happy, I think we did a dance! I paid the gas attendants $40 as a thank you. We bought snacks and went on our way!!

In summary, we left Schrieber that morning around 8:30 am. We had driven 375 kilometres when I noticed my wallet was missing at about 1:00 pm. I drove 100 kilometres back to Wawa to wait for the bus. We waited about two and a half hours, but the bus never came. We drove another 100 kilometres back to White River and got the wallet. We drove the 100 kilometres back to Wawa and stopped for dinner. It was dark, it was late, and the emotions of the day had caught up with us. We knew we couldn’t go any further, so we found a room for the night. It was 10:00 pm – over twelve hours from the time we started that morning, we had driven about 700 kilometres, but we were only 275 kilometres from where we started.

Yep, if I had known what this day would’ve been like that morning, I would’ve saved us the trouble and stayed in bed in Schrieber. I could safely say that I never wanted to visit Wawa again! Three times in one day was plenty for a lifetime. From this day forth, we would call this town “Wawa-wannnnh”!