ANOTHER QUICK TRIP TO CANADA FROM MARYLAND 1994

Today, I am journeying back, in my mind, early in the year 1994. At that time we had been relocated to our company’s home office in Maryland, just outside of Washington, DC. We had been transferred to the DC area after leaving our assignment in Philadelphia.

We now lived about two blocks from the office. I had been assigned to a major Hydro Electric Generation Proposal. For a project to take place in Shoaiba, Saudi Arabia. It was an electrical generation project designed to utilize tidal flow to turn electricity generating turbines. At that time it was a major Project. Designed to produce enough electricity, from tidal flow, to power a city of 300,000 persons. My assignment was to author the Project Execution Work Plan. This Plan would accompany our bid for the engineering and construction of the Project. It was a task that needed to be done, in order to comply with the requirements of the proposal package.

It was also a job no one else wanted. Nor did they participate in the building of this document, of their own free will. What was needed, to drag the pieces of this work plan together. Was someone obnoxious enough to hound everyone for their contributions. At the same time full of enough bullshit that they could author this 200 page plus, document. Geezus, guess who they selected? My question to Bubbaloo was “why me, why do I always get the shit jobs?” She would only say, “because you are so talented” and then she would walk away sniggering.

Anyway, I am jumping to near the end of our time in DC, to ensure that this memory does not escape me. This is not my first, or only, memory of living and working in the DC area. I will back track a bit later in another post, but let’s clear this one for now. What I remember was our “last” trip back to Canada. It was at a time that my work was nearly completed in DC. Also, prior to my company trying to transfer me (on single assignment) to a boiling cauldron of crap. One, that they had created in upstate NY. Remember, 200 posts ago or thereabouts, Deysi and I had agreed not to travel separately and that we would be together with our girls on any assignment I accepted.

So in staying with this mantra. I politely told them that I was not going anywhere, especially anywhere like that fiasco in upstate NY, without my family. They did not have any other assignments available, that we were interested in. We, therefore, made a decision to return to Canada and attempt to start a business of our own. Additionally, because the girls, so loved their previous, “three days of hell” road trip with dad, we decided to drive, once again. The one thru New York, Niagara, across Ontario and into Edmonton. Which had taken place a year and a half earlier. They just begged me to do it again!

Editor’s note: It was during this time of upheaval, that Ron came up with one of her best one liners of all time. upon announcing that we had decided to move to Canada, she proclaimed “Not me dad, I’m an American girl, so just leave me here”. I then had to sit her down and explain that she was in fact a Canadian girl. I am not so sure that she ever completely recovered from this revelation. She then spent the remainder of her life trying to prove me wrong, and has now, finally succeeded.

Anyway we embarked from Rockville, MD, complete with a vehicle full, of as much, of our personal possessions as we could pack, strap on the roof, or sit on; as well as the requisite goodies, clothes, presents, kids and Desyi with her map. The mood was festive and the girls never asked “are we there yet” for at least 6 hours. This time, instead of travelling north, back thru Pennsylvania, New York and into Canada we decided to go straight west of Washington, DC until we reached Colorado before turning north into Canada.

This route was selected to take advantage of the milder climate. We headed straight west of Rockville and connected to I64 in West Virginia for the remainder of our journey to Denver. Everything is going swimmingly until that first snow flurry is spotted. “Oh, isn’t this lovely” exclaims Deysi, “how beautiful”. We continue along, enjoying the snow with visions of a winter wonderland setting the mood. The snow then starts to get thicker. The wind starts to howl, “hold it just a damn minute, we are not yet back in Alberta, what’s this crap?”

It is now starting to snow heavily, I notice a car or two in the ditch on the side of the freeway, a semi or two pulled off, under, overpasses. Vision is becoming hard and we are now in the middle of a full on, howling, shrieking good old fashioned prairie blizzard. Now vehicles are stacked up everywhere. It has snowed at least a foot, within an hour of us noticing, the first romantic flake. This is now getting serious. I pull over and lock-in Deysi’s four wheel driver Explorer, into off-road mode and we proceed to plow through the snow. We are going about 15 miles an hour and are a long way from Colorado.

Now though, nobody else on the highway is moving. We are maneuvering in and out of cars, which are stuck in the middle of the freeway, sideways on the shoulder, in the ditch or just plain abandoned to the storm. But we are making progress! We apparently have the only four wheel drive vehicle, that has ever seen snow in this part of the country. We continue, me at times with my head out the window so I could see where we are going, Deysi giving me orders and the girls proclaiming “how cool” the trip. A few miles in, and I now have a parade of vehicles behind me, following in my tracks, and disaster hits!

We approach an underpass and there is a semi trailer truck wedged sideways across the road, from side to side of the underpass. No one is getting past this mess. We are far enough back that there is an off-ramp beside us. Deysi says “let’s get outta here and see if we can get around by crossing over on the off-ramp.” It is at least 12 inches deep in snow and not a tire track on it. I maneuver around a bit, cross thru a small ditch and am up on the ramp, plowing my way to the top. I still have an “entourage” of vehicles following in my wake. We made it to the top and looking down onto the adjoining on-ramp we see it is drifted in and covered by about 3 feet of snow.

Our drive is over at this point. The radio says that road crews are overwhelmed and that all interstates are now closed to traffic. “Great”. Now Deysi comes up with a new plan. “we’ll just drive this side highway until we find a town with a hotel, and then wait out the storm”. Ron asks “can we get one with a pool”? Ange is shrieking with excitement, “a pool, a pool, YYYAAAYYY”. We have no idea where we were, what we would find or whether there was even anything out this way that had a pool. They were so happy, it was hard to tell them that maybe we would not find a pool.

Then, like an apparition, out of the whiteout, the answers to all of their dreams appears, a sign; “HOTEL TWO MILES, WORLD’S LARGEST WATERSLIDE”. The girls have “now arrived”, heaven is waiting, they scream out “Dad, Dad can we stay there, can we, can we?” What you gonna do, so I pull in, Deysi goes into to enquire about a room. She makes no pretence of bargaining a price; no matter what it costs we are staying there. We checked in, got into the pool and the girls could have cared less, if the snow ever stopped. They would have happily stayed a year.

Two days later it has stopped snowing, the road crews have the interstate now cleared and we are off again. Looking back I can only say, “thank god for the four wheel drive Explorer.” Without it, it might have been a long two days, parked on the side of the road in West Virginia. Food wise we would have made it easily, however there were three other things that could have made, two days on the side of a road, “a living hell”. A short mini vacation over, we rolled back on the freeway and continued our journey.