Our trip home from Northern Ontario was meant to be uneventful. But as we all know, that only takes place when you don’t have a blog.  When you do have a blog,  what you get is this:

A couple hours north of Toronto we joined the entire population of Ontario, all on their way back from their cottages. After driving 30kmh for an hour or more we came to a complete stop.  There was an accident several kilometers ahead of where this picture was taken.  It was such a severe accident that both sides of the six lane highway were shut down.  After a minute or two people started climbing out of their cars and walking around.  It felt like the apocalypse.  People were pulling food and drinks out of coolers. All the cars were shut off. There was a spirit of camaraderie as we complained about the heat and the wait and climbed the hill up to the bridge to peer into the distance, trying to see the accident that was holding us up.  Many people ran around on the opposite side of the freeway just because they could.  Look!  I’m lying down on the highway!  Wheeeee!!!  In the first picture below you can see Colin in a green shirt carrying Kieran on his shoulders in the bottom right corner.

Traffic eventually got going again, at a pace just slightly slower than an average person walks.  We drove at that pace for probably half an hour before we finally passed this:

 

Not the clearest picture but this is what was left of the carnage when we drove past.  What stands out in my mind is that this car is completely mangled but there doesn’t appear to be even a tiny scratch on the barrier.  How did it get all the way over without so much as grazing the metal rail?  All I can say is yikes!  An emergency helicopter transported victims to the hospital and we waited for the police to clear the road and begin to direct traffic around the accident site.

So after a total of about a two hour delay we finally got back on our merry way.  The one thing that was really enjoyable about this trip was the beautiful colours. Southern Ontario is full of trees changing colour right now and there were some breathtaking scenes. Saskatchewan doesn’t do orange and red so I was thrilled! Unfortunately, my pictures don’t really do it justice at all. But you get the idea.