Dryden and Kenora
After driving for three hours following our departure from Thunder Bay, we debated on attempting to truck on to Kenora before stopping for lunch, but with everyone feeling a little peckish, we decided to descend upon Dryden for this integral part of our daily routine - food. Randomly choosing a convenient roadside Husky House Diner, no longer had we been seated and Toast plugged in his laptop than Michelle had already realized – from reading the back on the menu – that we were in fact inside Canada’s very first and original Husky diner…. an icon in its self.
When we questioned our friendly waitress on this piece of meaningful trivia, she immediately pointed to her manager, who was sitting behind us having his lunch. After this sweet man filled us in on some old facts regarding the history of the building, we begged him to be on camera to share his story for our video. He blushed and said he was camera shy, but immediately found us a replacement – the son of the man who owned and operated the store back in the 50’s. We had fun with the staff at this diner. Everyone wanted to know about Dola, and as we were sharing the story of our adventures, it turns out Dola had a couple of guys hitting on her – flanked on either side of her were two semis, fighting for her attention. She’s growing up so quickly…
Next stop – Kenora: home to a significant portion of Cat’s family. Some may question how an Australian has family in Kenora. It’s simple – I’m a mutt. But I prefer mix-breed, if you may.
And just as Michelle managed to get on a local Kenora radio station, The Mix, enter Cat having the blond-moment-to-end-all-blond-moments… after having gotten on the phone to my cousin I realize he is the station manager for Shaw TV, Kenora. A minor detail I neglected to remember BEFORE arriving in the town. I feel so small right now that I am even being nice to Toaster. But go figure – he doesn’t even notice, so it goes wasted. After pondering whether to share the news with Michelle, I decide I cannot possibly rob my gorgeous PR companion of something which may be able to be fixed…
With Michelle being the PR goddess she is; and my cousin Ky, who luckily happens to like me agreeing to jump in his car and come down to meet us at Huskey the Muskie (with additional family members in tow), we manage to pull off an on-the-spot video news release and provide my cousin with B-roll to fandangle into his programming. Love ya Ky! Wish I could have spent more time there catching up… And before I have an overly emotional moment – enter: Winnipeg…
