It turns out that the electronic version of our Christmas letter did not include the annual Christmas image, so here it is. Hope you like it.
After a busy and merry Christmas surrounded by family and friends, we finished packing and we left Ottawa as early as we've ever left: 8:am. It really was the crack of dawn, since the sky was overcast...
We crossed into the US at Prescott / Ogdensburg and were only asked where we were headed, for how long, and did we have any citrus fruit with us. The Customs Officer also asked if it was our first trip south, which has to be a trick question since he's got to be looking at our passport history. I said we had been going south every year for the last ten years or so. He laughed and wished us a safe and enjoyable trip. That's been our easiest entry so far. By the way, the previous car [and possibly two cars] were pulled aside for a more serious inspection; the line-up included cars with luggage opened, parcels removed and stacked: like I mentioned, a more serious inspection.
We drove a few miles of lesser highways through some well kept Amish farms and other poorer lands, as we joined up to Interstate 81 around Watertown N.Y. and headed south on a fairly dry highway, with reasonable snow-banks on either side. Driving through the Amish area, we did see a black buggy pulled by two black horses. At first glance, it looked like a poster board of some kind. As we got nearer, these two people were patiently waiting to cross the highway. What a clash of cultures!
The temperature was hovering around the freezing point as we left and for most of the morning. It eventually rose to about 7C [~45F] by early afternoon. For a while, the snow had all but disappeared in the fields but now that we're further south in Virginia, there are banks of snow here and there. We even had some sunshine at times, but that's wasn't exactly welcome since we seemed to be driving right into the sun most of the time it was visible. I had not realized that we would be driving westward so much, but better that than hugging the seacoast where they are still digging out from a major snow dump from the last two days.
We haven't driven directly to Florida for a few years now, and I had forgotten the excessive truck traffic with their tell-tale tire flotsam. So far, we've managed to avoid the bigger chunks and no one has lifted any big pieces into our path. I'm sure many other drivers were not so lucky. It sure makes one wonder what the safety of the rest of the truck is like when you see so many delaminated tires everywhere on the road. That's probably another story...
Our trip was uneventful and somewhat boring at times on such a grey day. The car now has many halos of white salt, outlining the airflow patterns, including salt strips on the roof. These salt tracks are from our drive through Ontario where the sighting of a possible snow-cloud is reason enough to dump tons of salt on the highways. What fun...
The pretty sights along the way consisted of the freezing water that oozes out of the rock-cuts along the highway. Some of these frozen water-falls were nearing a yard think and one major traffic slow-down was due to heavy equipment being used to remove a thick tongue of ice that had started to flow across the inside lane. Some removed chunks had to be almost a foot think: that makes for a very bumpy [and dangerous] highway! No damage done,just an extra 20 minutes added to our ETA.
The rolling hills of upper NY slowly gave way to the long steep hills of Pennsylvania, followed by a brief shot through Maryland and now Virginia after dark. Almost every rock-cut had some of these frozen waterfalls: quite beautiful!
Gas at home was hovering just bellow $1.20/litre, while in upper N.Y. state it was $3.39/us gal. In Virginia, we've seen it at $2.95/gal, a real steal compared to back home. Hopefully, Georgia prices will be lower still.
Chris and Peter + dog are still ahead of us, further south; they left Ottawa yesterday. Travelling with a dog slows things up a bit so I imagine we might catch up with them soon.
More to follow, possibly with pictures...
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