Emily Presents: Road Trip, May 2004. (aka Best Trip Ever, 2004) - presented in point form for both my and your pleasure.
Wednesday
- Got picked up at my house by Sasha in her white Grand Am. She complained that we were leaving way too early even though she knows that I was justified in my wanting to leave early.
- Went to get gas at the Canadian Gas Bar, especially since it was around 85 cents/L, and someone on the news said to jump at any chance to get it below 89.9 cents.
- Went to pick up Yvette and Silvia. Me and Sasha felt embarassed that each of our duffel bags was as big as one of their's, but they had loads of good snacks - maple cookies! I enjoy maple cookies. Maple anything is pretty good and sometimes distinctly Canadian.
- Pop in Sam Roberts in the car and off we are to Kingston. On our way there we tried to count the amount of Tim Horton's off the 401. There weren't really that many: about 10, I think was the number. In any case, I was surprised that I didn't fall asleep since that's what I usually do in long car rides (unless I'm driving, of course...and sometimes even then)
- We see signs for several tourist attractions along the way: mainly, The Big Apple and Reid's Dairy's Family Fun Farm. Since The Big Apple theme park appeared to be closed, we decide to exit in Belleville and head over the Reid's Family Fun Farm, which had lots of fat ducks, a duck/rooster hybrid kind of thing, lots of goats and bunnies the size of dogs. Me and Yvette got a Loonie shake which was of good value, but ended up being way too sweet in the end.
- Along the way, we smell this odd odour coming from outside - we look to our right, and there you have it: a truckload of pigs. 4 tiers of pigs to be exact...and they really do smell like bacon. It's quite odd.
- We're off again to Kingston. We exit onto a street take a few wrong turns, and Sasha ends up having to make a u-turn on the driveway of a Loblaw's. Finally we get to our trusty motel, Thriftlodge...which is a subsidiary of Travelodge...which is, in and of itself, a motel-like place. So you can imagine what Thriftlodge was like. Okay, I'm exagerrating, it was actually a typical motel. There was a nice family who owned the place and when we didn't have enough towels the lady came in her bathrobe to deliver them to us.
- We spend about an hour trying to figure out what the hell we want to do, or rather, what there is to do in Kingston, and we determine that we'll definitely eat at Chez Piggy's (although we didn't end up doing so) to keep up with our pig theme.
- Hop into the car and I'm driving, we find a parking lot as indicated on the very helpful parking map in one of the tourist booklets and we get out of the car. With Silvia's fractured foot, she can't walk for very long so we had to bring along this "transport" chair. Unfortunately, it would sometimes get caught on the curb, which wasn't such a pretty picture. Eventually Yvette got a hang of it and was, by the end of the trip, a transport chair-pusher expert.
- We walk around downtown, peruse a few stores, and then hit jackpot with this bead store called Moonstone. I don't know how long we were in there for but it was quite a long time. I made myself 2 necklaces and each of us purchased a few things.
- We walk around more and decide eventually that we're finally hungry and pass on Chez Piggy's for the Grizzly Grill. They serve ostrich!! <-- Sasha kept saying this, apparently, but nobody was paying attention to her...
- After Grizzly Grill, we're all feeling a little bit tired and we peruse a few more stores like the Sweet Shop, but eventually decide to head back uptown to Cataraqui Mall, especially since I needed to pick up a pajama top from Zeller's.
- At Zeller's we decide to pick up some snacks, but end up just buying a pack of cards. We head over to Loblaw's instead to pick up some Orange Cranberry juice, which tasted more like orange than anything else, I believe.
- Then comes the most boring evening ever. We sat from about 8:30 PM to midnight around our motel room, playing cards, watching TV and just all around doing the same things we'd do at home.
- Finally we all decide to hit the hay at like, midnight, althought me and sasha ended up chatting until around 1 AM.
Thursday
- The next morning we all sort of woke up really early, which makes sense, considering the hour at which we fell asleep.
- A little bit of morning chaos and we were up and running towards Ottawa. A few minutes into our drive we see signs for Smith Falls, which, as we all knew, was the location of the Hershey's Chocolate Factory. On a whim (on my whim) we decide to exit the 401 onto 415 and head for Smith Falls.
- Construction galore on the 415...a lot of the parts were reduced to one lane and each direction took turns at moving. That was a huge pain in the ass...but at least we got to take in the nice scenery and such.
- On a two lane road, it's hard to be following someone who seems like it's his first time on the road and is going as slowly as (insert own analogy/simile here). We kept wanting Sasha to pass him but she didn't get the chance to until much later. Finally, after we do we're the ones who are being slow, even though we were going about 110-120 in an 80 zone, and are tailgated by a HUGE Lincoln Navigator...he gets the idea that we're not moving any faster and passes us.
- We reach Smith Falls and eat at a Harvey's, then we follow the signs towards the chocolate factory, which was quite interesting! We each bought chocolate and got a free Oh Henry bar, and we're on our way to Ottawa.
- We're driving along the ...I think it was the 415 still, and all of a sudden we see this sign that says "City Limits: Ottawa". The expression amongst all of us in the car was one of puzzlement because it certainly didn't look like Ottawa. We merge onto the 417 where we see the Corel Centre (shaking fist, lol) and finally believe that we've reached the city.
- A few turns later, we've reached Chimo Hotel, which is actually quite nice, except that we couldn't get a non-smoking room and now all of our clothing smells distinctly like the room: a mixture of tobacco, weed and stale air which ends up smelling like puke. In any case, it wasn't so bad, except that I made a mistake in booking and didn't get 2 beds, got 1 instead. At least there was a pull out which is a huge plus because it wasn't very uncomfortable.
*looking at time* Damn...took so long to just recap 1 and a half days...will continue tomorrow!
:: Emily 12:41 AM [+] ::
