The Long, Long Road Home

Dec 10th & 11th- Days 4 & 5

I woke up at 10 AM, perfect timing to get ready for the ride home. I sat in bed for a while and wrote out a postcard to my friend, Leah, as I tried to shake the post-sleep cobwebs from my brain.

We watched the weather reports and things didn't look great. After some debating, we decided to just get out as soon as possible and try to beat the worst of it.

Like a well oiled machine, we were packed, bundled, ready, and on the road at 11:45 AM.

As we rode the freeway out of Toronto, we hit a little bit of snow, but nothing of any real consequence. The wind gusts were the worst part of it.

Back on Day 1 of this trip, I wrote "As we approached Buffalo, the weather got bad. Real bad."
In hindsight, that was but a flurry.

When we hit Niagara, we were hit with whiteouts. I've driven through some heavy snowfall, but I've never seen anything like this. In a matter of seconds, everything beyond the windows would vanish, swallowed by pure white. It was disorienting and actually pretty scary.

WALL-E tries to see through the snow

We pushed on, crossed the border, and made it to Buffalo...where things got even worse.

The whiteouts were more frequent and the road conditions became far worse. The three lane highway became a two lane parking lot as the already slow moving traffic came to a complete stop.

At times, we would go for well over an hour without moving so much as a single inch.

When we would finally start moving, speeds would rarely reach 15 mph, but never higher than that.

My overpriced iPod adapter didn't even get used, as we wanted to keep listening to local radio to hear what was going on.

Eventually, all daylight was gone and we were still stuck on 90 West in the same awful conditions. In the dark.

Our plan became to make it to the Angola rest stop for a break and then decide if we should keep driving or hang there until sunrise.

Upon arrival it didn't even look like the rest stop was open. The entire parking lot was buried under several inches of snow.
Eventually, we saw people go in, so we at least knew it was open, but there was no possible way for my wheelchair to get through all that snow and get inside. Luckily, the guy who was plowing the parking lot was extremely helpful and cleared a path right up to the door for me. He even cleared a parking space near the door for us and made sure we got inside.
I can't thank him enough.

The drive from Toronto to Angola should have taken us about 2 hours. It took us 8.

Once inside, we made our way to Denny's, got some food, and tried to figure out what to do.

We made a couple calls and checked online, it seemed that if we could make it past Erie, PA, we'd be in the clear. Our decision was made for us by a phone call to the restaurant, informing them that the freeway had just been closed.
We were spending the night.

Our awesome waitress, Elke, was really helpful and nice throughout the night. I set up shop with my laptop to pass the time and keep tabs on the weather situation.

There were about a half dozen other travelers spending the night there. Some had pulled into the parking lot and gotten their car stuck in a snow drift, so they just left it and came inside. Later, a few semis pulled in, also got stuck in drifts, and ended up completely boxing the car in.

It was such an odd scenario and, honestly, kind of creepy.
Sometime during the night, Mom and I went to see how the road looked from the windows in McDonald's. It seemed so bizarre to see people sleeping in every booth inside the place.
I felt like I was in a zombie movie. We were a band of survivors holed up in a secure facility, waiting to hear something from the outside, trying to decide if we should stay put or try to make a break for it.


Mom managed to doze off for a few minutes throughout the night, but I was way too wired to sleep.

Eventually, the sky started to lighten as the sun unsuccessfully tried to peek through the clouds. We ordered small breakfasts before Elke went home and resumed our stay-or-go debate.
Neither of us wanted to spend another night in a rest stop Denny's, but every time the freeway reopened, it closed again within minutes.
We decided to get off of 90 and push for home via Route 20.

We set out again at 9:30 AM.
It was still bad, but at least we had daylight on our side.

For hours, all we saw were vast snow-covered grape fields and tiny towns, each one looking exactly like the last. Winds would come sweeping across the fields, picking up snow from the ground and repeatedly slamming us with whiteouts as we crawled down the long, boring road.

We were moving slowly, but I was just happy to be moving at all. We would occasionally come to a halt, but none like the day before.

WALL-E just wants to go home

I had been up for a full 24 hours. That, combined with the bland scenery, the hum of the engine, and the whoosh of the defrosters, would get the best of me as I found myself randomly falling asleep for seconds at a time.

Mom caught me dozing

We finally crossed into Pennsylvania just shy of 11 AM.

There was a whole convoy of us headed west on 20. It must have been quite a site for the locals, seeing this endless line of big rigs and other assorted freeway refugees slowly filing through their rural towns.

Our convoy

Bort! Bort!

