This weekend, I got to do one of the things I love to do the most: Drive. I got to drive so much and it didn’t even matter that some of it was in traffic. Late Saturday morning my Mum and I set off for Buffalo, NY to meet up with fellow blogger/tweeter, and comedian Dartanion. I would love to say that the return trip back to Toronto went off without a hitch but sadly, not only did we start off in the wrong direction for about 30-40 mins but we also encountered a huge line at Lewiston bridge! Once we were past the border, we discovered a traffic jam in St. Catherine’s, but we easily avoided it thanks to Dartanion’s trusty Australian GPS.
As soon as my Dad left with my Mum in tow, I downed two shots of tequila and got ready for the 80’s party that we were 4 hours late for. Of course, we didn’t leave before downing one more shot of tequila. Once at the party, there weren’t many people left but we made it our own with some dancing and our very own game of twister. Dartanion came out as the winner of the first game but didn’t play again for a shot at the title.
You would think that going to bed at almost 7am would mean that we wouldn’t be able to get up before noon, but apparently one can’t sleep when you have a pounding headache from being hydrated purely by alcohol . Once we had breakfast and our showers, we headed out to do some touristy things in Toronto. After visiting Casa Loma, the CN tower and a 1 hour harbour tour I showed him my beloved Distillery District. We could have gone to another party that I knew about that night, but we wanted to get up early the next day and head down to Niagara for a little bit.
Traffic had other ideas though, and we didn’t get into Niagara Falls until around 12 p.m. which was way later than either of us wanted to get there. The crowds and $20 parking fee meant that I had to drop him off at a good spot to take photos and drive around until I could find a good place to make a U-turn. The rainbow bridge treated us better than Lewiston did a couple of nights before and we were eating a late lunch at Chili’s in no time.
Now I know you think this story has come to it’s end but I’m sorry to inform you that it is far from that. On the way back I tried my best to avoid Lewiston but obviously don’t know the US freeways well enough to know that there is no way to do that when you’re on the I-190. Luckily, I was able to exit at R. Moses Parkway before being perma-stuck in a long line to hell… after a scenic drive I arrive at Rainbow bridge where the wait was at least 10 times shorter than at Lewiston.
I managed to hit a bit of the same traffic in St. Catherine’s that we had hit a couple of nights before, but I also managed to take the same detour through the vineyards and shaved about 40-50 mins off my travel time. But someone didn’t want me back in Toronto just yet… out of the corner of my eye, I saw her: a lady in the passenger seat of the car to my left was frantically waving her arms in the air. Once I looked over, I realised she was waving at me. She quickly pointed to my rear, driver side tyre and made a gesture to simulate a flat surface. I furrowed my brow and mouthed ‘Thank You’, and quickly turned on my signal to change to the right lane and eventually the shoulder.
After my phone conked out and decided that it didn’t want to reset itself for a whole 20 minutes, I finally got a hold of my Dad and got some basic directions from him. I knew where to find everything: spare tire, jack, crow bar… but I didn’t want to start until I was absolutely sure there wasn’t something I needed to know. Three people stopped: one car just stopped behind me and watched me for a few minutes but must have seen that I was on my phone and so drove off after I waved and smiled at them; one car stopped just ahead of me: being able to check off “change a tyre” on the proverbial to-do list.