Alex Garg writes...

Tuesday, August 3 - Prologue:
Typical day at work. Got up around 7:30 a.m., out of the house around 9, in by 10 (love that summer recess intern work schedule: 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.). I left a note for my parents to dig up my passport so I'd be all good to cross the border - for years I've insisted on keeping it, but they've always said that it would be better for them if they kept everybody's stuff together. At about 11 I get a call from my dad - Dad never calls my office unless it's something big.

Mom was sick and couldn't remember where my passport is (she was under the impression that I had it. See note above, understand the minor headache that washed over me at that moment). So, I said that I'd just go with my birth certificate.

Apparently, that's with my passport.

*sigh*

Fortunately, I was born in D.C., so I cut out from work early to head down to D.C. Vital Records to pick up a new certificate. I don't know if it's because I work for the bureaucracy that has made me immune to fear of bureaucracy (the DMV doesn't scare me, either) or that I was too dedicated to getting this checked off my list that I wasn't thinking about what a trip of this nature entailed, but I set off to do it anyway.

There's nothing like walking in a suit in 90 degrees + humidity for a mile-and-some to get you in the mood for filing paperwork. And, of course, there's nothing like sitting around for 80 minutes while the people who came in after you get their certificates first to keep that energy going, not to mention the words of encouragement coming from the man who had been waiting five hours for his certificate.

So, after that long wait I got what I sought and was on my way. I did all my packing that night, made Kelly her mix CDs, double and triple checked with the hotels that all my reservations were in order and took a good, long sleep in preparation for tomorrow.

Here's what I didn't do: get drinks for the ride, get Kelly's cat, Squidgy, any toys and download the maps I needed to my GPS - I had the route in there for about a week, just not the maps along the way. I could do those in the morning.

Wednesday, August 4 - Onward:
Dad woke me up on his way out at around 7:30 a.m. and we had our goodbyes. I went through my morning routine and was out the door at about 8:30 to take care of the last-minute details of my trip and I left the computer to download those GPS maps. While out I picked up the drinks, an Arnold Schwarzenegger "The Governator" chew toy and scratching post for Squidgy, a 128 MB memory disc for my digital camera and a new pair of headphones for Kelly as a belated birthday present (Squidgy had destroyed hers a few days earlier).

I returned home about 9:45 to check on my maps, only to see warnings that my device didn't have enough room to hold them all and the map of Montreal was corrupted. So after sacrificing the maps of D.C., Maryland, Pennsylvania and greater Ontario in order to keep maps of the key cities *and* reinstalling Montreal… I was out of time. Leo was due into Dulles at 11:10 and, the airport being 40 minutes away, I needed to go.

At 10:06 I posted in my LJ "See you all in Montreal!!!" and was off shortly thereafter - quickly grabbing a road atlas on my way out.

No problems at Dulles, other than getting together with Leo, but through much of the morning we didn't have any incident. We stopped in Altoona, Pa., for a bit of lunch about 1:30 p.m. but for the most part had a straight shot - although through some very windy, skecthy back roads.

One of the great things about today was that my older sister was on her way *back* from Canada and pretty much along the same route. She gave me a ring at some point in the afternoon that she had just gotten through a major storm in Pa. and wanted to know where we were.

We were just entering the storm at that point.

It was, well, massive, and we had to pull over a few miles east of Du Bois to wait it out, but from there (I promise this time) - straight shot.

Pennsylvania is entirely too big, BTW.

We got into our hotel in Niagara Falls, N.Y., around 7:30 p.m. without much trouble and ordered a pizza for dinner (culture clash - how big is a sheet of pizza?) We called Kelly to let her know that we were just across the border and to confirm the time we'd be picking her up (and asked her the question above - she didn't know).

That night we had to contend with a very, very loud tour group that had taken up the hall. So, though I ended up sleeping soundly, it took a few hours to get there.

Day's mileage: 450

Next, "The Longest Freakin' Day"