Saturday, November 13, 2021

Highlights of a 10-Day Road Trip Through Eastern North America

1 year, 11 months, 12 days. This is how long it’d been since our last long trip (which was a drive to Florida that launched a weeklong cruise in The Bahamas in November 2019). We did take smaller trips since then, some overnight ones, and many day trips, but we almost never left our state (North Carolina) during this time. Crossing the border for a few hours into Virginia during this time doesn’t really count as “leaving the state”.

But this year, prompted by a milestone birthday in Michigan that we simply could not miss and the fact that hey, we were in the neighborhood of Canada where we have more close family, we had to venture out, COVID19 precautions and all, and take a longer vacation.

Almost 10 days later we would have traveled through 8 states, one Canadian province, two countries, more than 2000 miles and would have learned so much! We chose to do all this in a huge road trip, with zero flying. As much as I miss traveling and really long trips, flying is still not on my list for the time being. Airlines cannot space out people on planes and people are so inconsiderate when it comes to hygiene in close spaces. Not to mention that, to my knowledge (and belief!) the COVID19 pandemic is far, oh, so far, from being “over” yet. So this trip had to be a driving one, where we could have a bit more control of our surroundings.

Traveling now is nothing like traveling in 2019, as you can imagine, unless you have lived under a rock for the past two years. The logistics are different, but also our fears, our caution, our “paranoia”, if you will, is a new thing to get used to and embrace. Yes, I say “embrace” because despite all the worry that you’re out there, in the world, exposed to all sorts of human garbage, despite the fact that some people are stupid and selfish and … wrong … you still must try to have some fun, make some memories and save something for your family album. Otherwise, all the travel and the bother would not be worth it …

There are a lot of things that will remain with us from this marathon trip. A lot of new things we experienced for the very first time which taught us so much. I really don’t have the time (nor you to read such long belaboring) or the memory for it all, but I did not want this trip to go unnoticed, so I am summarizing some of the highlights in this journal.

West Virginia toll roads. Seriously, West Virginia! $4 a pop times three to cross your state (on the same road) is a bit steep! Also: West Virginia, have you heard of these nifty little things called credit cards, yet? All of the tolls must be paid in cash in WV. I remember that my Canadian family drove through there in 2018 and they did not have any American cash so they could not pay the tolls. Well, three years later, there are still no credit cards allowed in West Virginia. All cash or get off the toll roads and navigate the back country roads for free.

By the time we crossed the state we were $12 down in tolls alone through a state that, albeit beautiful, does not impress in road quality. As a traveler, always looking for interesting things, I suppose this is meant to slow you down to take life in, or something. But you are on a busy highway, so stopping, getting your wallet out, counting your dollars, waiting to receive change (especially in a time where everywhere else in the country cash transactions are rare because of virus transmissibility…) is a bit odd. But it’s how they do it in WV, so be warned.  

Cuyahoga Valley National Park, OH. I have this crazy goal to visit all of the National Parks before I die. So, when we drive past one now, I will try to make it through it at least for a couple of hours. Cuyahoga Valley was achieving a small piece of such a goal. The one surprising thing was that although a park of almost exclusively deciduous trees, the leaves were hardly turned yet on October 23rd! I would have thought that Northern US, so close to the border with Canada, would have been past-peak for leaves-turning by that date, but the leaves were mostly green … We had time just for a very short hike, which was peaceful and made for a couple of good photo ops of bridges and train tracks. The park is very easy to just drive through. No fee required.


