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Ted and Michel had decided that we who were in Toronto proper should meet and then come to Michel's house in Whitby, which would be on the way. So, after our evening eating and boozing, we went back to our hotel and passed out relatively early. Ted had asked us to meet at about 8:30 Tuesday morning, we wanted to get an early start, for it was a long day ahead. At the appointed hour we were waiting out in the sleet when a dark teal Disco rolled up across the street from us. It was Ted Matthews. We had met him the night before in the hotel bar, so it was no surprise to see him coming out. What I had not known was that he would have a co-pilot, Mary Kaye. I knew she was coming, but I was under the impression she was driving her own. Well, the Disco is hers, but she wasn't driving it.
They crossed the street and we discussed plans to head to Michel's. We would leave the pay lot we were sitting in, make several rights, and meet them around the corner. Toronto seems to only go one way at any given time, and that way is never the way you're going. If a place is "just around the corner," that usually means you have to head in the opposite direction and make a series of either lefts or rights to get there. It's a pain in the ass. We got behind them, changed the CB channel to 14 and started heading east toward Whitby. It didn't take long to get there; by the time we arrived, the sleet had turned into full-blown snow. Nothing serious, but it was seen as a bit of an omen. Just the week before, the road north (the James Bay Road) was shut down completely due to a blizzard. Would it happen again? It certainly wasn't out of the realm of possibility. The funny thing Disco drivers do (a trait I'm sure all off-road drivers share), whether they're meeting for the first time or the thirty-fifth, is what I call "dog butt-sniffing." When two dogs meet, as I'm sure everyone's noticed, they walk around each other and get their noses deep into the rear-end of the other and take in the scent. Disco drivers do similarly. They go over all the details of the other's mods and improvements to the vehicle since it left Solihull. "Who made your trailing arm?" - "Nice bumper" - "What shocks do you have on?" and so forth. They look carefully under the hood, underneath the chassis, in the passenger compartment, pointing out what's fallen off, what doesn't work right, which way the axle screws in, etc. They really oughta make see-through body panels to help speed up the process.
Anyhow, that's how we spent our time getting to know one another. I also learned that Michel wouldn't be driving solo, either. Cindy would be joining him. We are now six, in three vehicles. Once we were all ready, we started up towards our first motel stop: Rouyn-Noranda, Québec. Along the way, they got to yakking about their vehicles and other Disco issues as we viewed the Ontario countryside. Not much different from the midwestern U.S., really. In fact, it wouldn't be until we neared the Québec border, with increasingly common signs in French, before it seemed too removed from American scenery, but it was getting dark by that point. I'm jumping ahead of myself, though.
We made our first coffee break not far out of Whitby, at the nearly ubiquitous Tim Hortons - virtually identical to Dunkin' Donuts (& probably Krispy Kreme, too) back in the States - A fast-food-type coffee and doughnut shop, nothing fancy about it. Our Canadian compatriots seemed to think there was something magical about the place, and were wondering why we 'Mericans didn't take to it with the same fervor. We didn't "get it," as they said. What "it" is, I still don't know, but after hours and hours on the road, they were a welcome enough sight as fatigue set in. Too bad they don't go all the way to the end of the road... This is where I started taking photos, by the way... The lunch stop was in Gravenhurst, still in Ontario, and by so doing, we created a bit of a stir. So much so that we barely were able to sit and eat when a local reporter from the Gravenhurst Today
The snow had been falling on and off during the drive, but nothing like it was when we crossed the border into Québec, at Témiscaming. It was almost sunset, and the snow blown by the strong winds was mixed with snow drifting on the ground, and it was difficult to see. Worse was when large trucks drove opposite us, then it was nearly impossible.
On the dark, lonely roads, the quiet was interrupted only by CB chatter, again about Disco issues (lockers - Detroit or ARB?, roof rack - how much weight?), and before long we pulled into Rouyn-Noranda. We cruised about town briefly before settling on the Hotel Alpin, near the edge of town and across the street from a Wal-Mart. Because it was getting quite a bit colder, all the drivers decided to plug in for the night. In Canada, everyone I think has a block heater to keep their engine fluids from freezing, but few do in the states. Mickey, being from the states (well, kinda), has no heater, so Ted provided him with a lawn mower oil pan heater. It's simply a small box with an element on the inside that heats up, and is secured by a magnet to the bottom of the pan. The only trouble with it, this night, was the fact that the cord is only about 3 feet long, and no one had a spare extension cord. Mickey had to park gingerly right next to the outlet beside our hotel door. The hotel had its own restaurant, and we ate heartily before retiring to Michel's room to compose and edit our first night's entry. That took almost no time; it was the transmission that took forever. We couldn't for some reason do it in the room, so we
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| Last updated: April 16, 2001 © tjd |
