Canadian Vacation

A Winter Wonderland in Canada

Well, we're back and we had a grand old time in the Great White North.
We arrived Friday around 630pm after a six and a half hour drive. We ran into a brief snow storm around Watertown that made driving damn near an impossibility for a few minutes, but Jen was able to calm me down and talk me through it (all at 10 miles an hour)
We had a nice dinner that Grandma had made for us and then headed for bed.
Saturday we spent several hours with my Aunt Irene and Uncle Dick who live in the same city my Grandma lives in...we hadn't seen them in over four years, so it was good to catch up...they leave for Myrtle Beach in January for a couple of months, and have invited us to go down there and stay with them for a weekend, so we'll probably be taking them up on that...gotta get Dad and Mom to ship out my golf clubs so I can play golf with Dick...
Saturday night, Grandma took us to a nice dinner at a local restaurant.All in all a pretty good day, except for the fact that the high temp on Saturday was 12 degrees...
that wasn't a typo...
12 degrees..
12 degrees Fahrenheit...
as in "holy #^@$ its 12 DEGREES OUTSIDE!!"
that didn't seem to stop us from taking Cooper for a walk after we got home from dinner, but he was done about halfway through...at that point, Coop Dog would run up towards every door, hoping someone would let him in out of the cold...he didn't care if he lived there or not,he just wanted to be warm...
We woke up Sunday morning to find it had snowed a good amount overnight.So Cooper got to go out and run around in the snow, which was fun fora bit, but then he got cold again...he'd be walking, putting a couple of paws up (to keep them out of the snow) while he walked on his other paws...very cute...he's getting good use of his winter sweaters...
Sunday was spent shopping at the mall, where we picked up a Maple Leafs dog toy for Cooper, a couple of touques (that's Canadian for beanies) and a scarf for me, and several clothes items for Jen to give to the child she adopted for Christmas through work...
Of course, no trip to Canada would be complete without a trip to the Beer Store. For the Americans reading this, you can't buy alcohol in Canadian grocery stores...the government runs Beer Stores and Liquor Stores where you get what you need...frankly, if you're a raging drunk like I'm apparently becoming, its the best Canadian store...ever...
I love my Labatts and Molson, but my good friend Mike Baldwin turned me on to Molson Brador a few years back...its Molson's malt liquor, and its awesome...picked up a case to bring back into the States with us...
Went to the Swiss Chalet for dinner Sunday night...then we said goodbye to Grandma Monday morning and headed for home... it took FOREVER to get home though, first off because we got stuck behind several snow plows on the 401 out of Kingston for, like, 200 miles (more like 20, but it felt like 200)...and the roads didn't even need to be plowed!! What the $^%# is that??

So after going 20 miles in 57 minutes, we finally got going again, and we were making great time, until we hit the George Washington Bridge to head back onto Manhattan from NJ...it took us 90 minutes to go 4 miles...again....90 minutes to go 4 miles...we were literally 4 miles from home...we could have WALKED home quicker than that!!

I'm not sure what I'm bitching about, because Jen was the one doing the driving at both points, and she handled it much MUCH better than I would have....but still being the passenger, I was pissed off...

Oh yeah, we also got cut off by a big rig on the bridge that basically pushed us off the road...tried to get his license plate, and then catch up and get his phone number, but we were unable to get the number...we both hope his brakes go out sometime and his rig goes over a cliff....jerk.

Here's his plate number from the state of Maine. Feel free to offer suggestions on what to do with it.

I know what you're thinking..."Well, besides all that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"

Well, despite ALL THAT, it was nice to drive a car once again after not being behind the wheel for over two months, but now its back to being at the mercy of the subway...
All in all, a nice long weekend vacation...we were glad to be able to see Grandma before she flies to California for her annual six week stay at Mom and Dad's, and we can't wait to go back to the homeland early next year...

A Mike Posts, but pictures and editing by Jen!