Friday, February 5th, 2010.

We departed Waterloo around 11:30am and headed back east towards Toronto. It seemed like more and more fellow highway travelers were recognizing the Sable! The overall mood in the car was at a high considering the past night's events. We felt refreshed and their was a lot less tension between our crew. We shared in group conversation for the first couple hours, laughing and joking around. These are the memories we will look back on and smile in years to come. 

Half way between Toronto and Barrie we came across a fairly large traffic jam, the highway was at a stand still. At first we were disappointed with the situation, but if there is one thing our Mom told us, it's this: always look for the positives in life. Keeping that in mind I came up with an idea. I quickly asked Dennis and Leanne (the two neatest writers) to write down our blog address on little pieces of paper. I then jumped out of the car and approached all the nearby vehicles handing out the papers. The surrounding travelers definitely had a laugh as I frantically ran from car to car knocking on the windows. Even if all the little pieces of paper end up in the trash than at least it was nice to get out and stretch my legs!

As the day went on, Dennis took over driving and Leanne joined him in the front. Taylor and I laid in the back and bathed in the warm sun shining through the window. The horror stories we were told about Northern Ontario seemed like mere fairy tales. The peace and serenity of the open road consumed us until evening. 

As the sun went down so did our spirits... The following part of this post is what I wrote at approximately 9pm EST.

'An eerie feeling consumes me. My nerves feel like they're tearing at my insides as my stomach turns and trembles. It's 9pm though it feels more like 3am as we haven't seen a light for hours. Yet again the GPS has led us astray. The divided highway diminished to a one lane dirt road. The lack of cellphone service concerns us as we feel uneasy about the reliability of our car. The only thing that takes my mind off this agonizing drive is writing this blog post, which ironically is about how afraid I really am. In reality I shouldn't be scared; If the car breaks down or runs out of gas, we have enough food and water for a couple of days, as well has the proper emergency equipment to survive the cold, though we worry still- will they find us without cellphone reception? How long will it take? The longer we drive, the more we question our fate.

The snow covered road makes it hard to travel any faster than 40km/h and the unreliable GPS says we still have at least 50 to go. This is what they warned us about- this is Northern Ontario...'

Well after traveling near 100km on a dirt road through the middle of night, it has really given us an appreciation for civilization. It's hard to get Canadians pumped up for the Olympic Games, when there's no one around.

**We want to reiterate how thankful we are to the Read family for lending the GPS to us! We would most likely have 4000 speeding tickets right now and we would be completely lost. Also, a big thanks to JF for installing the power outlet in our car. Our GPS would've been long dead and we would've been so so so lost without it. Even though it led us astray a few times, it did put us back on track. 

***More to follow- including Leanne's first post!!