- leaving Friday night after work means Toronto's rush hour
- it also means braving snowsquall country in total darkness. No, thank you
- 5:00 isn't too much earlier than we normally arise, anyway.
I'd been paying serious attention to the weather. At any given time you can expect one of our three televisions to be tuned to the Weather Network. Eva sometimes asks me why I can't just look out the window, and I have no satisfactory answer for her. I just like weather, that's all. But as much as I want to see doom and gloom, when there's a road trip afoot, I'd prefer that said doom and gloom keep to the right and left of the highway ahead.Of course, there's a snowsquall warning in effect along our route. Thankfully, it's confined to an area north of Pointe Au Baril Station: that is to say, the last twenty minutes of our jouney.
For once, the trip up was completely uneventful. You can usually count on a squall floating in somewhere along Highways 400/69, (no matter what the forecast), usually between Barrie and Parry Sound, turning the road ahead into a blank drive-in movie screen. Or if it's not snowing and blowing, you can bet on the road behaving like something between a slushpile and a skating rink. And until you get north of Barrie into areas where people are used to winter driving, you can count on encountering a series of assholes, scumbags, and would-be suicides out for a weekend careen.You can't even relax your guard near Parry Sound; some percentage of cars are manned by yahoos from Toronto even there.
This time--for the first time in years--bare and dry, with little to no traffic and an absolute minimum of Road Rectums (tm).
We got gas in Parry Sound. It was cheaper there than in Waterloo, by a full five cents a liter, which is all but unheard of.We stopped in Nobel for a Timmy's (I may be used to these early hours, but I must say I'metting used to my go-juice, too.) Then, on to Britt.
The welcome was as warm as the weather was cold. No snow as yet, but I can see it coming: the sky is the color of a gun's barrel, loaded with leaden flakes and frigid air shot direct from James Bay. Forecasted temperature tonight is -17, with a -31 windchill.
The first Christmas of the year went very well, and dinner (prime rib, which I have decided I prefer over turkey) was exquisite. I got a couple of very nice (and warm!) sweaters and a Tim Horton's travel mug--a badge of Canadiana that will bring a warmth to my heart on a few blustery mornings. Eva got an in-drawer spice rack she's been coveting and a couple of beautiful angel figurines. And both of us got a whole lot of love and good cheer. It's always nice to be up there.
I was all but certain my father, a volunteer firefighter with the Britt and Area Fire and Rescue, was going to get a call as leaden day deepened to charcoal night: the wind was walking and talking outside and the snow spat down. No call came, which in a way was too bad: watching my father respond to a fire/rescue call is inspiring, after a fashion. The man is 58 years old. and has an artificial hip. He shouldn't be able to go from the kitchen to the car without touching the ground.But somehow...
After breakfast this morning I went out to warm up/scrape off the car. Half a second outside has proven convincingly that Environment Canada has botched the forecast. If it's only -17 out here, I'm a monkey's uncle. A flash-frozen monkey's uncle. (As it turns out, the forecasted windchill of -31 is the base temperature...the windchill is -43. It's been years since I have had to consider weather like this.
Harold growls at me a few times, then starts, and I begin the laborious process of clearing snow from the windows. Score, score, score, scrape, scrape, scrape, brush, brush, brush, and repeat. Before I've got so much as one window cleared I can feel my flesh starting to freeze. Holy shit, I think. I'm wussing out. It's not that cold out here, is it?
It is. About a minute later I'm resting inside for a spell. My glasses aren't fogged...they're iced up.
It takes almost forty minutes to get the car fully scraped. The trip down is considerably more hazardous. At least it's not snowing, but the road is snowpacked and coated in glare ice. It's center-bare south of Parry Sound but we don't feel dry pavement under our wheels until MacTier. When we bought Harold, we opted for the larger diameter wheels...I'd done some research online and discovered that a Toyota Echo equipped with standard wheels has a tendency to flit all over the road in high winds. I'm glad we got those wheels now, and doubly glad we're both fat people. If we were little drinks of water and our car had the 14" wheels I do believe we'd be airborne still.
Now, I'm home. About ten centimetres of snow has come down here since we left yesterday morning, so I'm out shovelling. After the crisp freeze-yer-balls-off of a Britt morning, the -25 windchill here feels almost balmy. Mine appears to be the only driveway within view cleared of its snow. The sidewalk is clear out front, too, and I can't say that for anybody else's on the block. I feel a mix of pride and exasperation at this. I own; quite a few others on the street rent. Still, that shouldn't be an excuse.
As I said, it's always nice to go up north. It's also nice to come home.
No comments:
Post a Comment