What a crazy return trip we had today (yesterday?). We left Barrie, Ontario Monday morning at 6 am and proceeded south on Hwy. 400 in all the glory that is Toronto commuter traffic…we got to the 401 at about 7:30 am with a good view of the CN Tower before heading west from London toward Sarnia on Hwy 402. Steven and Hanjin were in the "new" van and the boys and I were in the "old" van. We made pretty good time and got to the border at about 11 am with no difficulties at all.

 

From Sarnia we headed into Michigan toward Flint and north on Interstate 75 toward the Mackinac Bridge which I wrote about. We had to stop and take pictures…It’s not every day you cross the third longest suspension bridge in the world. We crossed the bridge and then headed west along the north shore of Lake Michigan and took some fantastic pics on the beach along the way. Really scenic area for sure.

 

We drove until we got to Hwy. 28 which took us a good stretch through Michigan and into Wisconsin. Our goal was to make it to Marquette for the evening which we did. Then we crashed in sleeping bags in the vans in a Walmart parking lot (for bathroom access) until about 1:30 am and then hit the road again until about 4:30 am where we stopped and crashed in the parking lot of a casino till about 7 am. When we got up and hit the road again we drove straight into a wicked snow storm that lasted basically all the way from western Michigan, through Wisconsin all the way to western Minnesota. We white knuckled it the whole way and drove smart and all went well with numerous stops along the way for various energy drinks (the youth turned me on to Rockstar Juiced so I stuck with that while Steven alternated with a few different options of the cappucino variety.

 

We got into East Grand Forks about 3:30 pm and took the downtown route to the bridge across the Red River near Cabella’s but that whole section was completely sealed and sand-bagged. We saw some army vehicles hauling sand bags along the way. Once we got across the Red River along Hwy 2 (the water was literally touching the bottom of the bridge) we headed north along I 29 where we ran into a long stretch of highway flooded with easily two plus feet of water which we had to work our way through. It was quite the journey.

 

Then just when we thought we were done with snowstorms we hit another one as we approached the border which lasted all the way back to Morden. Wheww. Long trip but what a blast.

 

I have to say it despite how super exhausting it was I wouldn’t trade it for anything. We drove 5,000 km in four days…that’s like driving from Morden to Guatemala. I had a wonderful time with my boys and with Hanjin. Steven is simply awesome. One of the great ones for sure and an amazing friend. I’ll never forget this trip and look forward to more insane ones.

 

Here are some select pics from along the way (if you are reading this on facebook you need to visit my blog to see them at http://poet.spaces.live.com ):