Today was really just a driving day. It’s 12 hours or so to get to Guelph from the town I was in, but I wasn’t planning to do that all in one day. If I did, I’d arrive in Guelph around 2:30am (including the hour time difference), which is way too late for David and Claire, who I’ll be staying with, to stay up and wait for me. So instead of driving all the way there, the plan was to drive most of the way and get back in to Canada, then stop at a rest area about an hour and a half away from Guelph.
The drive was relatively unremarkable, apart from when I came across a ton of traffic caused by two crashes about a mile apart reducing the highway down to one lane. Google already had me routed to leave the highway a few miles up, so I didn’t have to wait in the traffic the whole way through. Or so I thought. Turns out Google had tried to redirect me around the traffic, and I hadn’t noticed so I thought that was just the normal route. The problem with Google routing around crashes like this is that it also suggests everyone else route around it as well, so rather than getting stuck in traffic on the highway, I got stuck in traffic on a random side road that ended up being worse than the highway traffic!
I eventually made it through all the traffic, and from there it was a pretty straight shot to Detroit, where I’d be crossing the Ambassador Bridge into Ontario. I took a quick break just as the sun was dipping below the horizon to throw the drone up into the air and get some sunset photos, but the light had mostly disappeared before I could get the photos, so they’re not the best. The midwest is also really flat, so there isn’t much to see from the sky.
I carried on into Detroit and before I knew it I was at the Ambassador Bridge. What I didn’t expect is the $12 toll (Canadian dollars) to cross the bridge. The tunnel has a toll as well, so I figured if I’m paying it either way, the bridge would be cooler. Once I was over it was a pretty short wait to cross the border, especially given it was 1 in the morning. The border agent was super friendly and quite liked the trip I was doing, but he did ask me “Are you coming from Windsor?”, which I found a bit of an odd question given I was at the border into Windsor, so how could I have come from Windsor. I told him no, and chocked it up to mishearing him or something.
Once I was through I stopped to grab a snack, spending my first Canadian dollars in almost 2 months, and then carried on to the rest area. All the rest areas along Ontario’s major highways are serviced by “OnRoute”, a private company that basically just builds rest areas on steroids. They all have a gas station, and then a variety of shops such as Tim Hortons (not Canadian, by the way), Subway, CIBC ATM’s, and more depending on the location. They’re quite nice areas and have staff on site, along with regular bathroom cleaning schedules.
I parked in the corner spot under some trees, then got ready for bed and promptly fell asleep, exhausted from the day.