Day 8 - Columbus, OH to Montreal

785 freakin' miles. We passed through Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Ontario and Quebec. By the time we hit Montreal, at 2am, after leaving Columbus at 9:30am, we were numb. And did I mention I'd been fighting a fever since Ohio? I was dosing heavily on aspirin to suppress the fever, wanting nothing more than to get to my mommy's for a little R&R and TLC.

As mentioned on earlier blogs, we found a border crossing - conveniently, the small one closest to Toronto - that would be helpful with the exporting of the car. We relaxed at that point, and then realized we had a very narrow window during which to meet my housemate at the house if we wanted to drop off the big heavy bags that we'd been lugging around the country. So we started rushing again; we were fortunate at the Canadian border that because I wasn't in my own car (we're in a rental), they didn't make me do the "moving back to Canada" full Customs declaration, we're going to do that in full on Friday.

We didn't make the window to meet the housemate, so Joe took the bags and they are sitting in his office, bless his big fuzzy heart. We did not want to pack that jigsaw puzzle even one more time.

The backseat of my car

I will say we got really good at that packing - the emergency road kit on the floor behind the driver's seat, the two big purple suitcases (one of which weighs nearly what I do!) on the seat, on their sides, above that. The overnight suitcases that we were living out of, behind the passenger seat, with the PC on the floor, wrapped in a big thick coat. Move the top overnight bag forward slightly, tuck my backpack in behind it. Beth's backpack fit into the empty space between the suitcases and the door. My shoulder bag fit between the two purple bags, and her shoulder bag slid in above them, on its side so it didn't block my view. On the floor between the seats, the Cd bag, and in the well between all the above, the bag of food/drink.

After we dropped the bags, we hit the road for Montreal. At that point, I kinda went onto auto-pilot. Now, granted, it's been 14 years since I've done the trip, but I used to do it so often that I know that road. And yet, every 20 minutes, I saw new things (when the heck did they get so many multi-story hotels off the highway? And when did the Big Apple get so small?). I knew it was one of the busiest highway routes, but didn't know it until I saw how much darned traffic there was on it at 1am! And the fact that every 50km we passed 24-hour truck stops with couches and showers for truck drivers said a lot to me - we didn't recall seeing those anywhere else on the trip.

But. Earlier in the day. I was just reviewing the photos with Beth and we realized we took a "Pennsylvania welcomes you" photo, and then the next one on the camera is the "Welcome to New York" photo. We literally took not a one photo in PA. Ok, fine, the route we were on, we weren't in PA for more than a few hours, but... Even boring Oklahoma got more attention from us. :)

There really isn't much to say about the trip. It got colder, and we determined that not enough of the windshield wiper fluid in the tank was of the "rated to -20" variety to be of use (prior to purchasing that, I'd had the California summer-weight stuff in the tank, which I very helpfully filled to the brim just before we left!). I need to find an indoor parking lot and leave the car in there for an hour or two for it to melt, so I can get the bad stuff out of the tank!

Fanciest welcome sign we
saw the entire trip. I think
Quebec is compensating
for something.

We spent a lot of it going "wow. Yesterday morning we were three miles from Arkansas. Tonight we're all the way in Quebec. Wow."

We couldn't manage to find the "welcome to Canada" or even "welcome to Ontario" sign at the Lewiston border crossing, so no sign for the biggest, most monumental part of the trip!

But we have to cross it again on Friday once my car is cleared for export, so we'll look again. And in the meantime, rest on this thought: We've been very, very, very sparing in what photos we've shared. I just noticed that Beth's camera has taken more than 600 photos in the last eight days, plus another few hundred on my camera. Of that, we've shared under 30 photos.

I swore when I started this blog I would not be the annoying neighbour/friend/cousin who expects you to spend an entire evening looking 700 trip photos. I succeeded! Yay! :)