Kate

How we ventured through the seven levels of hell all within the first 60 minutes of 2007

Okay, flashback to the weekend. After getting up early in the morning we drove to the home town of Avril Lavigne a.k.a. Napanee to pick up Nicole Kimmerly and make our way to Presque Isle, Maine!!!!!! The drive was beautifully sunny with a little delay and road confusion in Montreal (which is almost expected when driving through there). Crossing the border in Van Buren, Maine, we were asked to come in and we are sure the border guard thought we were nuts and making up a bunch of lies and was surprised we didn't have booze. We arrived late Friday night safe and sound at the Sloans'. Julia and AJ's wedding was awesome, and it was great seeing everyone that we saw. Almost like a Bethany reunion, but now that we are out of school it was nice to have a "real world" reunion. Let us note though that the temperature in Maine was a lot colder then when we left Ontario and someone (Kate) was not necessarily dressed the warmest (although still amazingly gorgeous). The wedding itself was gorgeous, and we really couldn't be happier for Julia and AJ. After the wedding we stayed with the Sloans (Robert's host family during his internship) and had a great time with them, visiting, lighting a fire in the fireplace, and enjoying some of Dave's amazing chocolate chip cookies. We were also able to stop by PIWC and see Laura Mitchell (whom we thought had vanished) it was really nice to see her again.


Sunday morning we decided to set off for the great land of Ontario, but instead of taking the quick way through Canada we would take the scenic route (so Kate could stop at Bath and Body Works) through Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. That decision actually seemed to work out pretty well, because as a result we were able to do lunch with Rob and Heather Kavanaugh in Bangor, and otherwise we wouldn't have gotten to see them (because Robert forgot to call them in the morning).

So, we did lunch in Bangor and then headed off for home (Barrie). It was quite the drive...very beautiful, and we were glad we chose that route. Plus, in Vermont we got a special treat - we saw a moose! It was a giant bull, just standing on the side of the road. Luckily he stayed right there, and although it scared Robert half to death, Kate was pretty excited (Kate wanted to see another one just because it was sooo cool and as Robert was having heart failure she was laughing her head off… quite a pair we are!!).

We got through the States and enjoyed the pleasant city of Montreal, which we think really takes pleasure in having people get lost in it. :) After all the times Robert has driven through it, we still ended up getting turned around a bit, to which Kate aptly navigated us out of (she is awesome at doing that). Before long we were in the great province of Ontario, on the 401, safely headed home. Kate called home to check in before midnight to say we made it through the border with all of our stuff and Robert's belongings he had picked up from Monticello, we said our happy new years and would be home in a few short hours. DAdada! (cue dramatic sound effects)

Now, flash forward to around 11:30 PM, New Year's Eve. Just after we passed Cornwall where we had stopped and filled up with gas…. we definitely ran right into some freezing rain. Robert didn't really know how bad it was, and Kate was getting ready to warn him, after noticing that the rain was turning to a sheet of ice on the windshield instantaneously upon hitting it, when all of a sudden the car started doing this wobble thing...it's kind of hard to explain, but it felt like the wind was shaking us around (which Robert mentions by saying "Kate, the wind has really started to pick up"), when in reality it was just the icy road having fun with the car. Next thing we know, we're spinning around, nailing the guard rail on the right side, then it smushed the trunk in, and then sliding back across the two lanes and landing in the median (which was a giant ditch, separating eastbound and westbound lanes). The car's not in great shape...as the pictures will show. Both of us are fine...Robert is a bit shaken up, as can be expected, and Kate got a bit of a goose-egg on her forehead, but besides that we are both alive and well. Kate got out of the car and called her mom first (not 911… hmmm priorities lol). After Robert got out of his door he got our coats as Kate was on the phone with 911. At this time we didn't know it but there were about ten other cars off the road just close by us. It took the police 45 minutes to get to us and in the mean time we were scared another car would slide off into us (as we found out later had happened to someone the previous week and they died upon impact). So we stood in the median waiting watching cars slowly pass, running over pieces of Robert's car that were left of the highway. The police woman officer was nice, we had lost Robert's license in the car as we spun on the highway and things flew around the car, and his license was one of the things flying around…uh oh. We had to leave the car in the median overnight because the weather was too bad to get it out.




We were dropped off at the Lion's Motel in Long Sault, Ontario (yea what a great night). The worker seemed like he had spent many years on drugs and was somehow quite slow. We got in the room, and here is the long and short of it all… the thermostat was stuck at 30 degrees, the toilet was broke, and the phone didn't work, but there were 2 double beds!!! So what if our cell phones were dying and we had brought nothing from the car with us except electronics (no toothbrush, overnight bag, nothing…there was even a spider on the ceiling). So Robert decided by chance to see if we had a wi-fi signal and…. WE DID! Thank you Jesus. We called Josh McCracken on Skype and got him to call the insurance company for Robert (because his Geico 800 number didn't work in Canada) so that we could get a Canadian number to call. Wouldn't you know it, but that number didn't really work either…go figure. After calling Josh we tried to have a couple of hours of sleep (that's all it really was…bedtime at 3:30 and wake-up time around 6:30), and then tried to get the pieces put back together. The first thing we did was call the tow-truck guy that our nice police officer had recommended, and after arranging things with the motel guy (he said we could leave the car in the parking lot if we needed to, and we also didn't have to check out by 11) Robert went with the tow-truck guy (Rick) to go hunt down Laquesha.

