Ottawa, part I

I had planned on making this entry another rant. I’ve been stewing about stupid things Tom Wappel has been saying lately, the federal budget and miscellaneous other political things.

Then last Sunday and Monday happened.

They were a rather eventful couple of days. On Sunday I was hanging out at WereGirl’s house watching West Wing DVDs and generally relaxing. The weather was unpleasant, but I didn’t need to be anywhere, so everything was tranquil in my world.

WereGirl, on the other hand, had an interview in Ottawa (8 hours away on a good day) Monday morning. She planned on driving all night, doing the interview and then driving right back. She’s a little nutty that way. With the weather being nasty, however, she didn’t want to make the trip alone. PilotBoy, her boyfriend, was in Arizona doing a mountain bike race that weekend, so that left me.

“Dave, come to Ottawa with me!”

“Can’t, I have class.”

“Pleeeeaaaase!”

“I would, but I have class.”

(repeat the above about a dozen times)

“If you don’t go, I’ll have an accident and die!”

Ah, guilt… Yeah she had me here.

“Ok, fine, but I’m doing school work on the way home”

So, around 10pm Sunday night we left for Ottawa. We could not have picked a worse time to travel if we’d tried.

WereGirl drove and fought her way though blinding snow, ice, sleet, big trucks and roads that had not been cleared. I think we ended up in the middle of a weather system heading east and were keeping pace with it. It was really the worst driving imaginable for almost ten hours. The trip was scary in places, but generally not bad. We chatted, called her boyfriend to find out about his race (he’d not had a good weekend and was on his way home) and stopped for coffee and rest stops occasionally.

When we made the turn north on 416 the weather gradually seemed to clear. Things were looking good. It was not no longer snowing, sleeting or raining and the sun was up, so visibility was good. We’d left most of the big trucks behind us on the 401 and it looked like we’d make WereGirl’s interview with about half an hour to spare.

The highway, however still needed clearing.

I don’t know exactly how it started. My nose was down, looking at a map on my notebook when the car hit ice, snow, slush, or something and swung to the right. WereGirl managed to stop it, but we ended up swinging a bit further to the left. Then back to the right. At this point I was a little concerned. Further to the left, and back to the right. At this point we were basically perpendicular to the road and I knew there would be no recovering from it.

“This is gonna hurt…” I thought to myself and held on tight to the door handle.

Off to the right of the highway was a large ditch, about 13 feet deep and filled with weeds and rather wide.

We shot off the edge of the road, flew through the air and landed in the ditch. Dirt and snow flew up and slowly covered the car.

WereGirl and I slowly gathered out wits about us. She noted that the car was still in 4th gear and was currently idling, that wasn’t a good sign.

We got out of the car, and had a look around. WereGirl’s car had no visible body damage at this point, but both drivers’ side tires were rapidly deflating and the rear one was at a pretty odd angle. Three or four other cars had pulled over after having seen us fly off the highway. There occupants were on their way down to the car and asked if we were alright. We responded that we were, and most went on their way. One man stuck around for a bit and eventually agreed to take WereGirl and I to her interview. I grabbed my laptop out of the car, and off we went.

Traffic in Ottawa was pretty awful. But after making a pit stop to find a washroom for WereGirl who by this point desperately had to pee, we arrived at the interview only 15-20 minutes late. Not bad, all things considered.

I went and grabbed some breakfast in the building’s food court while WereGirl went off to do her thing. After a while I finished and decided to explore a little. The office building was only a couple blocks from Parliament Hill, which I thought was pretty cool. I walked up and down Sparks Street for a while. Sparks street is pretty neat in that it’s right in downtown Ottawa, but completely closed to vehicle traffic. I wandered for a while, made note of a pub and wandered back to the building to wait for WereGirl.

She had just finished and was chatting with a fellow applicant when I got back. I waited for her to finish, and then we had to figure out what to do next..

WereGirl made a few phone calls to try and get things moving. She called the local dealer for her car, her insurance company and the police. Everyone seemed a little confused about the fact that we were no longer with the car and promised to get back to us.

We left the building, and wandered Sparks st. a little. We stopped at a couple little stores and explored. Eventually we stopped at the pub I’d found, waited there for her phone to ring and had a couple beverages and some food.

We finished, paid and left. More phone calls had been made, but nothing had really been resolved yet. By this time PilotBoy was home from his trip, and she had him doing some research on the internet for the cheapest way to get us both home.

After a long time the police found her car and examined it, then a towing company got it out of the ditch and to the dealership. There would be no charges laid against WereGirl, and we needed to get out to the dealership to have a look at the car.

WereGirl called the dealership and inquired into getting a shuttle sent out to pick us up. One was not available, but if we used a certain taxi company they’d give us a taxi chit. So, WereGirl called a cab and we stood by the road waiting for it.

A cab from the proper company pulled over, and we hopped in.

To be continued…

Be sure to check back later for the rest of the story, including checking on WereGirl’s car, and our trip home.