December 2 - Voyage Home

It's tough to be a blogger. I sit here at the end of day 2 recapping day 1 events as no family members had a WI-FI connection. Who doesn't have a WI-FI connection. Public schools who are broke have a WI-FI connection.  Santa and his technically savvy elfs may need to make a stop this Christmas season.

The start of the vacation began with much anticipation and a plan (see rule #1). The plan was simple pack a vehicle and be on our merry way by 11 am. Actual departure time 12:30. I have forgotten how many rules I have, but I will start with Rule 11 - when traveling with Women - lie about the departure time. If you need them for 11, tell them 10, you now have a fighting chance to making 11.

Crazy Travel Fact

(1) Between our home and our parents home (approx 200 km), there is 14 Tim Horton locations along the way. We stopped in 8 of them. It would have been 9 but I felt the kids could hold it for the extra 1 and 1/2 blocks to their grandparents house.

(2) To travel 200 km on a stretch that is mainly 80km per hours, it took us just short of 4 hours. Extrapolating that for a driving distance of 2200 km (trip from home to Orlando), adding in various stop breaks, eliminate the crazy amount of Tim Horton stops (good thing they are not all over the US). It would take us a week. We suck.

Learning about my Children

Last year after telling my two girls we would be driving for 2 days, I learned that it takes about 40 km from the boarder to hear "when are we stopping for the day". Today, I learned that approx 70 km from the house, is the appropriate time to say "Dad I forgot the charger to my DS and it is low on batteries."

New Rules

Rule #12 - Regardless of the age of the children or the number of times your wife says, yes we packed them. Do a double check of the bags. Aggravation is worth years on your life.

End of the Day

As the day began to end, news travelled quickly that Buffalo (our departing city) was having a snow storm. Accounts varied, from 6 inches (approx. 15 cm to those that follow the metric system), to 18 inches (approx 45 cm) to the armpits of a man (thanks channel 4). On a side note, is measuring snow by the size of a man really an accurate measurement. Has the scientific community accepted another form of measurement.

This just in from the weather network, it has snowed in Buffalo, we calculate the level of snow as approximately 12 inches, 30 centimeters or the knee level of man that is the size of an Ewok.

I must admit that it did bring out the crazies, with their phone calls and emails trying to figure out what we were going to do... I was heading to bed, we weren't leaving until the morning. There was no need to figure out what we were going to do. The city's public work department was going to figure out what to do. (By the way they did an excellent job).