It was a rough thing for Robert to see once he got to the car…kinda mangled up, parts of the guard rail missing, parts missing… But they got the car out of the median with no problem, and proceeded to get her to Rick's car yard, where she now rests. After getting her settled down, Robert came back to the motel with Kate.

God has been good to us, that's for sure, but we both ask that you would continue to pray that the insurance company would be gracious with us, and that things would work out for Robert to somehow get another car. So now that we are warm, still starving, and slept for a little bit, but still in survival mode of “get home get the car and get food.” Let’s skip to the next adventurous stage of our strandedness in Long Sault Ontario. Since we had the wi-fi we decided to use it to see where the frig we were… and low and behold right up the road was WINCHESTER… okay let’s all cheer. This is where Sara Brown (now Gomez) used to live and where once Kate had flown in to surprise Robert and YEAH we knew people nearby, all hope wasn’t lost and we may be able to get to Ottawa to get a rental. All we needed was the Browns’ number… so we had Kate’s mom look in an old pictorial… and it worked! (See those things can be used in emergency situations and not just to find a mate.)

So we were starving and after the car was back in the tow yard we walked over to get crackers and juice out of it and hunt for Robert’s license. We didn’t find the license but we did find some munchies. We trekked it back to the motel and still at this point had not had a good cry or realization of what has all happened. So Rev. Brown came to the rescue about 12:30 pm to take us and all car contents to the Ottawa airport where we would get in a rental car, drive home, and be all good…. NOT SO FAST, we are with Kate here, the one who never has luck…

What we expected to happen (thanks to a miscommunication from Geico) was that we would get to the Ottawa airport (flying by the wings on our back since it was an hour from where we were) where a rental car from Enterprise would be waiting for us, and pretty much everything would be paid for by Geico. This is perfect…we can get the rental, drive back, and empty Robert’s car into it and drive on home!!! To our surprise, though, we found out that we were going to get royally screwed over, and that we would have to pay like a $1000 drop fee and all kinds of junk. Robert still remembers the feeling that penetrated his whole body as we heard that news. It was a feeling of total and utter despair...ugh. Anyway, we went back to Rev. Brown's car and proceeded to think and brainstorm. We had a few options, and as we weighed them all out we finally settled on taking a bus from Ottawa to Toronto. Once we decided that, we had to book it to the bus station, and we barely made it. We still weren't sure that a bus was the way to go...after all, it would be much cheaper for Kate to just fly home and for Robert to take the bus by himself. But as we approached the ticket counter to see just how much it would cost, for some reason (maybe it was Kate's frantic state, tears and a distort voice) the ticket guy took pity on us and gave us the student rate even though we didn't have student ID's. That one move cut our bus tickets in half, and so we headed out on the road for Toronto, where Kate's parents would meet us. The bus ride...well, on the whole it wasn't so bad. We didn't think we were going to need a bus when we got to Ottawa, however the whole past 24 hours we were doing things that we didn’t things were going to happen.

Our trip on the bus almost went smoothly...despite the fact that we had to rush to get to the bus (pretty sure we were the last people on), and couldn't get all of Robert's stuff on with us (so the point of stopping in Monticello to collect it all is null and void now), the ride itself was great...we even had this rather large male fashion major behind us who kept us entertained, he was a self-loathing pathological liar we diagnosed…. So the ride was entertaining until we got to Scarborough, where (to add icing to our already gross and disgusting cake) our bus actually broke down, and they had to bring another bus to us. SERIOUSLY, is there anything else that could happen to us… thankfully that didn't take too long, and before we knew it we were in the loving arms of Kate's parents and sister.

Once we got back to Barrie the fun really began. The ultimate need on hand was, how do we get Robert back to Ohio? Nobody really knew for awhile...but after Robert called Geico again (this time he had an adjuster assigned to him), we somehow secured a rental car from Barrie. The fun part of it all was that Robert wasn't going to head to Ohio by himself...nope! Because the car had to somehow make it back to Barrie (to avoid a $1000 drop charge), Kate, Kate's mom, and Kate's sister Allison came on a road trip to the Massie's house! What fun! Hah...well, it actually wasn't too bad, and everyone had a very restful evening at the Massie house stayed a night. Then in the morning they girls trekked it back up towards the Homeland.

This seems like it would have been uneventful and simple: just go north on I-75 and then cross the border and then stay on the 401 until home… HA. There was a major accident in Southgate, Michigan, which detoured us an hour around an unknown town. We had no directions and no map, no Onstar, or GPS…lol. So the next best thing was to tailgate an Ontario-plated transport and hope he was headed back to a ramp that was open! And guess what - WE WON. We made it back with no trouble from here on in. Robert is back safe with the Wii (which Kate is missing but will have to cope somehow). Kate and family are home, he got another rental car for now, and that is all we know now. WHAT A NEW YEARS…how was yours?

posted by Kate Patterson @ Thursday, January 04, 2007