Day 4 - Montreal to Sudbury…oh my!
This morning it was up and at ‘er bright and early. We had a long drive to make today from Montreal to Sudbury. We did, however, manage to make it up to a super lookout point that offered a spectacular view of the entire city.
As we climbed into Gus to embark on the next leg of our journey, we realized that, following the thus-far failure to deviate from the reggae station on our satellite radio, that we must have finally converted Mich into a lover of this fabulous genre. Apparently not, but she has, thus far, been gracious enough to allow majority to rule… Bob Marley, keep on truckin’…
As we started making our way to Sudbury, with the promised pit stop in Ottawa to satisfy Dola’s need for pictures, we were faced with a very un-expected and not too well received reality… We had grossly underestimated the length of time it would take to get from Montreal to Sudbury. With Google Maps telling us 8 hours, and a firm confirmation from our server at breakfast that this was correct, we felt confident that we were on track. Our GPS, ‘Tips’, however, had other ideas… She was assuring us we had an estimated 12.5 hours of driving ahead of us. Uh-oh. (insert Team Gondola – including Dola and Gus – freaking out right about now). However, with an ‘it is what it is rock-solid-as-always attitude; DD simply laughed and told us we should at least arrive before midnight. But this was without us stopping back in Ottawa. Dola now sulking like a child, and making us all feel very sad… L
Rolling in to the next town past Ottawa, Pembroke, we decided to stop for some lunch at a local Boston Pizza. No sooner had we sat to order than the manager had Googled PEAK 2 PEAK, and came out proudly announcing that she knew we were driving across Canada, and wanted to know all about our trip. We took a picture of her and her lovely crew of staff, assuring them we would include them on our website – check our Flickr gallery for their image. We had also received a recent update from Tips that we were now far more on track to be inline with our original estimated driving time to Sudbury, which meant we could stop and let Dola get some air… We unveiled her to some fresh Ottawa-river air at a local park, and suddenly she had a group of admirers crowd around to meet her. This lifted her spirits, and I think she was finally back to her old self. Phew. We didn’t want her being down around the people of this town – they were sincerely sweet, and genuinely intrigued to meet our Dola and hear about our story and travels.
And this brings us to now… Somewhere approximately 150kms out of Sudbury, unfortunately mostly cut off from cell range, and stopped at a Mr. Gas in the pitch dark. Until tomorrow….Sudbury Nickel here we come!
