NorthernToddler's NorthernRoadTrip.
Seven days. More than two thousand miles. Incredible landscapes and strange sights. Memories for a lifetime.
Sound like a brochure from a travel company? It isn't. It's just the basics of our most recent adventure. It all started when NorthernMommy's cousin decided to get married in Mackinaw City, Michigan. And also decided to invite the Northerns to attend. (The invitation was extended many months ahead of the actual event, which gave NorthernMommy a lot of time to plan the trip.) (NorthernDaddy:"Uh oh...") In her role as official route planner, NorthernMommy decided that we would go north into Canada and make a stop in Toronto on the way to Michigan. And then, after the wedding, we would travel along the St. Lawrence Seaway Trail - stopping at Niagara Falls, Rochester, NY (you'll see why later), and Alexandria Bay, NY. (NorthernDaddy:"Damn...this trip is gonna cost a bundle...")
With the route and stops semi-planned, we proceeded to postpone trip preparations until the last minute. Passports? Um...yeah. Managed to obtain NorthernToddler and Mommy's passports a few weeks before we left. Due to some documentation problems and a busy work schedule, NorthernDaddy's passport arrived four days before departure. Cut it close! Two days before we hit the road, it was recommended that we travel a different road through Canada (thanks M+M and Pops - made for a good trip!).
So, to shorten all of that to one sentence, we tossed NorthernToddler in the car and started the journey!
On our way to the Canadian border, we drove through rain. In Chateaugay, NY, the rain stopped and was replaced with heavy fog. All of a sudden, a spinning propeller popped out of the mist. A HUGE propeller right next to the road! The road twisted through a wind farm (you know, with the giant 200' wind turbines generating electricity...) that went for miles. It was eerily amazing to see large blades fade in and out of the fog as we drove past.
As we passed out the end of the wind farm, NorthernToddler piped up from the back seat, "See it again!" (Sorry, bud - we have ten more hours in the car today...)
We crossed into Canada at Cornwall, and started converting things to metric. The speed limit was 90 kph - which is about 55mph. Ever the law-abiding driver, and not wanting to receive my very first foreign traffic citation, I set the cruise control at exactly 90kph. A few cars passed us, but I just figured that they were the one or two fast drivers in the area. It was boring going the speed limit, but after passing a huge sign stating that a violation of 50kph over the limit(going about 90mph) would result in a $10k fine, immediate seizure of your vehicle, and the removal of your left pinkie finger, I decided that going the speed limit was the right thing to do. Until NorthernMommy pointed out that the big yellow school bus ahead was leaving us in it's dust. Rapidly disappearing into a small dot on the horizon. Making me look like a little old lady driver. Making NorthernMommy openly mock me for being a grandma driver. I weighed the risks, and pressed on the pedal until we rocketed along at 75mph. Gotta make some time if we're ever going to reach our destination. (Besides, if I get busted, it's NorthernMommy's car they'll take, and I don't really use my left pinkie anyway!)
Our first gas stop (and all of our gas stops in Canada) created a small problem. The shiny card reader pumps wouldn't take my credit card. They wouldn't take my debit card, either. (Isn't VISA an international symbol/method of payment?)Hmmm......maybe NorthernToddler could put on a show - dance a little, tell some jokes - to distract the attendant while we drove off without paying? After going inside the station and chatting for a bit, the debit card eventually went through and we went on our way.
We stopped for lunch in a town named Pembroke. We criss-crossed this town, desperately searching for an ATM (because NorthernDaddy neglected to change any cash at the border). Just when it appeared that this was a town with no ATMs, NorthernMommy spied a bank (our bank, no less!) and saved the day by getting some funny-looking Canadian notes! We ate at a KFC that hadn't been updated since the early 1980s - and got some interesting insights into Canadian food culture. Order fries? - vinegar and ketchup come with that. Not too weird - the freaks in our home state pour vinegar on their french fries, so we've seen (and had) it before. They catch your attention when they ask you if you want gravy with your fries. Gravy? With my fries? Um...no thank you, ma'am. (Kinda weird, but we'd heard of it. And on our next trip to Montreal, I'll be trying out poutine - which is fries covered with gravy and cheese curd, so we were only slightly taken aback by the question.) The truly new idea - the "hey,we're in a foreign culture" newsflash - came when we declined any dipping sauce for NorthernToddler's chicken bits. (No, we're not mean parents; it's just that if he starts dipping, he never stops. He dips the chicken bits, then his fries, then his apple slices, then his fingers - it never ends) The lady declared that she had to give us dipping sauce with the meal, and that she'd just put the regular sauce on the tray for us. Well, folks, the standard dipping sauce at KFC in Canada is plum. Yes, plum. Not barbecue, not honey-mustard, but plum. And yes we did taste it. (Heck yeah we tasted it - how can you have a tub of plum dipping sauce on your plate and not try it?!!) It's pretty good. Almost like a sweet-and-sour sauce, but not quite. To close out the lunch stop recap, I have to tell on NorthernMommy...the doors into the KFC had 'pull' handles on them. You know the kind; big ol' curvy-sticking-right-out handles that just scream PULL to your brain. Well, after a short tug of war, NorthernMommy found out that these particular doors were PUSH. Kind of embarrassing, but, really, the only people who saw that were Toddler and Daddy and maybe the random person inside that might have been looking our way. The real embarassing part came two steps later when NorthernMommy encountered a door that looked exactly like the first one....one like she had just struggled with and knew to PUSH open....and (wait for it) PULLED it! (Even NorthernToddler laughed at mommy for that one!)
We drove some more and stopped for the night in Sudbury. The NorthernClan scored a nice little hotel room, had dinner at the Pizza Hut (we're being supremely healthy on this trip!), and -much to NorthernToddler's delight - SWAM IN THE POOL!!!
A few notes from this stretch of road:
-The majority of tractor trailers we passed have huge, sturdy bull bars on them. (Watch out for moose!)
-It really rained hard. (Slow down to half the speed limit because the wipers can't keep up with the rain.)
-Most disturbing thing we noticed - large, metal-reinforced boxes at the end of most driveways. It took us a few hundred kilometers before we suddenly realized that they were bear-proof trash cans. (Don't stop on the side of the road for anything!) (Except to change dirty diapers - nothing messes with someone wielding a stinky toddler diaper!)
The only picture we took on the whole first day of travel.....(don't worry - we took more than 450 other pictures, so the recap won't be all words!)
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