Somewhere near Wesleyville, we hit another dead stop. A long one. About a mile or so ahead of us, a semi tried to get up a hill (a very small hill) and failed. This blocked traffic for over an hour.
We were losing daylight fast and started to discuss whether or not we should just find a hotel and try again the next day. We were tired, stressed, and all we wanted was to be home. So we pushed on.

It was completely dark by the time we reached Girard. That's when my uncles started calling, worried and urging us to get a room somewhere. But we were determined.

We were finally in familiar territory once we reached a snow covered Conneaut. Just an hour from home if 90 was clear. We decided to try it.
And it was clear.

Mom and I spent the final hour of the long drive talking to keep each other awake.

We got home at 7 PM on Friday night. 10 hours since we last had anything to eat or drink (or had access to a bathroom). Roughly 30 hours since we left the hotel on what should have been a 5 to 6 hour drive.

We were home.

We came inside and quickly ordered pizza and started guzzling whatever liquids we could find.

We were home.

It was a long and sometimes scary vacation. Most things that could have gone wrong did. It was chaotic...but I had fun. It was worth it.
I will give it some more thought next time I consider traveling during the winter months, though.

PS- Here's the weather we came home to.

Christmas Consumer Chaos and The Keg. In Canada.

Dec 9th, 2009- Day 3

I woke up at 10 AM, very groggy and in a haze.

Looking outside, there was none of the predicted snow to be seen, just a dreary, rainy day.

I hadn’t seen my cousin, Mark, in about five years. He lives near Toronto, so we were planning to meet up that day. Mom called him to see what was going on- that was when we found out where all the snow went. He was completely snowed in and unable to get to Toronto.
That was a bummer. Hopefully we’ll be able to get together another time soon.

We decided to head over to the Eaton Centre again and spend some time actually looking around.

To avoid the rain, we headed back down to the PATH, this time successfully passing the elevator roadblock by removing my leg rests.

It is...chaotic in the PATH. The fast-paced hustle and bustle of the people combined with the somewhat confusing layout can get you turned around pretty fast.

Luckily, we found our way to the Eaton Centre relatively quickly. The chaos continued inside, where three floors of Christmas shoppers frantically darted in every direction.

We wandered around for a while and stopped in the food court for some ice cream. As we finished, I heard a voice from behind asking “Are you Jacob?” It turned out to be Angela, a MySpace friend of mine who was also at the concert the night before. We didn’t get much time to talk, but it was still a cool, unexpected meeting.

The top of the giant Christmas tree

The star at the top

Back to shopping mode, I set out to find a replacement iPod adaptor for the drive home. The best looking one I could find was pricier than I had hoped, but Mom and I went halfsies on it, which lessened the sting a bit. (Of course, I later found out it was three times the price I would’ve spent if I had waited and bought it on Amazon. Ugh.)

Before leaving the Eaton Centre, I bought one of Dala’s CDs and saw the DVD of Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog for a good price, so I grabbed that too.

We headed back to the hotel for a bit, only to see severe weather warnings plastered all over the news. Apparently, the majority of our road home was set to be hammered by lake effect snow throughout the next few days.
This raised the question of whether we should still leave the next day, as planned, or stay in Toronto and wait it out.
We agreed to play it by ear.

Having only eaten that ice cream at the food court, it was time to get some dinner. We loved The Keg in Niagara Falls, so we went down to the front desk to ask if there happened to be one near the hotel. They gave us directions and we were on our way.

It was only about a ten, maybe fifteen minute long walk, but the constant icy winds made it feel much, much longer. My driving hand was frozen by the time we arrived.

The place was packed. They had a table pretty quickly, but it was a pretty cramped path, everyone would have had to stand up and push their chairs in for me to get my wheelchair through, so we ended up wait waiting 45 minutes. I snagged a spot near the fireplace, so I didn’t mind the wait. Thawing is nice.

Dinner was great, I got the teryaki chicken and three cheese baked potato with Jackson-Triggs chardonnay. Totally worth the long, cold trek to get there.

The walk back seemed much quicker and warmer, most likely thanks to the wine. We even paused to snap a couple pictures of the awesome Christmas window displays at The Bay.

We got back to the room at 10:30 and just decompressed for a while. Flipping around on TV, we managed to catch the day’s installment of ET Canada’s feature on Chantal and Raine’s vow renewal, so that was cool.

I was in bed by 12:30.

Day 1- The Winds of Windsor

Thursday, February 22nd, 2007

I woke up at 10 AM, which is like the crack of dawn for me. My throat felt a bit scratchy and I desperately hoped I wasn't going to be sick for this concert too. I decided to pop a tylenol, ignore it, and keep getting ready. I threw some new music onto my iPod for the road while Mom got herself ready.