The Ohio Turnpike bridge seen from the Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Egrets on Lake Erie! Again: too late in the year to see these beautiful warm-weather (we thought!) birds as far North as the Canadian border. But there they were … A whole flock of them just chilling on a marsh outside Lake Erie. Can we assume global warming?! Perhaps …


Egrets outside Lake Erie

Speaking of Lake Erie. We got to see several Great Lakes on this trip: Erie, Ontario, and Michigan. We skirted around Lake Huron, but we never so much as got a glimpse of it. I remember learning about them in geography classes in middle school, back in Romania. They told us they look and feel like seas or mini-oceans, with minimal tides and big waves. They were not wrong. I grew up on the Black Sea coast and I can tell you – there is not much of a difference between any of the Great Lakes and a sea such as the Black Sea which I am most familiar with. Sure, the lakes are full of fresh water and the a sea would be full of salty water, but if you’re not swimming in them to know this, there is not much of a difference between them by just looking at them. They are vast, impressive bodies of water and they do not ever feel like peaceful “lakes” but more like troubled, angry, and restless seas or even oceans …


South Haven lighthouse on Lake Michigan

Crossing the border into Canada in times of pandemic. Now, this was the real adventure. Many months before our trip, when the border opened in Canada to Americans to be allowed to visit, my sister who lives in Montreal educated me about how to cross into Canada who has a very strict system for contact tracing and enforcing pandemic rules (vaccinations and masking). We had to sign up for this app called ArriveCAN which would hold all of our information (passport, vaccination card, Canadian address, reason for visit, personal data, etc) 72 hours before we cross the border. We even had to tell them the approximate time of when we will be at the border and which border crossing we would be using. This system looked intimidating and impressive. I know of nothing remotely similar in the US. When the borders originally opened, the rule was that Americans can cross into Canada by car, train, or ferry only with a proof of vaccination and that a 72-hour negative Covid19 test was only needed for people flying there. Well, we were driving, so we figured – no test.

Two days before getting ready to cross into Canada, we were in Michigan visiting with family and I decided that it’s time to finish signing up and completing all the information for the ArriveCAN system. As I was finishing that process up, I found out that we did, after all, need to present a negative PCR test (which is not the “rapid test”, of course – that would have been too convenient and too easy) that could take up to 48 hours to come back. So, this would have meant that if we took it that day, it might be back the very day we were supposed to cross into Canada so we could be in Toronto for our hotel reservation.

We had researched before the trip places where we could get a test in Michigan, should we need one, for any reason, so we already had this one place mapped out. We did not need an appointment, luckily, so we just drove through, and they took our samples and we filled out a form. We were told it’d be up to 48 hours but it’s more like 24 hours from what they’ve seen in the last little bit to get the results. The test itself ran extremely smoothly. We were impressed by how Michigan seemed to have everything down to a science almost.

We were supposed to get our results through email. The next day (24 hours) we kept refreshing our emails compulsively. Neither one of us got anything. So, that “it’s more like 24 hours” did not turn out to be true, after all. The second day, which was the day we were supposed to head out to Toronto, we practically did not turn our email app off and just stared at it all morning, refreshing and waiting … and panicking! Nothing.

I have worked with bureaucracy (and the medical field which is the worst of all in bureaucracy!) long enough to know that you do not rush these people. That when they say “48 hours” you better make damn sure you count down the very last second before you raise your hand and ask. But at about 45 hours (10 AM instead of 1PM when the test had been performed 2 days before) I lost my patience and I called. There was no answer, naturally! They placed you on this eternal hold where you knew no one would ever rescue you from.

I was picturing my cute little nephews waiting for us at the hotel that night and us not able to cross over and not able to be there to check everyone in (the hotel was in my name). They would have had to travel for hours from Montreal to Toronto, they had to interrupt school, our hopes and dream of finally meeting up after more than two years shattered. Because of COVID. Because of two governments in the “civilized” world that should have gotten their crap together already. I was angry. Disappointed. Mostly angry.

So I called. And called and called incessantly. I did not wait on hold. I dialed and if the on-hold voice came on, I hung up and called again. Till finally someone did pick up! The most helpful lady came on and explained that they had been trying to reach us the day before but I had not left a phone number (they told us they would send it through an email!) and they could not. It also turned out that they had misread my husband’s phone number and they probably called that, but they were calling the wrong person.

