I woke up quite early today since I’m taking Claire to her event in Toronto, which with morning traffic is about an hour and three quarters drive. We got going quite early as well, said goodbye to David, and then got on the road, stopping at a McDonalds on the way to get some hashbrowns for breakfast.
Driving up the 401 is still a pretty miserable experience, being one of the busiest highways in the country, especially during rush hour. I was taking all the opportunities I saw to explain things about driving to Claire, who was more than happy to receive all the tips she can before she drives her mums car next time she’s visiting her.
We got to Toronto about a half hour early, and so went to a cafe around the block from where she needed to be and sat for a bit. I didn’t get a drink, but Claire did, but realized too late that she forgot to ask for lactose free milk, which is a problem given she’s, you guessed it, lactose intolerant. To avoid wasting the drink, I drank that one and she got a new one that was sufficiently lactose free. The drinks also had some of the cutest art I’ve ever seen on a drink, which was a nice touch.
After our drinks we parted ways and I drove a bit further towards downtown where I found a cheap enough parking lot near one of the Toronto Public Library branches. I wanted to hang out at the library for a few hours to finally catch up on these posts that I’ve been forgetting to do over the last few days, and I much prefer sitting at the library with wifi over sitting in the back seat of the car or in a Starbucks or something.
I wanted to take the subway to the library, but unfortunately couldn’t find any parking near the train station, and figured if I’m going to pay for parking either way I might as well just drive to the library. I’ll have more chances to take the train when I come back to the city in a few weeks to visit Sophia, so I’m not too bummed about it.
The first library I went to was a suggestion by Claire; the Toronto Reference Library, a TPL branch more focused on research than other literature. The building was massive and spanned many floors, with some really cool design elements. Unfortunately, the wifi wasn’t working at the library (they had posted signs about it), so it wouldn’t really work as a place to get some work done. Fortunately, there was another branch just around the corner which was a normal branch, and while much smaller and less grand than the reference library, did have working internet.
::imagerow[https://images.maxward.ca/media/IMG_3181_1746724688.jpeg, https://images.maxward.ca/media/IMG_3182_1746724695.jpeg] First image is not the reference library, it’s just another luxury condo building.
After catching up on my posts, I headed north towards the Vaughan OnRoute. On the way I stopped at a Dominos Pizza since I had enough points to redeem a free medium pizza and was craving pizza for some reason. On the way there I had to navigate through some tricky side roads, since Google Maps for some reason routed me on a very stupid route through Toronto, with lots of left turns across traffic which caused a lot of delays.
After spending almost an hour in the car to drive 35km, I finally made it to the Dominos where I placed my order and then used the wifi of nearby stores to download a bunch of YouTube videos for later. The OnRoute was only another 8 minutes up the highway, so I planned to eat the pizza there and then spend the rest of the afternoon and overnight there.
20 minutes later, my pizza was ready and I picked it up before heading to the OnRoute. I stayed there for a good few hours and used their wifi to download more videos, then sat in the back seat and watched YouTube videos with my phone wedged between the headrest and seat to stay in a good viewing position. With the windows rolled slightly down, I was able to have a nice cool breeze preventing it from getting too hot inside.
A couple of hours later I wanted to go inside, so I went to roll the windows back up only to find they were really slow for some reason. It didn’t immediately clock, but when I went to turn on the car to see if that made it faster, I realized what had happened. I had left the headlights on and had drained the battery enough that I now couldn’t start the car. Hmm. No worries, it’s the best place for it to happen (a rest area), I’ll just find someone who can jump start me.
I found a very nice man in a truck who was happy to give it a go, and using the jumper cables that Kyle and I had bought earlier we gave it a go. Unfortunately, even with a bit of testing, and making sure we rev the engine of his truck, we couldn’t get it to work. I didn’t want to immediately ask someone else to help, since that might be a bit embarrassing with the first guy still around. So, after about 30 more minutes I asked around, but couldn’t get anyone else willing to help.
I ended up using the BCAA app to request roadside assistance, and to their credit they arrived within 20 minutes. Despite not speaking very much English, the employee was very friendly and joyful, and happy to help. After a bit of trying, we got it working and were successfully able to start the car. The only issue now is that if we just turn the car off again, then I won’t be able to start it again, since the battery won’t have had enough time to charge off the alternator.
Because of this, I decided to head west to the Cambridge OnRoute, about an hour away. This would be a fine place to stay the night, and would give me time to charge up the battery again, and would also put me closer towards the area where I want to be later. At the rest area, I parked in a far corner that was out of the way of everyone, and used my phone for a bit before heading to bed.