ONCE AGAIN CAPTIVE OF DAD IN HIS CAR FOR 3 DAYS

By now we had been in Pennsylvania for a year and a half and ol’ Bubbaloo was wanting to go see her dad, step mom and the rest of her family in Edmonton. I had been thinking, often, of visiting my children D1, D2, and D3, so the idea of a little time off was appealing. I’m like YYYYEEEESSSSS a road trip. Ron is like “no Dad not the car please Dad, not the carrrrrrr”! To no avail! The vision of having an audience for a few days, listening to my endless BS, was so appealing to me. I never considered, that even my own family might be getting tired of me droning on, alone, without stop. NNNAAAAAHHHH couldn’t be.

By now Bubbaloo was an absolute expert in planning and organizing road trips. She had all of the necessities for some long days in the car, sorted, packed, double checked and stowed before I even arrived, early, from work. Besides our clothes, the car was loaded with snacks, games, books, tour guides, maps and other assorted goodies. All I had to do was finish work early, change clothes, lockup, drag Ron kicking and screaming to the car, pile in, and we were on the road. By the time we made the freeway, I had started on my first of many sandwiches, a Diet Coke and was well into a diatribe about “something”.

Bubbaloo had a patient look on her face, the girls were ignoring me and all was right with the world. These were definitely some of the greatest times of my life. Ol’ Bubbaloo was riding herd and keeping us on the straight and narrow. She thrived as the “boss” and I let her pretend that she was, in fact, in charge (hehehe). We struck out straight north of Wallingford, Pa on hwy 476 (then to I80 and I90) and settled in for a 6 hour drive to Buffalo and crossover into Canada at Niagara Falls. Our plan was to make Buffalo by nightfall, get a room overnight and (scarf a few Buffalo wings) then crossover in the morning.

About 3 hours in, Ron finally breaks her silence and says “hey dad, I have an idea”, oh great I think, this will be good. She explains it like this, “so what if you just take me to the nearest airport and put me on a plane to Edmonton, have Auntie and Uncle Clif come get me and I’ll just stay with them and wait for you when you get there”? Ange’s like “me too dad, me too”. Geezus, this about 3 hours into a three day marathon. I thinking this is going to be a long trip. My response is “Bubba can you please deal with those two ingrates!”

Bright and early the next morning, we cross over to Niagara Falls, Ont. Our plan was to look at the sights, catch a boat under the falls and then get back in the car and head for Winnipeg. I always say nothing better than a plan destined for failure. It makes you strive so much harder to achieve the milestone that you have created for yourself. I think at this point, rather than describing our tour of Niagara Falls (the Canadian side), I will once again use our photos to do the talking. I hope you can enjoy them as much as I did, while sorting thru them.

We were now back on the road, after spending most of the morning in Niagara. Our plan was to make a drive thru Ontario, around the top of the Great Lakes, turn west and head for Edmonton. I felt one overnighter should do it. “You gotta be kidding me”, is what you are all muttering. Well rightly so. You see, I had been looking at the map and conferring with my co-pilot Bubbaloo, but not cognizant of distances. I grab that map, point to the top of Lake Superior and announce that it would be our destination for tonight. My copilot says “that looks optimistic”. I say “fasten-up,” “next stop Sault Ste. Marie”. Talk about famous last words.

We cross past Lake Ontario, skirt Toronto, head north and about mid afternoon finally reach the southern tip of Lake Huron. Hhhhmmmm, I’m thinking that seemed to take us quite a while. Oh well let’s push on. Then I drive and I drive and it seems like I’m not making any headway. We stop for fuel, the girls take advantage of this to go into a souvenir store attached to the service station to see if they can spend some of their cash. We were a day in, by this time, and it was burning a hole in their purses (after all they are H…d’s). Armed with a couple of “gewgaws” we pile back in and continue our push north.

After another hour, the girls spot a sign for a tourist attraction. I believe it was a Huron village, and they insist that we stop. Now being such a calm easy going person, I of course said sure, all the while roundly cursing that sign on the side of the road, and my bad luck. It was here that I finally pulled out the map and gave it a good hard look. We had been driving about 6 hours and had made it about halfway up Lake Huron. It was here that the distances finally registered in my brain. For example, Winnipeg was 2200km from Niagara, and Sault Ste. Marie was 800km (500 miles).

I now had to pretend to Bubba that I knew all the distances, and had not miscalculated. Here I was 44 years old and only now realized just how big Ontario was. Geezus! As a quick comparison, Ontario is about 1-1/2 times bigger than Texas. For example, if you were to drive from the South East tip of Ontario, up around the Great Lakes to Thunder Bay, Ontario, it would be about the same distance as turning south at Niagara and driving to Texas.

OK, it’s about time to wrap up this post about our summer trip to Alberta. Suffice it to say that my point is/was that as worldly as I thought myself, I still did not even know the full expanse of my own country! It was humbling to say the least. Anyway back to the story. By now we had invested 1-1/2 hard days into this road trip and we had still not yet turned west for Alberta. This next day, we made one last stop for a ferry trip on Lake Superior and then made a hard drive that took us to Winnipeg by late in the evening.

It was a wiser man that emerged from the western side of Ontario. The girls were a little sulky at me for personally adding an extra day of torture to the trip, by not reading the map correctly. It was their opinion, that had I read the map correctly we would have arrived in Edmonton, one day sooner. I think ol’ Bubbaloo might have been in agreement with them, although she didn’t say it out loud. From Winnipeg we made it to Edmonton in one more long day’s drive, which seemed like nothing compared to driving across Ontario. Everyone was waiting, let the fun begin. Story later.