Slow going Today

Today we learned a valuable lesson:  We should never complain about the traffic congestion at the corner of Pope Road and Central Street - the 5 - 10 minute delay is nothing to what we experienced today!


The morning was wonderful as the kids were travelling well.   We stopped at a Visitor's Information Centre in La Pocatiere to have our mid morning snack and then we stopped for lunch at a beautiful park in St Apollinaire.  There was lots of playground equipment for the kids to burn their energy.  The weather was quite hot - our van showed the temperature was hovering at 30 degrees - finally some hot weather!

Here is a photo of Francois' fathers name on a truck

We left the park at 1:30 with plans of meeting Francois' cousin, Beth, her husband, Doug and their 2 boys for a spaghetti dinner, but we didn't plan on the major traffic delays in Montreal.  It took us almost 3 hours to travel 75 km through Montreal.  We didn't think there would be that much traffic at 3 pm on a Wednesday.  We did see some interesting things in the lines of traffic - a truck with the business Real Caron's name on it and a Trout River truck, which is built in PEI, and looked really sleek amongst all the large trucks.    After two hours of sitting in traffic we called Beth and told her not to expect us until later in the evening.  


Finally the traffic flow got better as we headed out of Montreal and David says to Francois - How much longer to Ottawa?  Francois answers - it should be another hour and a half as long as there is no more traffic delays, which shouldn't happen as we are now out of the city.  He didn't have the words out of his mouth when we came to another traffic jam.  There was a major accident on the highway as a portion of it was closed and they were rerouting us through a little small village.  The traffic was moving at a snail pace, so we stopped for supper at the Subway store in hopes the traffic would clear up - no such luck.  As we headed towards the long line of traffic - David asks, "How long is the traffic?"  We answer, "As far as your eyes can see."  To which David responds,  "I can only see the car in front of us and the large tractor trailer - that's it."  It was certainly a humorous moment in a stressful situation.


In retrospect, the kids were wonderful despite the length of time stuck in a car.  I discovered the maximum amount of time I can stay in a car travelling 10km/hour is about 2 and 3/4 hours.  I can certainly understand how road rage can happen, I am very thankful the kids were good - I don't know how I would have made it if they were fighting with one another.  Francois was patient as usual and tried to keep the kids interested by pointing out different items on the streets or in the lines of traffic.


We arrived at Beth and Doug's shortly after 8:00pm, so what we thought would be an 8 hour day travelling in the car turned out to be a 12 hour day.  Doug and Beth were watching the hockey game in their garage and David was very quick to get out of the van to watch the game.  We let the kids watch two periods of the game, but considering the score and our plans for tomorrow we sent them to bed at 10:00pm.  We have a busy day tomorrow - as we are heading to Calypso Water Park to celebrate Natalie's birthday and then we have a BBQ at Beth's brother's, Mike, house.  It is suppose to be another hot day - can't wait to explore the water park.


Good night