Our Trip to Canada

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June 6^th, 2008: Day 1

Foreword:

The family of my wonderful girlfriend Julie has been trying to escape from the United States to Canada for two years now, with the primary intent of obtaining free healthcare. Hopefully a better living environment would be part of the deal too, and a better chance of obtaining jobs. Last year, they had a house signed on and set to go, but shortly before they actually moved, their house in Canada flooded due to a broken pipe. Not long thereafter, I met Julie, so it almost seemed like fate that brought us together.

Earlier this year, her family decided they wanted to make a second attempt at finding a place to go in Canada. So they set the dates at June 6th, 2008 to July 3rd, 2008. And me, being a faithful, loving companion to my girlfriend, opted to go with.
And so it was.

Preparation

In the days preceeding June 6th, emotions were raging and bitching became a past-time for all who were involved. Wondering what to pack, how much of it to pack, where to pack it, how to pack it, the list goes on. I opted to set up my Xbox 360 in the rental car so we wouldn’t be so bored while driving; In the week before, I set up this system in my own car to verify it worked.

Once this was set up in the rental car on June 5th, I went to my house to do some last minute packing… and didn’t get to bed until shortly after 2 in the morning. We were supposed to get up around 4 and leave around 6…

The Beginning

On the morning of June 6th, at 6:30 or so, Julie shows up at my house to wake me up; my cellphone was in my shorts pocket, and I was fast asleep. The alarm clock which I had set the night before failed to work, and I didn’t hear the phone ringing. Oops… so I jumped in and out of the shower and headed over to her house in her dad’s van-slash-one-seater-sports-car (Julie had to remove items from the driver’s seat before she could even get in it) and walked into a hectic house. Everyone was losing it as we made final packing decisions and loaded the car. What else could I have expected before a 3 week road trip?

Skip to 9:02. The car is packed, we’re ready to go! We set off in the direction of Canada with smiles on our faces and good spirits. This lasted a while…

We arrived in Wisconsin shortly thereafter, and of course we—being mere humans—must stop and take a piss once and a while, so we stopped at a very inviting rest stop.

And guess what we found: hundreds of caterpillars!

We also found a white rooster, out to lunch presumably, but he ran away as soon as Don, Julie’s dad, approached. He was probably an escapee from the nearby farm.

Once we finished there, we drove all the way through Wisconsin to Minnesota, and stopped for lunch at Noodles and Company in the most awesome strip mall ever, near St. Paul. Here, Julie and Mandy had many blond moments…

N&C to Julie: “Can I take your order?”
Julie: “Pasta Fresca.”
N&C to Mandy: “And for you?”
Mandy, not paying attention: “Same thing”
Julie: “Wait, didn’t you want Mac & Cheese?”
Mandy: “Wait, what? OH YEAH”
Julie: “Didn’t you want a small bowl?
Mandy: “Oh, yeah, yeah”
N&C to Julie: “Ok, can I have a name for that order?”
Julie: “Jewel… I mean Julie *giggle*”

After we were done giggling and eating our heartwarming meals, I ventured into a “Computer Revolution,” which is an interesting computer parts store; we never see any like that around Gurnee. I strolled next door to GameStop, where Mandy and Julie were. Mandy had picked out a DS Skin, and Julie was in the process of buying it for her, so I decided to try my luck and see if they had any new Xbox 360 game cases for my Halo 3 game, since the one I had was broken. While I was doing that, Julie was trying to overhear my conversation with the GameStop guy, and wasn’t paying attention to Mandy, who was nagging her, as the cashier was waiting for her:

Mandy: “Julie… *poke* JULIE… *poke* JULIE!!!… *poke* (to cashier) sorry, she’s blonde.”

This of course brought much laughter to all involved. Once we were out of the store, we headed toward North Dakota.

We stopped at a small gas station further in the trip, and saw some cool looking silos (right). We also found a friend at the same gas station; a girl driving a Subaru that was packed to the brim with stuff. We saw her several other times, so she appeared to be following approximately the same route as us.

Once we left the gas station, we observed one of the most spectacular sunsets we’ve ever seen… a perfectly gigantic orange ball of fire setting in the distance.

We finally reached Fargo around 10:30 and managed to find a place to stay.

The “C’mon Inn” in Fargo was aesthetically quite pleasing, except for the smell of chlorine from the hot tubs and pools on the first floor. The room was spectacular at first sight, with a Jacuzzi and large flat screen TV; but upon further inspection, the phones didn’t work, a light bulb was blown, and worst of all, the sink didn’t drain, and the shower head was far too low for my height. The maintenance guy, Steve, fixed the phones and the light bulb, and tried to fix the sink with a tiny plunger, but just made it more disgusting with black particles coming up. This devastated Ruth, Julie’s mom, and forced her to use the bar sink and Jacuzzi for brushing her teeth. Because of these shortcomings, we managed to get the room for free—that’s right, free. This was a perfect excuse for having a nice celebratory pillow fight; and so we did.

Once we were done bitching about the room I tried to get some rest… it didn’t take long before I had to put some earplugs in due to the giggling of Julie’s parents. Sweet dreams until tomorrow!

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