We loaded up the van and set out at 1:00. It was a pretty overcast day, but it wasn't snowing or raining, which was nice. The only bad factor from the weather was the wind. It wasn't terrible, but it was just enough to where Mom couldn't just relax and cruise. Sadly, the wind stayed with us the whole drive.

Approaching Cleveland

The drive to Windsor isn't nearly as scenic as the drive to the Falls, unless you're a big fan of fields, that is. There isn't much to look at along the way, so to pass the time, I would overly excitedly point out every frozen body of water along the way. Rivers, ponds, lakes, even ditch water. Maybe you had to be there.

Traffic wasn't too bad, thankfully. I guess we were driving at the right time. Even so, there was one semi driver who cut us off and missed us by about three feet.

I never used to think crossing state lines meant much of anything, but it is a bit weird how things can seem different the moment you enter another state. The road feels different, the bridges and freeways have a different look, and when we crossed into Michigan, it even seemed like a different season. There was much less snow on the ground and the sun came out for the first time all day.


Also for the first time on the trip, a favorite Chantal song of mine, Little Things, randomly came up on the iPod and I took it as a sign we'd have a good trip.

After sharing the road with the crazy Michigan drivers (they don't seem fond of turn signals), we arrived in Detroit and came to the tunnel to Canada, which I just found out is "the only vehicular international subaqueous border crossing in the world." Groovy.

Detroit

Three hours after leaving home, we arrived in Windsor.


The high winds were strong as ever when we pulled into the Hilton (get it out of your system, insert cheesy "That's hot" joke here). Alas, it wasn't just windy, it was bitter cold and windy. With the help of Marty, the awesome bellman, we got our stuff and settled into the room a bit.

The view from our room

It was a bit cramped with my wheelchair, but it was nice. If they could combine the room from the Marriott at the Falls with the amenities of this room, it would be perfect. Tons of TV channels and free highspeed internet, including free wireless, though apparently the wireless doesn't work above the 3rd floor for some reason. We were on the 9th. Ah well, I didn't travel up there to play online.


A bit later, we were off to the mall. Yeah, I'm a sucker for shopping. Mom made me wait inside the hotel lobby while she lowered the lift on the van, that's when I heard familiar notes over the hotel music system. They were playing another of my favorite Chantal songs, Wayne. As we pulled away from the hotel, we were greeted by her name on the marquee of the Chrysler Theatre next door.


A ten minute drive and a few pictures later, we were at the Devonshire Mall.


Though the Pen Centre in St Catharines is bigger, I think I preferred this mall. It just seemed to have more variety and better stores. I bought myself Trailer Park Boys: The Movie on DVD and Our Lady Peace Live on CD. Excellent finds.


Neither of us having really eaten all day (aside from some pretzels on the road), Mom and I stopped in the food court and split some fries from New York Fries.

On the way out of the mall, I decided to indulge the action figure collector in me and head to the Toys R Us across the street. That's when it got crazy.
Since it was still windy and freezing out, Mom told me to get inside the store while she closed the van. The parking lot was empty, so I took off. Halfway to the door, a gust of wind hit me and I felt my Our Lady Peace hat quickly leave my head. I yelled out "My hat!" and spun around. The trooper that she is, Mom was already right on top of it. I spun again and resumed the journey to the door. That's when the second gust hit. This time, it caught my sweatshirt and blew it up over my head, completely covering my face. I could still see out of the corner of my eye, so I kept driving as I looked for the ramp to the door.
When Mom saw me driving across the parking lot with a sweatshirt over my face, she freaked and ran for me. Meanwhile under the sweatshirt, I have tears running down my face from laughing so hard. Mom flipped the sweatshirt down and ran back to finish closing the van while I finally got inside.
Seriously, she's a trooper.
Oh, and to complete this story, there was no trace of any figures I was looking for, though I was still laughing too hard to care.

We braved the wind and returned to the van to head back to the hotel. After dropping our stuff off in our room, we went down to the fancy restaurant on the second floor, The Park Terrace Restaurant. Maybe it's stupid, but I try to treat myself while on vacation and eat at one restaurant I'd normally consider too expensive. Sitting in the dimly lit restaurant overlooking Detroit and the Detroit River, Mom and I sipped on wine and ate bread (accompanied by fancy looking butter) before digging into the main course, roasted chicken (Mom's had fruit salsa, mine didn't) and mashed potatoes. It was pricey (to me), but fantastic.


By the time we finished, it was nearing closing time, so we took our piece of hot chocolate cake back to our room.


We split the cake and I checked my email before hopping into bed after a long, busy day.