An Epic Journey

Okay, maybe not epic, but I still had a heck of a time getting home from Rochester on Monday!

For those interested, here are the details:

For reference, it took me 8 hours to get to Rochester when I went out there on Saturday. (It would have been 7 1/2 but I spent a little more time at the border than I was planning on.)

On Monday, I left Rochester at 11:30 AM. The roads were clear, the weather was good. I made it about 20 minutes down I-90 and suddenly ran into completely stopped traffic:

I didn't think this was so bad at first, I mean sometimes you have traffic jams. However, 1 hour and 45 minutes later when I was still sitting in park in exactly the same spot, I felt a little more unhappy about it. However, I did do every single puzzle on the puzzle page of the USA Today that my hotel had given me that morning. Finally, after almost 2 hours traffic got moving. I finally found out what had caused the highway to be completely closed for almost 2 hours:

It was an accident that occurred during a whiteout involving 14 semi-trucks. You can see some of them in this picture on both sides of the road. Remember, this is 2 hours after the accident happened. However, after I got past this accident things went smoothly. There was no wait at all at the border, and in Canada I had about 2 hours of driving where it was even sunny. However, once I got on 403 going inland I met a familiar sight:

This time the car in front of me has an Ontario license plate! Yes, once again a highway was closed because of an accident. This time, they directed everyone off the highway (which took over an hour for me to get to the exit.) So, I was in the-middle-of-nowhere Canada with no idea where to go and the highway closed. So, I improvised. I had a guy from Ontario following me (and I have a Michigan license plate so I obviously didn't know where I was going so I have no idea why he was following me) and together the 2 of us wandered around the back roads for several miles until I finally found my way back to the highway, where it was open! My Ontario friend gave me a triumphant wave as we got back on the highway and moving. Our enthusiasm was short-lived, however:

We had only gone maybe 2 miles (~4 km, since we were in Canada eh) and right where 403 joins 401 we had traffic at a dead stop again. Yes, for the 3rd time on my trip home my highway was closed because of an accident resulting from a whiteout! Then I spent 2 hours sitting on 401. (The pic above is the view behind me from my side mirror.) I went a total of about 1 mile in those 2 hours and finally got to the exit where they were once again kicking everyone off. Luckily there was a truck stop by this exit, (although it was basically chaos because EVERYONE was stopping there,) but I did get to pee and get gas. Then, as I was coming back out to my car trying to decide what to do next, I noticed a heavenly sight: cars were moving on 401 again! I hurried back on the newly re-opened highway and headed for Michigan.

Unfortunately, the whiteouts were not done, and I had to go 25-45 mph for about 60 miles to try to avoid becoming another whiteout accident myself. Then, about 10 miles from the border, it totally cleared up! Michigan welcomed me home! I still had to get all the way across the state, so I didn't actually make it home until 1 AM. So my trip turned into a 13 1/2 hour ordeal. The lesson: uh...it sucks when they close the highway you are traveling on, but it sucks more when they do it to you three times in one day. Thats about all I got from it. Oh and when you are on a road trip, make sure you pee and eat when you get a chance, cuz you never know when you will have to sit in park on the highway for hours.