Carrie and I left Ottawa around 6 to get into Ajax for 10PM. All was going well…we had a fill of veggies along the way and the highway was a haven of great driving conditions.
We pulled into Kingston to grab a bite to eat at Harvey’s and this incredible pain emerged from my back and I couldn’t figure out what the heck was going on. It was quite uncomfortable. We managed to finish our meal and head back out on the road but alas, this pain would not go away. It was also coupled with some bad stomach pains (har har at all the jokes that will come my way about eating at Arby’s!).
Around Belleville we start seeing these extreme flashes of lightning in the distance that just won’t stop. I am thinking this is an intense display of heat lightning! I turn on the radio on a whim and find out that we are in the middle of a tornado watch and everyone is asked to seek shelter!
Now, growing up in Northern Ontario, I can most assuredly tell you that I have never encountered a tornado before, nor any warnings about said tornado. Considering the traffic was still moving along and there was no rain in sight, we decided to consult the number one Tornado expert in the world, Aunt Dinah. She did let us know that the tornado had hit Vaughn earlier in the evening and that it may be heading our way. However, it looked like we would be on the edge of the storm system as it was heading North. Please note that Aunt Dinah did mention the next day that she didn’t want to tell us that we should be alright in case something should actually happen to us! That was some smart thinking.
Coupled with the fact that we were freaking out about not even being able to see if a tornado was coming our way in the middle of the night on the 401 and Aunt Dinah’s expert opinion, we pulled off the 401 into Belleville and stopped over at a McDonald’s for a rest stop and then decided to go for a beer at Applebee’s and figure things out.
We enter Applebee’s and say “We are here seeking shelter from the storm! Can you help us?” Of course, this didn’t make any sense to the waitress who had been working all day long and had not been watching a) the weather network b) the news and c) any form of communication that involved the mention of the tornadoes. We were quickly known as the ‘people from Ottawa who have stopped in because of tornado warnings”. Our waiter Brad (who was excellent) chatted about how we should hug a toilet if the tornado hit as there was no basement in which Carrie replied “I’ve hugged a few toilets in my day!”
Brad came back after taking our orders with exciting news…our beers were only $2.50 after 9PM! Score! He was so excited about it that he came back to tell us before grabbing the beers. Later on when he was settling up the bill because he was heading home he gave us the tornado special and only charged us $2 for a pint of beer. How did we end up in this Xanadu? By the way, if Brad’s boss ends up reading this, he charged us $2.50 a pint.
We took a seat at the bar after awhile so we could take a look at the Weather Network. Videos of tornadoes and destruction in Vaughan were the mainstay for the next few hours. Unfortunately there was horrible word that a teenager had perished around Durham (Durrrrrm for all you locals). Later on in the night, a waitress said that a tornado had hit Cobourg. The storm had picked up outside after 1.5 hours of waiting and at one point the power flickered and the satellite feed kept going in and out.
During this time, I was still having this crazy back pains as well as stomach pains and it wasn’t anything usual. In the end (gross alert), I vomited to see if that would fix the problem and in the end, it did get rid of the stomach pains and I would say 15 minutes later while in the car ride to Ajax, my back pain was gone as well. What the heck could it have been? Was that something in my kidneys or gall bladder? Was it the veggies I ate? Who knows but I shall monitor the situation closely.
In the end, we left Belleville around 11PM because word was that the storm was pretty well past us and Applebee’s was closing up shop. I must admit I was a little disheartened when it seemed that the staff were more focused on leaving for the night instead of making us feel welcome to stay for however long we needed to during this storm. They never actually kicked us out, but they closed up our bill and that was that.
As we headed out from Belleville I did encounter quite a few hot spots of torrential downpours which wasn’t the greatest to drive in during the night, but we managed to make it into Ajax around 12:30AM and relaxed for a bit while revelling in the fact that we managed to emerge unscathed (except for my back pains) from Tornado Watch 2009. We had a good laugh at the fact that our road trips manage to morph into amazing stories.
A note of seriousness here…my thoughts do go out to all those affected by the tornadoes. I have heard horrible stories coming from Vaughan…40 houses needing total demolition…over 200 affected by the storm. Crazy.