most memorable . . .

it seemed such a simple plan: katrina and her brother james would drive from stouffville, pick me up, and we would meet up with sarah in grimsby at tehillah niagara. no sweat.

so, katrina and james took a wrong turn on the way to pick me up, thus getting us about 20 minutes behind schedule. no worries, though, because james was definitely gonna make up time on the way. after cruising down the 407 for a while, the incessant doorlocking and flickering lights got on our nerves, so we pulled over and proceeded to open and then slam every door, including the trunk. no dice. the machine gun/microwave popcorn sound continued. we decided to be mature and ignore it. 10 minutes into driving on the qew, we started wondering if we were going the right way - there were no relevant signs, and we were using directions, not a map. just as james was about to pull over to get gas and ask directions, katrina noticed that the exit numbers were getting closer to the one we needed: christie street. sweetness itself.

and, oh, look! now exit #71 is the next one! it is 7:01 and we can just see the light at the end of the tunnel! we're driving in the far left lane when the van begins to make very clear the fact that it is dry. no gas. james manages to get it to the shoulder, and we coast for while. after some ado, we lock the car and start walking toward the off-ramp, knowing that sarah will be at tehillah, car in tow, and will surely be able to help. walking, walking, walking. a car pulled over and offered us a ride after a few minutes, and it turned out the church was 2 minutes' drive away! sweetness part deux!

ok, so we get to lakemount, and sarah shows up a few minutes later. we tell her all that's happened, and she drives us to a gas station. the gas costs 94 cents! but they don't have gas cans, so that's not gonna work. we find another service station, where katrina and james buy two gas cans and pay only 83 cents for gas. savings: sweetness returns.

we finally arrive at tehillah, only 45 minutes late. the worship is cool, God is cooler, and mark gives an ab-fab message that i'll recount in another post. when worship starts up again (by which i mean we started singing again . . . i kinda hope the worship ran throughout) the four of us are just whispering about how far away niagara falls is. sarah say 25 minutes. sweet action!

off the niagara falls we went. we took off around 9:30 and got there about 10 . . . proceeding to engage in the north american ritual known as "searching for reasonably priced parking that doesn't involve leaving the car in the next county." it is about this time that we begin to wonder why we brought both vehicles . . . but, never you mind. finally, we ditch sarah's van faaaar away and katrina drives us to $5 parking. sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.

apart from sarah, we're all starving. the cherries and pretzels we'd been munching on don't seem to constitute dinner. so before we actually go gawk at the falls, we duck into wendy's for some well-deserved grub. we get to the front of the line and hear those fatal words, "sorry, we don't take debit." BOTH of the atms in the vicinity are off-line. much frustration follows. nonetheless, we go and watch the beauty of falling water. i don't say it that way to minimize its beauty, but to point out a profound reality: something need not be complicated to be very very beautiful. sigh. the coloured lights are bouncing off the water as it crashes onto the rocks below, and we feel that we have finally achieved a goal we set out to accomplish. sweet success.

at this point, we'd given up on getting food in niagara falls proper, so we picked up katrina and james' car, drove to sarah, said a potential goodbye to sarah (in case we didn't find an appropriate place to eat between the falls and where our paths diverged) and . . . tried to find our way out. i will, in the future, complain less about the lack of much-needed signage in calgary. at least, when i complain i will not compare calgary to ontario. such comparison does nothing to further my point. after two or three false starts, we finally get on the right road and are soon in the warm embrace of queen elizabeth once again. wheeeee! how sweet it is to be loved by her.

we pass one or two service stops that have tim hortons because, obviously, we're holding out for a wendy's. the third stop has one! yayness itself! alas, it takes not debit. grrrr! they call this civilization?? the golden arches drive-thru, however, is more than happy to accept our money in any form, so we are soon fitted with assorted drinks and sandwiches, as well as fries. it was, as i expressed to my friends, like eating the holy grail. sweet sweet food.

we parted from sarah for real, and headed back on the road, our tummies happier. after several phone calls from family, and gathering up aaaaaaall my stuff, i finally got back to my parents' house. home sweet home.

i love adventures. no matter what goes wrong, i feel free and alive and have not a care in the world. awesome evening. so so sweet.