Thursday, June 12, 2008

Paranoia Pays Off!!

Wayne claims that my dislike of driving through Montreal is paranoia. I just don't like the overwhelming concrete feel, the traffic jams and the crazy drivers.

On Tuesday, coming back to Ottawa from Nova Scotia, Wayne agreed to skip Montreal and go through the USA, crossing at Cornwall back into Canada. The trip was long - probably about 3-4 hours longer than on the divided highway Canadian route A total of almost 19 hours. However, it started at 5:00AM (ADT) as we drove to Digby to catch the ferry to Saint John at 8:00AM. A 3 hour ferry trip broke things up nicely, then we continued on to St. Stephen to cross into Calais, Me. The border wait was about 20 minutes, then clear sailing across Maine and New Hampshire.

Suddenly we encountered cloud bursts, lightning, thunder, downpours, sunshine, high winds, all in varying amounts and lasting varying lengths of time across the rest of NH, Vermont and New York. There were big trees down - in one spot a Vermont highway crew was pushing trees off the road with a bulldozer. In Alburg, Vt along Lake Champlain, the power was out and several big trees were being removed by power company employees from the road and wires. We needed gas by then but of course the pumps weren't working. We finally stopped in Champlain, NY at an Exxon beside Highway 87 - very expensive gas but we did learn that Montreal was a mess - bridges closed due to trucks blowing over in the high winds and thus enormous traffic snarls.

Feeling highly vindicated for my route choice, we continued on to Ottawa, arriving around 10:45PM (EDT) - a very long day. However, this route was 422km shorter than the all-Canadian one through Quebec and New Brunswick, even though the drive takes longer due to being on 2 lane roads most of the way. That's a good tank of gas saved.

3 comments:

  1. You "saved" a tank of gas; how about the $140 Fundy ferry ride, the were and tear on the car, etc.

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  2. Still much nicer way to travel - you see something beside cars and trees, the "wear and tear" is actually less because you're not driving at 130-140 km/hr (this is Wayne driving after all). The ferry was actually $145 but it's a very relaxing way to travel and break up the trip.

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