CANADA TRIP - Day 5

Day 5 - Driving, Driving, and More Driving
I wrote this on my Blackberry Notepad somewhere in New York on Sunday evening...

Today has been spent in the car. Not on purpose; that's just the way it's worked out. We checked out of the hotel in a rain shower. We were going to try to find a little shop to get some inexpensice t-shirts and such, but we abandoned that idea when the shower turned into a monsoon. Instead, we drove toward Goalie Heaven, where we had to pick up Keeper Boy's catch glove around 1pm.

We had seen this intriguing and obnoxious looking store on our way to Goalie Heaven yesterday, so we thought we might stop and take a look around. The closest parking spot to it was about two and a half blocks away, though. We sat for awhile to see if the rain would let up. When it didn't, Hubby just drove up to the door and let us out. He then went to park the car. Good thing the boys insisted on keeping those silly ponchos from the Maid of the Mist Ride!

OMG! This store -- Honest Ed's -- was amazing! Not completely in a good way. It was like the world's largest dollar store. It covered at least a city block... probably two. It was three levels. AND it was Honest Ed's birthday. Well, it would've been if he hadn't passed away last year. But apparently that didn't matter. The city was still celebrating. There were police and news cameras and tons of people (who I think were mostly there waiting in line for the free hot dogs they were giving away). I can't imagine how many people might have been there had it not been monsooning outside!

Anyway, we wandered around for over and hour and left with a bag full of red, white, and maple-leaf covered schtuff -- all for less than $30 CAD. It's the kind of place where you need to be willing to dig through large bins of stuff to find something worthy. But judging by the bags people were hauling around in there, lots of people do lots of shopping there.

As an aside... everywhere we went in Canada we were asked if we wanted to buy a plastic bag for our purchases for 5 cents. I guess that's why we saw people carrying cloth bags around everywhere!

By the time we went outside, the monsoon had stopped and the sun was out. We picked up Keeper Boy's glove and started home about 2pm. We should've arrived at tonight's destination (Williamsport, PA) around 8:30pm, including a dinner stop. Instead, it's 10:30pm and we still have 50 miles to go. What happened?

Well... not too far outside of Toronto (before we even got to Hamilton), we got into a HUGE traffic delay. Turns out the QEW (expressway from Toronto) was closed because Lake Ontario had flooded it. We didn't want to venture off the road because our GPS doesn't have Canadian maps and we were working off a printout from Google Maps. So waited. And inched. And waited. And told the boys to knock it off and keep their hands to themselves. And inched some more.

What should have taken us about 90 minutes to get to the U.S. border took us almost four hours. Ugh. There was also a delay at the border crossing. There were three lanes of traffic going over the Peace Bridge into Canada, but only one going into the United States.

We did pretty well for awhile -- even saw a double rainbow -- and stopped at an Applebee's in Geneseo, NY for dinner. After that, more fun! A detour off the interstate and another monsoon. What a day!

We should be at our hotel in Williamsport in about a half hour (about 11pm), weather and traffic permitting. Right now it's looking good.

Tomorrow morning: breakfast with my aunt and uncle, then on to mom and dad's house to drop the boys off for the week...

Update: We did arrive at the hotel just after 11pm -- even though the road was closed and we were forced to exit one exit before where our hotel was. Luckily I'm familiar enough with that part of Williamsport that I could get us to the hotel with no problem. They had our reservation and I think we were all asleep by 11:30. We had a great breakfast with my aunt and uncle and made it down to Camp Grandma and Grandpa without further incident.