It's summer, and that means that we feel compelled to get in the car and GO somewhere. Anywhere. Maybe it's because a Canadian winter means that driving is a hazardous and high-strung undertaking that we feel obligated to take to the road when we are able. Something about the possibility of dying of hypothermia makes you think twice about leaving the city in January, you know?
I love a good road trip. And living in Canada means I get lots of opportunity, since this is a big place and our motto should be "The Country Where Everything is Far From Everywhere!" We think very little of driving two hours to go to a concert or a ball game, and I know loads of people who spend a half a day in a car getting to a cottage for a weekend. People in Europe think this is crazy, because they could spend a half a day in a car and see four countries. Once, when two of my cousins and I were driving to Montreal from here, they asked me if I needed someone to read the map and navigate, and I told them it was actually pretty easy: you just got on the highway here, and stayed on it for 8 hours, and then got off in Montreal. They were boggled that it was just one road.
The Loudshoes went to Toronto this weekend, which is only a couple of hours on the road, but judging by the amount of food we brought to sustain us, you'd think we were crossing the Great Plains to claim a homestead. I'm not sure what we thought we might encounter on our trip, but we were armed with ALL kinds of snacks, just in case our blood sugar dipped dangerously low in the 60 minutes between leaving the house and making our first bathroom stop.
AND, as required by law in Canada, we stopped at Tim Hortons before leaving town. Everyone knows that it is impossible to drive anywhere in Canada without a large double-double in hand. (Especially to a hockey arena.) The Mister does not drink coffee, so it's up to me to ingest all the caffeine necessary to maintain our citizenship.
The People In Charge Of Rest Stops Along The Highway have improved their game immeasurably in the past few years. When I was a kid, the food available along the 401 was incredibly awful; soggy french fries, flimsy hamburgers and a lot of greasy, beige stuff that looked like it used to be edible. Then, they sold all the franchises to McDonalds, and if it still wasn't all that great, at least it was predictable. Now they've got a couple of restaurants at each location, which give you a bit of variety, at least, and a fighting chance at getting a salad or a sandwich with ingredients that you can identify. And every one has a Tim Hortons. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not.
The People In Charge of Rest Stops Along The Highway should be commended for their Department of Bathroom Enrichment, because they have done a bang-up job. I'm pretty sure that department is staffed entirely by women, because they clearly knew what they were doing. The bathrooms are big, and clean and there are 157 toilets at every one. So many toilets. Nary a line up.With bales of toilet paper at each one. And the sinks! There's dozens of them, with loads of dry counter space to put your purse while you wash your hands in the adequately sized basin that does not splash water all over your shirt. My one, small, tiny little grievance is that they have these industrial hand driers that blow air so hard that you have to work to maintain your balance and they are LOUD. Like, you should probably be wearing ear protection, loud. And when two or three women are drying their hands at the same time, it's like being in a gymnasium with a jet engine. I'm not sure why they felt the need to install hand driers that could wake the dead, but I'm so happy with the rest of the Department of Bathroom Enrichment's work that I will give them a pass.
We drove to Toronto, went to a ball game, and the next day, did a bit of shopping, and then came home. We were gone for a little over 24 hours, and only 4 or 5 of those were actually spent in the car, but we managed to generate a small mountain of garbage. The van was a slovenly toxic waste dump on wheels by the time we pulled into our driveway. I guess all that snacking means that there's going to be some litter, but I'm not sure how we managed to create that metric shit-ton in such a short time. The Bottled Water Graveyard in the very back is going to take some time to excavate.
Coming home is always nice; one's own bed is delightful, and the cat was very happy to see us. Even if I do have to make my own coffee there.
No comments:
Post a Comment