Our son is back in Ottawa

Well I am back from my Dad's now.  I went up Monday afternoon and yesterday we took a road trip to Plattsburg, NY to pick up our son Alex, who is now finished school for the year.

My Dad came with me for company and to have a change of scenery.  We had an uneventful drive leaving yesterday morning just after 7am in the morning.  Crossed the border at Ogdensburg, NY, it is a little longer from his house this way, but it is a pretty drive.  Nice countryside.  Stopped to take the two dogs for a bit of a walk and then carried on for a while before stopping again for some coffee and a quick snack at a Dunkin' Donuts.  Sorry guys you just don't match up to the Tim Horton's in Canada.  We Canadians do like our Tim Hortons!!!  Or at least the majority of us.  From there we continued on to Plattsburg and arrived at the house Alex has been staying at for the last couple of days (he had to be out of the dorms last Saturday) at about noon.

My Dad drives a small Suzuki  SUV and there were three adults and 2 dogs to go back in it, plus all of Alex's stuff.  I'm not quite sure how we managed to get it all loaded in, but we did.  One of the back seats was put down so there were only three seats to sit in and we still had 2 dogs to find room for.  The passenger in the front had one, and the passenger in the back had the other, luckily they aren't big dogs.  I am pretty sure Alex was really cramped in the back, as I was driving and my Dad had the other front seat.  Stopped at Walmart for a few items and a couple of subs which we ate in the parking lot before heading back to Ottawa.

Just before the border my Dad and I switched the driving and I sat in the back to give Alex a little more room in the front seat.  After sitting in the back for the remainder of the trip to Ottawa, I felt for Alex!  He must have been cramped up, because I was and he is alot taller than me.  We got to Ottawa just in time for rush hour traffic.  We were dropping Alex off around the downtown area but not far off the Queensway (the main highway through Ottawa).  After that was done it was back to the traffic.  What would normally be a 45 minute drive or less from downtown to my Dad's was more like 1 1/2 hours.  It took 45minutes just to get out of the traffic.  I can't imagine doing that twice a day 5 days a week, ever again.  What a waste of our precious lives, people spend commuting to work (usually to a job they hate).  I remember once when Kevin was telling our story to someone when the price of gas was really high.  They asked Kevin "Isn't it very expensive with the price of gas to drive around in a motorhome?"  His reply asked her how much she spent each month in gas to get to work and back and how much time she spent doing it.  Her reply was around $400 and an hour or so each way, each day.  He then said "Well we travel around North America for about the same amount each month, sometimes a little more and we have seen Canada, United States of America and Mexico and you see the same thing each and everyday."  Which would you rather do?

Anyways, Alex is now back in Ottawa for the summer.  It was good to see him again and hopefully we will see more of him over the summer, maybe even one day next week while his sister is here visiting us for the week.  We are looking forward to that, as we haven't seen her since Christmas.