Hello again everyone!
We are en route to Rochester as I type. We being myself and
the two stalwart travellers, my dad and my husband. We have been travelling since yesterday.
Originally we had planned to drive down today but after looking at the weather
reports we thought we should strike off a bit early as some snow storms might bog
us down. We were correct, last night we had pretty good weather and road
conditions but we had been tailing a storm. The storm had shut down many
highways etc and we got as far as Bismark before our route was blocked. Bismark
received 8.1 inches of snow other areas of the storm were hit with upwards of
17 inches! By the time we woke up the
crews had been out and cleared all of the highways and we ventured forth again.
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| filling up with gas on our way out of town. I even drove for a bit! |
I should note that the border crossing into the states was
pretty smooth (albeit I was sleeping through most of it) and that the highway
patrol is much friendlier than the ones I’ve met in Canada. We were pulled over
late last night (or early this morning if you want to be specific). When Steve
explained that we did not have a speedometer in miles/hr and we were pretty
much just guessing our speed. In fairness we were on a divided highway going through a 45 mph zone at 55 mph.The patrol man actually did some research and
gave us all of the conversions! We got a little bit of education on the
conversion of km/hr to m/hr and the upcoming road conditions and were sent on
our way. He was friendly, professional and understanding!
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| Dad under the glow of the police lights |
Now, many people were quite surprised that we chose to
drive. However, I feel that anybody who has tried to travel to and from between
MSP and YXE airports knows that it is inconsistent at best. With the sketchy
weather conditions one cannot guarantee arrival dates, let alone times. In
fact, our last attempt to fly to MSP
landed us there almost 30 hours late and let’s be honest I don’t think you can
just show up a day late for either chemo or an appointment at the mayo clinic
and blame the airline. The other problem with flying is that you cannot use air
miles for a delta flight and delta is the only direct flight to MSP from YXE.
It takes 16 hours to drive and to fly with air miles would be 9-18 hours of
traveling. Then of course there is the
small detail of having to rent a car on arrival to drive (or of course get on
yet another plane) to get from Minneapolis to Rochester. In short we trust a
car to get us there more than we trust the airlines.
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| Super 8 was booked, so we stayed at La Quinta, quite a nice hotel! |
Another thing you are all likely wondering is why just bring
my dad along but not my mom. Now this my friends was a where the chess game
began. The appointment at mayo clinic is Wednesday AM, we do not know how long
we will be down there but they said to expect 5-8 days to be safe. Well, I have
Wednesday, Thursday..... and by Friday at 11 I have to be back in Saskatoon. We
are travelling amidst unpredictable weather and predicted snow storms. So this
has all been a matter of leaving every possible options open. We have plans A-Z
to get me back in time. However, to accomplish this we need people on both
ends. In the event that we spend the entire day at Mayo on Thursday, Dad is
here to help Steve drive through the night to get us back to Saskatoon. In the
event that the highways are closed we will throw me on some sort of aircraft
and courier me to Saskatoon. To do this we need a) someone to pick me up and
take me to chemo and b) help organize options as we are a bit crippled without
the full usage of our smart phones down here. Therefore much like in history we have left
the queen at home to hold the fort!
However she did not leave me empty handed! Knowing my
affection for symbolism and tokens she bestowed upon me my very first Pandora
bracelet and charm. It is a star fish from USVI. This is a many layered symbol
for me. It symbolizes a lucky star, it symbolizes a wishing star but more
importantly it embodies a part of my love of the island life as I love spotting
starfish on the ocean floor. This affinity to startfish “watching” is not
specific to the bvi’s, I did this in my
time sailing on the BC coast as well as in cuba. I just seem to have a thing
for starfish J In
addition one of my best starfish photo’s from my trip was taken while I was
swimming with the rays and turtles. There is a bit of a story behind the
picture but basically it was taken shortly after I came face to face with an
extremely large (~5-6 ft) barracuda. So it is also a symbol of keeping presence
of mind when you feel fear. Knowing this mom got me a starfish for my first leg
of this journey.
Like any great war,
it is all about where you lay your pieces. You can’t put all your assets in one
place. But you also don’t want to spread them too thin. So with the home fort well guarded and
preparing for our return, we decided that two determined and skilled travelers
are better than one when it comes to transferring “the cargo” safely from one
base to the next.
Now I have to admit the cargo has a pretty good gig. Driving
is completely optional and my primary objective is to not let travelling make
my current cold any worse and drink lot’s of water. This is in line with my preferred pass times
while travelling which include sleeping and reading. Originally we had planned to drive the mazda
to the border and rent an SUV. However, my charming brother has offered use of
one of his vehicles. Unfortunately neither of his race cars were suitable for
the job. But we did find a quite
suitable automobile in the station wagon. This thing is a tiny tank with some
pretty nifty features! Not only is it a 4 wheel drive but you can raise and
lower the clearance of the vehicle so that we can “off road” through the snow.
Now these features are great for getting us there, but my favourite feature is that
all the seats in the vehicle have seaters! Seaters, or as normal people call
them heated seats, are probably my favourite advancement in technology, so much
so I still use them in the summer. So I sign off comfortably nested in a sea of
down jackets, heated seats cranked and 3 of my favourite travelling blankets.
There is no way even first class flying is this comfortable!
I will try to update everyone tomorrow how day 1 of Mayo goes!
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