Bouchercon, here we come!

Well the car load of Canadian Crime Writers took off at the crack of dawn yesterday. Well not quite. That was the initial hope since we had a long 9 hour drive to Port Huron, MI. But beauty sleep took precedence so it was more like 9:00 when Mary Jane Maffini, Barbara Fradkin and I crammed suitcases, various bags filled with our samples of quintessentially Canadian cuisine, our magnificent hats reflective of our proud Canadian heritage (these words I stole from Vicki), computers and the like into the back of my Jeep.

And of course I must not forget Barbara’s two dogs and their paraphernalia that we also had to fit into the car. Fortunately, as sweet as Kaylee and Keefer are, their journey with us lasted as far as the kennel, but that was only after we had to return to someone’s house, I won’t say who, to pick-up a forgotten passport. Thankfully we discovered it missing right at the beginning of our trip and not when we reached the border 9 hours later.

Rather than driving along the boring, very boring four lane 401 to Belleville to pick up Vicki Delany, we drove the much more interesting hwy 7 that wends it way through the lakes and forests of Ontario. The changing colours were magnificent. But we did this not without a few stops at various Tim Horton’s and gas stations, so we ended up being a bit late picking up Vicki, where she was patiently awaiting our arrival.

Finally at about 2:00, after of course our groaning stomachs had been sufficiently satisfied, they were feeling a might empty by that time, we were finally on our way. Next stop would be the border at Sarnia, but first we had to survive the sixteen lanes of 401 traffic to get through Toronto. Like most big cities you dare to enter it at your peril. And I’m afraid I chickened out and spent my hard earned royalties on the toll road that skirts the north of the city, a much saner drive, certainly better on your nerves, but not particularly interesting nor was the rest of the drive to Sarnia.

But that’s not to say it was boring inside the car. Do you really think four crime writers spending nine hours together would be boring? I’d suggested everyone might want to consider bringing some music along to pass away the hours. Mary Jane’s immediate retort was ‘Would we stop talking long enough to listen to some music?’ And, yup, we didn’t play a single song, didn’t even turn on the radio. We didn’t need to. We hatched more plots, came up with all sorts of devious questions and antics for our O Canada panel on Thursday at 4:30 and generally had a great time.

And we were still talking by the time we made it to Port Huron, our stop for the night, at around 8:30.

This morning, I was too tired last night to do the update, the journey continues to Indianapolis.