North America 2021 Roadtrip #8: Canada Is Trying To Kill Me
I woke up this morning to a clear blue sky and started the short 45 mile run from Moose Jaw to Regina to stay with my sister-in-law Deb and Brian. Half an hour into the drive I rolled up to two lanes of stopped trucks amid a white-out blizzard. Not this shit again!
I sat for four hours. Luckily I had Internet service and checked the highway status web site to find that the road was officially closed. I called the Mounties road status phone number and they told me they’re not even sending tow trucks and plows out, because the road is closed. Um, what? For the second time, what are we who are stopped on the road supposed to do? The roadway was actually clear but with horizontal blowing snow and zero visibility as you can see in the picture.
Finally the truck in front of me moved forward and I saw that no more than 5 truck-lengths ahead was a multi-car pileup that had been somehow pushed to the site of the road. Thanking the gods of the Arctic, I crept the last 15km to the house.
Normally I am the guy you want in a crisis – calm and cool, handling the situation, planning a way out. All of that went out the window while I was sitting there. I had good battery charge levels both times, food, water, warm clothes, a blanket, working heater, but I started to get really anxious, wondering how long I was going to be there, how much heat I could afford to make out of the battery pack, would my mud + snow tires get me to my destination without slipping into the ditch or getting stuck on top of a snowdrift. My hands were shaking in relief when I pulled up to the house. That’s when it hit me that I’m done with this snow shit. I just can’t take another stuck-on-the-road blizzard.
So here’s the deal. I have a maximum of 10 days to get back to Nashville. I’m in the middle of a belt of snow that has shut down the entire lower part of British Columbia and major highways leading east through the prairies, and I would continue driving in the same direction of the storm as the days go by. That’s no bueno.
I decompressed at Deb’s today, and tomorrow I will do a serious analysis of weather along my intended route through my remaining northern stops of Madison Wisconsin, Toronto, Ottawa, Boston and Washington DC. If I can’t find an absolutely safe way to do it, I’ll head south from here when there’s a gap in the weather and make an interesting route back to Nashville. If I can find a way to make it through the next stops, then I’ll give that a try and bail if things go bad again.
I’m in touch with my friends and rellies at the next few stops to let them know what’s going on. I apologize for the chaos of the trip due, mostly, to events outside of my control. I thought I could get through Canada before the snow hit but it looks like I picked the wrong year.
So. Tonight I’m on a very comfy couch, tomorrow I hit all of the weather sites and my spreadsheet. I’ll let you know my next steps as soon as I figure them out.
May I never see snow again for the rest of my life…
