mike's journal
Last Fridays trip to London
August 14, 2007
After waiting till quarter to seven at work (hanging out with Chi Chi and D-Ho) on Friday afternoon, I finally headed to Union Station where I would meet Josh and then head up to Yorkdale where our highway adventure would begin. This trip to London had been in the works for almost two weeks now and everything should have went smoothly - so we thought. This is the story of Mike and Josh's extremely good weekend in London.
Our adventure begins on the 401 westbound at 8:14 pm
We depart Yorkdale mall at 8:14pm and head west on the 401 towards our destination - London! We were both pumped and looking forward to what we thought would be a nice and comfortable two and a half hour drive to the lower end of Ontario. We had our music blaring and traffic was moving nicely, then came the chance to gain some time and maybe get to London earlier than scheduled - take the 407 to the point where it ends, which should be the 401...right? Wow was I ever wrong.
Stopping to get gas somewhere between the 401/407 on-ramp and Niagra
We took the 407 for about 20 minutes, which was how long it took me to realize that the 407 does not connect or even get close to the 401. It in-fact brings you to the Niagra region not the London area... so I pulled over to get some gas since I hardly had any left when we left Yorkdale, and check out the map. I could have kept going till I got to the 403 where I would go west again and end up just a slight bit under London. But since both Josh and I know nothing about that area, we thought it would be best to just head back to the 401 and go on the path that we were supposed to be going on. So we headed back to the 401 with some soda and pretzels in hand.
Traffic jam from hell
Driving 20 minutes back to the 401 and then heading a little further down the 401 was a breeze. Then we ran into the traffic jam from hell. I have no idea where on the map it started but we were stuck in traffic for about two and half to three hours. Music can only help so much until you start going crazy from doing nothing. Josh was fine, he had a few naps here and there and was just loving every minute of it. Being insanely bored as I was, I decided to keep track of some stupid pieces of info that kept me awake. Here are some stats that I managed to remember:
- Top Speed (lasted about 5 seconds):50 km/ph.
- Average Speed:10 km/ph - I was not accelerating, I was letting the engine coast along.
- Longest point in time where we did not move an inch:20 minutes.
During the traffic jam, I noticed that there was this one R/V that seemed as if it were circling us. I could have sworn that I had passed this guy at least 6 times, but he kept getting ahead of me. It was the weirdest thing, and having the guy cut us of so many times was getting on the nerves of both Josh and I. So we flipped the driver the bird and continued on our way, never to see him again.
McDonalds
It was now 12 am on Saturday and we were starving, I had not eaten anything since those pretzels earlier on in our trip and I needed a break. Miraculously a McDonalds popped out of nowhere! I cut off a few people (sorry people) and flew up the on-ramp towards the service stop. This place was packed. There had to have been at least 200 or more people crammed into this building, all lined up or already eating.
We got in line and were in such a happy positive mood that we chatted it up with some very cute women who were lined up just in front of us. One of them mentioned that there was an 18 wheeler on fire some 40-60 km down the road... that was a crappy thing to hear. Then it was time for us to order!
My burger
I ordered a quarter pounder meal and Josh had to be unique and get a stupid custom burger which took forever to make. This McDonalds meal was the first McDonalds meal I have had since November of last year... I was not happy about having to eat it, but it was the only thing to eat and I was sooooooo hungry.
More traffic!
After eating we headed back out onto the damned highway, and guess what we were greeted with - MORE TRAFFIC! Woooo good times. This time we were only stuck for a short time until we were free!
We ended up arriving at Brendan's place just shortly after 1:30 am on Saturday. It was a little over 5 hours of driving... and I was exhausted. I had a beer, chatted with everyone for a bit then went to sleep.
That stupidly long drive on Friday night really did a number on me for the weekend I think but all in all the weekend was great! We played lots of frisbee, played with Brendan and Tara's two pups, played some NHL 07 on Brendan's XBOX 360, had some drinks at some of their local pubs/clubs and just relaxed for once somewhere that I have very little knowledge of. It was great being somewhat new to everything around me.
On Saturday night Brendan and I had some shots called "Polar Bears" at this place called the Frog or something like that. It was Banana Liquor and Mint Liquor - so good!
Next trip should hopefully have a lot shorter commute and I am totally looking forward to doing this weekend or something like it again. Should be fun.
Thats it for the story though, the drive home was pretty uneventful. I drove from London to Oshawa and then to Bradford. I have no clue how many km's I covered but it took me just over four and a half hours to get home. Lots of driving for the weekend, but I did it all on pretty much one tank of gas - Goooo Jetta!
The end.
Mike
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Comments
Joshua Shetler
August 15, 2007 - 6:02 am
I have never seen anyone skip so many songs in a 5 hour car ride in my life lol
Brendan Farr-Gaynor
August 18, 2007 - 7:57 pm
Ah yes the Barking Frog, that place is a maze. Glad to hear you guys got home alright. I still can't believe it took you as long as it did to get here. You checking out the EX this week?
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