Canada, 2008

It seemed like these places were a long way apart. In January we were on the beach at Palm Harbor, Florida, and last weekend we drove through one of the biggest snowstorms of the winter on our way to North Bay, Ontario. Oddly, North Bay itself didn't have much of the storm, which mostly took place around Toronto. Apparently places as far south as Columbus, Ohio, were blanketed in snow, and the storm gradually moved East and finally hovered over the Maritime provinces on Sunday.
The snow began as we were leaving Jackie and Eric Whitesel's place in Lake Orion, just north of Detroit and continued and worsened as we crossed the border at Sarnia and wended our way past London, Toronto, and north past Barrie. We almost got stuck behind a Canadian Tire semi at a rest stop, but he finally got himself going and we plowed through a pile of snow in his wake.
(Marsha writes:) PS: On Saturday we drove (all day!) through one of the harshest blizzards they've had in Canada in decades. We just held onto the steering wheel and trundled through the wind and snow and ice packed road, thinking this is what the brave Canadians have to deal with normally. We got to Huntsville before giving up, leaned into the wind to reach the motel door, and then from our cozy room we looked out the window and watched the snow blow sideways across the parking lot. (We also viewed the storm from the swimming pool for a while. That was pretty strange. The pool was nice and warm, with big windows looking onto piles of snow and a driving blizzard.) The next day the sun was out and all the news was about the storm and the huge amount of snow. Sometimes ignorance is bliss!! For us, I think it happens often.
We decided to stop at a Motel 6 in Huntsville, 75 miles south of our destination. I had been hearing all along that tomorrow (Sunday) was to be sunny in North Bay, and indeed it was. In Huntsville, too, so we set our clocks forward and headed for the Capital Center in North Bay where we arrived to do our 2 o'clock show around noon.
The show, "La Manche," went well and we headed back to our Motel 6 for Sunday evening dinner at Kelsey's. But, had we known we were driving through such a memorable storm, who knows? Would we have given up.