Day 13

Some say 13 is unlucky. In a way it was...

Mom & Dad Hardy took us (that is their daughter, Laura and her fiancé Brett, Rob, James and I) to Barry. A small lake town North of Toronto. It was cold. Flipping cold. the lake had frozen over, some trucks had already driven on it to put some fishing huts out, and the car said -15. That means it was at least 20 below with wind chill. Flipping cold. There was some snow throwing, crawling through 3 feet of snow, drinking hot apple cider, and then back in the car (with Italian Job on the DVD player - Mr. Hardy had traded his 5-seater car for a 7-seater all-mod-cons SUV. Which was nice). We drove further North to the snow-tubing place and threw ourselves down hills at 80 kmph. What fun. We went down twice because there were kids all over the place (school trip they called it...short bus kids if you ask me). That meant we decided to get food for a while. We ate cardboard and melted plastic (nachos) went back to the chutes and the kids were gone. That was almost great but then the attendants ruined claiming 4 grown men attached throwing themselves down icy hills meant were going "too fast". Huh! We raced in twos and ones from then on. Pete Hardy even had a go at the end. He seemed to enjoy it...pity it was closing as we were getting into it.

We started to drive home and hit straight into a snow storm. A blizzard of monstrous proportions. We went from blocked street to blocked street looking for a way back to Toronto. Visibility was a luxury, as was movement for a while. One road we ended up on was blocked by a truck on one side, a taxi on the other, a head-on collision further down (explored by PC Brett and Rob the... tall guy, who came back looking frozen, with it being 30 below now and all), and to top all that off, as it was clearing a bus had veered into a ditch. We (I say we I mean Pete who was driving I was just watching the episode unfold, when you're in a car that does 300 yards in two hours you kind of zone out if you in the back seat) decided to turn around find another route. We ended up on Yonge street (James pronounced it 'Yonj' but it's pronounced 'Young') which is the longest road in the world. The irony was that we had the most impatient man (Brett) in the world, stuck in a traffic jam on the longest road in the world. Record breaker I say.

We finally found a stopping point (Kelsey's) where Ramlin came to rescue us. She led us through the roads like a pro and after some treacherous driving we got home. The party Mrs. Hardy had done the shopping for was off, so we had Pepsi, Root Beer, and other Beer sitting in our apartment when all we wanted to do was sleep. It was an adventure. We got back sat around for 5 minutes then we all went to bed. Ram had passed-out on the couch next to James, and her burger was getting cold on the side. When in Rome...