adventures along the way...
It takes me 12 hours to drive from Harris, MI to Niagara Falls in Canada, and it rains the whole time. I take this photo at a rest area in upper peninsula Michigan. This is Lake Michigan in the rain.
I get into Canada, where I haven't been in at least 10 years, and where I've certainly never driven before. I have a six pack of beer in my trunk from Wisconsin which I bought for my parents, and I'm nervous at customs because I don't know if it's kosher or not, and I really want to give my parents some Leinenkugel's Honey Weiss. I get through though, and now I'm on Canadian highways, nervous about breaking a law I don't know about, not knowing how many kilometers per hour over the "maximum" I can drive without being pulled over, and freaked because I didn't bother to exchange currency and I need to get gas so I'd better find a pay-at-the-pump where my Visa will be ok....
Just at rush hour, the expressway is suddenly closed down, must be from an accident, and the situation is, "you must exit NOW." No detours set up, and I'm at a CITY. I feel terrible for whatever awful thing may have happened, but I'm also feeling pretty terrible for myself. I end up downtown in some major Canadian city in the middle of rush hour, skyscrapers, the most rude drivers I've ever encountered, long waits at traffic lights, the works. Let's not forget it's STILL raining, and now I have to pee. Badly. But I won't stop because there aren't exactly rest areas, and I have no Canadian cash to go buy something at McDonald's and use their can while I'm there. First things, first, though -- get out of this city and back on the freeway! I'm not panicked, though, because I find a map of the city in my Rand McNally US & Canada road atlas, and quickly orient myself and work out a plan. But I soon learn that the roads on my map and the roads in the city are two entirely different things, and I end up nearly stranded in a residential circle which I can't find my way out of. So I memorize some main roads from the map, toss it in the back seat, and turn to my compass. I know this: Niagara falls is EAST. Head EAST. This pays off, and an hour later, I make it out of the city.
I took this photo to commemorate my state of mind in this situation. This is me at a stop sign on a non-existent road in my new least-favorite Canadian city.