Was Over Cappuccino and Cola: Our Trip Home

Wow I can’t believe how long it’s been since we’ve updated this thing. Well no fear fair reader we are updating it… NOW.

We left our wonderful Decatur, Georgia condo for the last time on Sunday, December 14. Well I guess we didn’t leave for the last time as we still own it. Our renter has since moved in but we haven’t heard from the manager nor seen January’s rent. So that’s concerning.

But that’s an aside. We left on Sunday, December 14 in the not so early morning. We had to be in Edmonton, Alberta by Saturday, December 20 to see my brother get hitched. We figured that would be plenty of time to drive 2400 miles.

The first day’s drive went quite well. Car was loaded beautifully (although we had so much stuff you couldn’t see out of the back window).

From Trippost2

We drove all the way to St. Louis before stopping for dinner. As we ate the weather took a turn for the worse. Soon a monsoon was outside the restaurant. We decided to keep going anyway. BIG mistake. A few miles north of St. Louis the monsoon turned into ice rain. The roads became very slick and I was barely able to control the car as it slid left and right for 40 miles.

But being an extremely skilled driver I was able to drive us safely until we finally found a hotel.

But being… well… me and me being stupid we found the hotel but I miss judged how to get to the hotel and ended up back on the freeway going back the way we just came from. We had to slip slide 10 miles before reaching an exit and then had to slip slide the 10 miles back to the hotel. <>

From Trippost2

The next morning broke and when I went outside to start the car I noticed it was cold.

Oh so cold.

And it didn’t warm up again the rest of our trip. We hit some frigid, frigid temperatures. It was -40 in North Dakota when we drove through. (Celsius or Fahrenheit doesn’t matter at -40 as they are the same and both are cold).

Day 2 included more driving.

From Trippost2

So much driving.

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Through the barren wasteland that is the Northern States.

From Trippost2

We quickly learned along our drive that the bottle of windshield washer fluid that somehow found its way into our trunk did not contain anti-freeze and had frozen in the lines after I dutifully filled our tank to the brim in preparation for our trip.

Who needs to see anyway?

From Trippost2

Day 2 ended somewhere in North Dakota in another hotel on another freezing cold night.

From Trippost2

Day 3 took us into

Canada

From Trippost2

The border guards were NOT happy to see us. For some reason they didn’t believe that we weren’t i) moving to

Canada

or ii) leaving a bunch of stuff in

Canada

. They took us to a special room and searched through our stuff. They did such a thorough search that they uncovered stuff we didn’t even know we had in the car.

Like the previous owner’s purchase contract and registration. They asked to see our registration and asked where the car was licensed a couple of times.

They had Nicole take out her computer and show them the contracts for our new jobs to prove we weren’t moving to

Canada

.

They were trying to catch us in a lie. But we weren’t lying so they didn’t catch us in a lie.

So there border guards.

Moral of the story? Canadian border guards are grumpy.

It must be the cold.

They eventually believed our story and let us cross into my motherland.

After they let us go we only drove a block before we pulled over so I could re-pack the car they messed up.

Packing is a skill that not everyone understands.

From Trippost2

They took the time to ruin my packing but couldn’t figure out how to fix it! Jerks.

Our plan for Day 3 was to drive to Regina and get a room for the night. We drove to Regina.

We got on the ring road.

We soon found ourselves past Regina.

It really was that quick.

“Oh! Regina. We can stop for the night!”

“Wait… what happened to Regina?”

So we drove to Saskatoon and froze half to death walking from the hotel to the nearest restaurant.

I don't like Saskatoon.

Never have.

Never will.

The restaurant in Saskatoon was ridiculous.

Crazy.

You order food and they bring you a surprise soup. Nowhere on the menu did it say your meal comes with a giant bowl of soup. But it did.

After the soup came a platter of food.

So. Much. Food.

And after eating the food you’re expected to brave -40 weather to walk back to the hotel? I think not.

From Trippost2

Day 4 was Canadian driving. More accurately Saskatchewan driving.

From Trippost2

That was fun.

From Trippost2

About 60 km east of Vegreville all hell broke lose with our car. I was driving along minding my own business when the back of our car tried to pass the front of our car. The back was sliding left and right and back left again. We were all over the road. We became more concerned when we realized that it seemed we were the only ones having such a tough time on the road. I fought the car the rest of the way to Edmonton.

From Trippost2

Nicole lost years off her life with her fretting and worrying about “losing control” and “crashing” and “being killed” but I told her I am a superior driver and wouldn’t allow her to be more than “maimed”.

Turns out we have crappy tires. And the road from Vegreville to Edmonton is crappy. And our car was very heavy in the back. Those things combined made for some difficult driving.

So word of advice: don’t drive from Atlanta to Edmonton on summer tires in the dead of winter.

Unless you like a challenge.

We stopped to check the car out in a little town called Mundare, Alberta. It's Nicole's favourite Albertan town because its the home of Mundare Sausage.

And this monument.