She asked me what my name was and she told me that they misread my handwriting and that the test is negative but the name on the test is different than my name so now she has to file a correction with the lab to have the negative test reissued. Every time I hear of someone having to “file” something … I know it’ll take a while. So I pleaded with her to please hurry because if it spills into another day I am losing thousands of dollars in hotel fees alone … Long story short: she sent me my husband’s proof of the negative test in my email (why they did not send his to his email will forever be a murky mystery to us) but I had to wait two extra hours for mine to be “corrected”. But we got our negative tests. Yay. Onward to Canada, negative test and ArriveCAN app ready and all. The border crossing should be a breeze now.

Only … not so fast.

We were both so nervous going towards Canada that during the two and a half hour journey from our family’s house in Michigan to the Port Huron – Sarnia border crossing we hardly spoke 10 words to each other. And mostly they were comments about the dark, foggy, gray day we were driving through.

At the border with Canada, this very friendly, masked lady officer asked us all the usual questions about why we were coming to Canada on a Wednesday (I didn’t know there was a special day you were supposed to travel to Canada, or in general?!), what we were bringing (“Did you know mace and pepper spray are considered weapons in Canada?”), and how much pot and cannabis products we were carrying. She looked at our passports and she asked for our negative tests (I have been more proud of a piece of paper in my life only when I got my American citizenship “diploma”. I was bubbling with pride for that hard-earned negative PCR COVID test, I tell you!).

She never once asked us for our ArriveCAN QR code where all of our information should have been stored. But right then and there, negative test in hand, she tells us that “Oops, this is not me doing this. But my computer just randomly picked you both to be tested today. So, here are your testing kits and you will go to this tent over there (she waived us) and get tested.”

So, here we were, just barely over the Canadian border, 48 hours since our last test (I suppose not official enough for Canada?) and taking another PCR test across the wall … Sigh. They asked us to sign up for yet another “system” called SwitchHealth. This is their contact-tracing system which seems to be very efficient, from what my family tells me. They, too, just like ArriveCAN, asked all the possible information about who we are, where we are going and we had to sign off upon threat of perjury that should we test positive that day, we would have to quarantine for 14 days at the address we were staying in Toronto (which was our hotel).

So now, let me tell you: you wanna know everything there is to know about me, my husband, our health, passport numbers, height, eye color, shoe size? Ask Canada! Between ArriveCAN and SwitchHealth, they’d be able to dig something up! We did receive the results on the SwitchHealth online portal (with an email notification), just like they told us at the border, in almost exactly 48 hours. They were very certain it will not be less than that and they were right. Like clockwork.

Two days was all we were spending in Toronto anyway, so we were wondering what would have happened if the results came in right as we were leaving – we would have “escaped” without quarantining, but … thank goodness we didn’t have to find that out!


Canada abounded in these signs - this one just as we entered Toronto

Canada was such a good visit! As scared and threatened by inconsiderate and lying people as I feel in the US about whatever they carry and expose me to, I felt 100% safe there. They truly have hand sanitizer dispensers every 10 feet in any indoor public space and during our stay there was not one of them that was not working or empty. They are all touchless too. You need a mask for all indoor places, no tolerance for unmasked people. You also need proof of vaccination for all the restaurants, hotels, and all the museums you want to visit. Museum entry is timed, so they allow only so many people at once in there. Again, zero tolerance for the proof of vaccination: you don’t have that, you are not allowed entry. And everyone complies. Everyone is polite and moves about their business and everyone still goes and sees places and has a good time, without having to feel like they ingest COVID boogers with every breath because of 10,000 lying inconsiderate you-know-what’s around them.

This was quite a lesson! I am sure every border crossing will be different from now on for the rest of our lives. I am sure that going to Europe will be different than this – the demands and restrictions will be different with each country and means of transport. But I digress.

