A Trip North

It was 1977, a Canadian blizzard was sending severely cold weather down through the United States and it was reported that it was the worst winter in ten years. I was 20 years old and within a day or two I would be driving to Canada.

My uncle lived in Ontario, although he was originally from San Antonio. In the 1970s, he was offered a basketball coaching job at one of the universities in Canada, and he has lived in Canada ever since. He also has a pilot’s license, and during that frigid winter he had driven his truck to San Antonio to buy a vintage airplane and was planning to fly it back to Canada. I asked him how he planned to get his truck home. He scratched his head and said he hadn’t thought about that. I told him I can take off a week from my job and drive it back for him. He was totally on board with the idea. I was going to drive from San Antonio to his house in Ontario, drop off his truck, and he was going to fly me right back to Texas.

I want to go ahead and tell this part of the story upfront. I ended up stranded in Canada for an additional two weeks until it was urgent that I get back to San Antonio and my job. My uncle owned an airport, but due to the dangerous weather conditions, it was virtually impossible for him to fly me into the Twin Cities so I could catch a flight back to Texas, but we eventually decided to take that risk. We almost died in that little four-seat airplane long before we even made it to Minnesota, and it was exactly why he didn’t want to risk this flight.

Before I hit the road for Canada, I decided to take my sister’s brother-in-law with me on this long trip north. I was a lovely single young woman and felt like having a man along with me might be the right thing to do if I got myself into any kind of trouble, although I barely even knew this guy. I told him to please not bring anything with him that could jeopardize this trip. All I knew about him was that he was a gun collector and I certainly did not want him bringing any weapons. Something about him felt off and I was beginning to regret asking him to go with me but we set out on this road trip together nonetheless.

As we slid through Oklahoma, no doubt the iciest state we encountered, brother-inlaw proceeded to light up a joint. I was so angry I pulled off the road and made him get out in the snow to smoke the damn thing. I told him if you have anything else on you and you put me, this truck or my uncle in jeopardy or we get busted at the border... he swore he didn’t have anything else on him but I did not trust him from that moment forward. My previous gut instinct about him had officially been validated.

When we finally reached the northernmost border of Minnesota in the town of International Falls, we were lost; no GPS in those days. We were not quite sure where the Canadian border was, so we pulled to the side of the road to turn around and the truck slid into a snowy ditch. Brother-in-law tried to get the truck out of the ditch but he only made things worse. I’m not one to panic but I was concerned because it was late, the sun was going down, the temperatures were sub-zero and it was snowing. There was no one around. Then suddenly, as if God sent them to us, a car with two drunk guys showed up out of nowhere. They pulled a chain out of their trunk, hooked it up to the truck and pulled it out of the ditch. Drunk or not, they were my superheroes. Apparently sliding off the roads were a common occurrence during the winters up there so they’re always prepared with chains in their vehicles. We finally made it across the border without any checkpoint either which I was grateful for because I didn’t trust brother-in-law not to have a gun or other drugs on him.

Once we made it across the border the first thing we did was stop at what looked like a convenience store or an “ice house” which is what we called all convenience stores in San Antonio. I walked up and down the aisles and the clerk asked me what I was looking for; “the beer cooler” I replied. She said honey you must be from the states; we don’t sell beer here like they do, you have to go to the liquor control board and it closed at 5 p.m. It was well past 5 p.m. Bummer. We headed back out, surrounded by snowy, sparkling mountains and moonlight, it was incredibly beautiful. We saw lights up ahead and when we caught up to them, realized it was a bar. Oh goody, now I can get that beer. After having already driven about 1,400 miles, I did not think I could drive another 300 miles without a beer. We walked inside and soon realized that most of the patrons were French Canadian. Few of them spoke English but the ones that did were thrilled to meet someone from Texas so they bought us a couple rounds of beer.

We finally made it to my aunt and uncle’s house in their little town in Ontario and the adventures were plentiful. I wish I could tell them all to you but I think the Fayette County Record might run out of space and I very much appreciate the space they do give me.

One last thing I will tell you is that brother-in-law decided he had to get back to San Antonio, but flying at that point was not an option. So he decided he was going to walk. Did he really think walking 1,700 miles would be faster than eventually flying out when the weather improved? We all laughed in his face and wished him luck because at this point my aunt, uncle and cousins pretty much thought this guy was a supreme, possibly dangerous weirdo, too. Brother-in-law put on every piece of clothing he brought with him and took off walking down the road. My uncle said “he’ll be back soon.” He didn’t even make it a half mile before he was picked up by a nice Canadian couple who brought him back to my uncle’s house. He’d have surely frozen to death before he made it much further down the road and that is something my uncle knew full well.