The Road Trip to Maine

Bob had plugged Pat and Howard’s address in to the Nav System the night before so we were surprised when Lola began leading us, not toward the bridge to the USA, but back out to the 401. While we were both dubious about this direction, we assumed there must be a better border crossing up ahead. “What the heck, Bob, let’s just follow her. We’ll have an adventure” I said.

Forty minutes later, Bob announced that he’d left his hearing aids in the hotel room. “Really, Bob? You’re not serious, right?” But he was! I immediately called the hotel, told the desk person about our issue and was promised they’d find the hearing aids and would have them waiting for us on our return. I was now faced with a one week vacation in which Bob would not hear a word I said.

Shortly thereafter, we realized that Lola was taking us toward Montreal! Having driven through that city years before, we were unwilling to do that ever again. However, we’d used AutoRoute 30, the Montreal bypass, on our last trip and assumed that Lola was going to take us there. So we crossed into Quebec province where Hwy 401 became Hwy 20, and continued on toward AutoRoute 30. As we approached the exit for A 30, the GPS screen showed our route guidance continuing on Hwy 20 to Montreal. We made an instant joint decision to shut Lola off, take the exit for A 30, and to stay on it to its terminus. We could pick up the route guidance again then.

We’d been on A30 for 30 minutes when Bob said “we’ve got flashing lights behind us”. Turning to look through the back window, I saw a motorcycle policeman behind us. “Were you speeding?” I asked, but Bob merely shrugged his shoulders. Pulling off to the side of the road, we waited as the officer approached us. “Bonjour” he offered, and when we both answered with “hello,” he immediately switched to English and said “I clocked you at 130 km in a 100 km zone. Could I have your license and registration, please?” After fumbling in the glove box, I finally found the documents and gave them to the officer. As he walked back to his motorcycle I challenged Bob: “didn’t you have your cruise control on?” His response was negative. “Why not?” I asked in disbelief. He replied with “there were too many hills, I had to keep turning it off to go up and down. I might not have been slowed down enough when I came down the last hill.”