Toronto is a great, big city but it is incredibly clean! Even my 10 year old nephew who lives outside Montreal noticed that “Toronto is so much cleaner than Montreal”. People are kind and patient, never rushed, like in our Northern big cities. They are helpful and welcoming. I was surprised how many vegan options I found in restaurants, even at our hotel: it is not just a matter of tolerance there, but it feels like true inclusion.

We did touristy, Toronto-related things while here, like climbing up to the glass floor in the CN Tower and visiting the exhibits of the Royal Ontario Museum. But there were two activities that stood out for me: a walk around Toronto Islands was a welcome surprise. A short ferry ride takes you to the middle of Lake Ontario and you truly get a sense of what the currents are like on this enormous lake! The winds are nothing short of amazing, even on a sunny fall day. Walking through parks and neighborhoods along the water with the wind blowing my hair every which direction and turning me into a banshee was refreshing … All worries washed out … There are several neighborhoods on Ward’s Island, even a school – it’s like a mini-small town outside of Toronto. The yards were overgrown with tired flowers and bushes, only a pale testimony of how green and lush they once were in the summer. I was trying to imagine how these people live in the winter when the winds are the cruelest and the lake freezes over, so the ferry service must stop. It would be nice for writer’s isolation, but not productive living, I am sure. We spent a couple of hours on these islands just walking and having family time. No services were open, so restaurants, cafes and the amusement park were closed. But the quiet, the peace, the isolation, minutes away from a bustling city across the water will stay with us.






Some views from our walk around Toronto Islands

My second Toronto highlight was Casa Loma (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_Loma). Built at the beginning of the 20th century by Sir Henry Pellatt, a banker, investor, and British knight, it is an amazing construction, a large private residence and lastly, a castle. I saw Casa Loma in a Toronto advertisement going across my screen when I was booking the hotel for this trip and something about it called my name: the British, almost medieval look, the secrecy and grandeur, and the fact that it is in Toronto, Canada of all places (when it should be in Scotland or Ireland or some other place) just spoke to me. It did not disappoint. If you are into architecture, or history (especially British and North American history), it is a must-see when you are in Canada. I came home with a book about the family who built it and the building process and the history of the home after the family’s status fell and they were forced to sell it piece by piece. It just fascinated me as if maybe many generations ago my own family might have lived there (very seriously doubting this).




The impressive Casa Loma

After two full days in the capital of Ontario, saddened that we were parting with family and unknowing of when our next get-together might happen, we started our long journey back towards the US to come home. Crossing the border back to the US was nothing like crossing it into Canada. In a symbolic testimony of how the US does the COVID pandemic, the border officer was not masked and the first thing he ordered us to do in a gruff and unfriendly tone was “Masks down!”. Then, he waved us through after checking our passports.

We stopped briefly to the Niagara Falls State Park for some pictures and then away we went to reach our next destination in Harrisburg, PA that last night on the road. We drove through beautiful places that day in Western New York state, rolling hills clad in autumn colors, but the rain and fog were so thick the pictures we took do them no justice. The following day, we stopped in Lancaster County, PA to take in some of the Amish countryside, but we could really not partake into any of the offerings as it was Sunday and everything was closed.

It was a whirlwind of a trip, with mixed feelings, much love and many meaningful hugs (which were the most important, to me). With lots of new places and people watching, something we have been hungry for for too long. Stresses we never had before and joys, too, that were new.

One thing I know for sure: I never did much of this before, but now I know that I will never take the privilege of traveling for granted again. Travels have taught me so much, always, but especially now, when we’re trying to understand a new world, you find that every action, every stop, every person you interact with truly teaches you something new. You cannot help but learn so many new ways in which others do life. Ways you would never dream of when you’re just watching life go by from your couch. There are new learnings everywhere, close and far, but when you do go far, the learnings are exponentially bigger. Exposing yourself to the world, making yourself vulnerable only empowers you.

Happy, mindful, respectful, and safe travels, you all!


Click on the CN Tower picture to see all the pictures from this trip

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