Day Twelve, July 16: "Italy and British Columbia". Jones Falls to Centennial Tower, 16.8 km., 6 hours.

With the motel as home base, I found myself in a great position to hike without the pack today.  The Trail dips south of Owen Sound to the beautiful Inglis Falls, and then right back up again, so I planned to do a circle route, travelling light.  This would be one less day without the weight on my newly blistered foot, and one less day straining the torn shoulder strap.
The first part of the hike was flat and easy, with very little rock.  I passed through meadow and picked my way through big lumps of road apples adorning the Trail.  Eventually it came out onto an old farm road, where I was greeted by Arnold Ziffel's relative, a young pink oinker in a pen at the side of the road.  
I was preoccupied with the backpack problem, so I often lost the Trail and had to retrace my steps, looking for the iconic white blazes.  I used this time to speak to people at the SportChek in Owen Sound as well as Barrie, where I'd bought the pack a year earlier.  I also had an email conversation with the backpack manufacturer in Italy and was eventually put in contact with the ex-supplier who now works for CTC's designing division in BC (The Canadian part of the company was bought out by CTC last year).  He was more than helpful and although the backpack had been discontinued, he located a display model on a dusty shelf somewhere and offered to UPS it to me.  I arranged to have it sent to my friend Violet, since she will be joining me on my hike next week for a couple of days.
Then suddenly I found myself at Inglis Falls.  I hadn't seen anyone else on the Trail all morning, and there were only a handful of people at the Falls.
The Trail became quite challenging on the east side, and took all my concentration to get through.  In some parts there was even a certain amount of rock climbing involved, which I welcomed, since it involved using muscles other than the ones I had been using while hiking.
It seemed like there were a lot of challenges to face today, but it does look like everything will work out.