How to Survive Life in the Suburbs

9 Strange Wishes on a Road Trip to the City

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Driving to Toronto from my home town for the ShesConnected Conference was 30 minutes of relaxed, cruising, enjoying the scenery, bopping to my new CD, and about 2 hours of white knuckled, muscles tensed, don’t want to get lost or crash kinda driving. 

During my drive..I had a few feeble wishes….

-I wished my stupid “loaded” car had GPS.

-I wished the bumper of every car displayed where that driver in front of me was going!  Then if I located a driver who was going to Spadina and Queen in the middle of the circle of hell Toronto I could just tag along like a puppy and stop trying to read the directions I had printed from MapQuest. 

-I wished the “estimated times” on MapQuest were a little more accurate. 

-I wished I didn’t have to pee.  I now understand why so many people end up peeing in empty Tim Horton’s cups.  It’s true!!  I didn’t, but I get it.  Traffic in the city sometimes resembles something akin to a parking lot.

-I might have wished for a time machine.

-When I reached my destination, I wished my big beautiful SUV had a wee button on it to turn it into a suitcase ala Jetsons. Parking in downtown Toronto is not for the timid.

-I wished for a valet and he appeared!

-Then I wished I had left the CD player cranked up high blasting some Miley Cyrus or Selena Gomez, you know, for the Valet. (because he might like it, and I think it would have been funny)

-Now that I’m here, I wish I had printed off directions to get home….

 

Don’t forget to enter my great Dempster’s Giveaway.  It ends today at 5pm!

    • Comments

    2. Driving around Toronto scared the crap out of me! It was during a girls’ weekend 9 years ago. Thing is, I wasn’t even driving… I was in the passenger seat trying not to throw up. Stupid morning sickness.

      Have fun, stay safe, and don’t get lost on your way back home! xo

    3. Oh thanks for the giggle. That’s sound so like my last trip trying to get to Vancouver. 3 hours of relaxed highway driving with the tunes cranked, 2 hours of trying to get 10 km. The mapquest direction reading between trying not to rear end someone and then the realizing like you I forgot to mapquest the return trip!!!!
      The last time I drove in Toronto I was in my early twenties with a car load of fellow women rugby players and we didn’t care!!! Oh to be that relaxed about things again.

    4. So funny and so true. I lived in Toronto for 20 years and never had any problems driving there. I’ve now been living in Vancouver for 2 years and this summer I was back for 4 days in TO. It totally freaked me out and I told my husband I could never live there again. The traffic is insane!!

    5. I once read a blogger who stuffed two diapers, one down the front, the other down the back in standstill traffic because she had to pee so bad.

    6. I always used to print the directions for going and coming home as I could just not put two and two together and reverse the directions while driving. Now my navigon app does it for me 🙂

      I hope you have a great time

    8. hehe so been there but I’m so cheap I pull up the mapquest then write it on the smallest piece of paper I can find (because of course that is all I have) and then try to read that while I drive .. lol

    11. We rely too much on modern conveniences, I think. (Not that I wouldn’t enjoy the Brit guy telling me with his sexy voice where to go once in a while.) But personally, I like a good road atlas. Good for you for making it to your destination, none the worse for wear and without GPS.

      Enjoy the conference!

    14. I’m proud of you for making the trip on your own using Mapquest rather than a GPS. You have skills!! I hope the conference was wonderful.