The drive…
Given the high price of airline tickets, at least prior to Thanksgiving and into early December, we decided to drive to Montreal to visit Andrew’s family for Christmas, rather than flying. So, today we made the trek up. We had checked and re-checked weather in up-state New York to see if we would be able to make the drive or not – given that it’s December, a time of snow and blizzards in the Northern US. It appeared that the weather would hold – with the chance of storms coming the yesterday and tomorrow, but not today.
We left the house around 6:30, but stopped for breakfast at a nearby Mexican restaurant, so didn’t really get on the road until 7:30.
For the most part, the weather held – there was no snow on the groun in DC or Maryland. A small dusting had taken hold in New Jersey, but nothing on the road – it had probably snowed a few days earlier. By the time we hit New York, there was ground-covering snow. It started to become clear that snow had fallen within the past 24 hours in New York – the roads were clear, for the most part, but we ended up passing several snow plows.
Snow started falling, but just a little, as we were passing through the Adairondacs. Traffic had died down by that point, and we were driving a bit slower.
The real trouble came when we stopped for dinner in Plattsburgh – when we got off the highway, the roads were clearly not as well cleared. The first light we went through, I had a bit of trouble getting the car going and going straight. We slided around for a while, then settled on Applebees – only one of two restaurants we saw.
The border crossing went well, but apparently the Canadians don’t know how to clear their roads as well as the Americans — at least in Quebec. The roads instantly became more snowy and I was a bit more nervous driving on them. It didn’t help that we got off the main road rather quickly. The side roads had maybe had a plow, but not for a while and they were slippery.
But, I drove slowing and carefully, and we made it to Andrew’s parents by 7PM, in one piece.