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On Saturday we drove down to Toronto for the Urban Cowboy's retirement bash. Yes, I know, it was also the G8 and G20 weekend. We were delayed in Huntsville for the G8 as they closed Highway 11 and 400 south for the various motorcades. I have never seen so many OPP officers or OPP vehicles. Every exit and entrance to the highway on the south side from Huntsville to Toronto was blocked by OPP vehicles for more than 2 hours. We finally were allowed on the highway in Huntsville, and we proceeded on our merry way. There was very little traffic. All the on ramps were full of cars blocked by OPP vehicles. Near Bracebridge we, foolishly it turned out, exited the highway to answer nature's call. When we tried to return to the highway we were now part of the crowds that were being blocked from getting on the highway even though we were just on it and there were regular vehicles on it moving south. The officer said he wasn't allowed to let us return. About 10 minutes later an OPP cruiser with 2 "older" officers came by and removed the barrier, and we again were on our way. To our bewilderment, all the way to Toronto the on ramps were still blocked and the cars were piling up waiting to get on. We felt "privileged" to be moving. The usually busy highway was anything but and we sped along well over the speed limit passing all the blocked on ramps and lines of cars, knowing the OPP were not going to give chase to us speeding. Even Highway 69 south from Sudbury at Barrie was blocked. We arrived in Toronto and then went through G20 chaos effects on the subway lines. This was at the same time that the protesters torched a police cruiser and smashed and destroyed downtown property. We were again lucky as all north and south subways were just shut down, and we were going west to east on our "trek" to Yorkville. At the Younge Street exit as we disembarked, the cars on the north/south line were crammed with people with the car doors open, going nowhere. The folks looked like they'd been there a while, and it looked like they were going nowhere soon. We made it to the UC's condo finally, and had a fabulous evening/night revelling in UC's retirement while in Yorkville, away from the G20 nonsense a few blocks south of us.
On Saturday we drove down to Toronto for the Urban Cowboy's retirement bash. Yes, I know, it was also the G8 and G20 weekend. We were delayed in Huntsville for the G8 as they closed Highway 11 and 400 south for the various motorcades. I have never seen so many OPP officers or OPP vehicles. Every exit and entrance to the highway on the south side from Huntsville to Toronto was blocked by OPP vehicles for more than 2 hours. We finally were allowed on the highway in Huntsville, and we proceeded on our merry way. There was very little traffic. All the on ramps were full of cars blocked by OPP vehicles. Near Bracebridge we, foolishly it turned out, exited the highway to answer nature's call. When we tried to return to the highway we were now part of the crowds that were being blocked from getting on the highway even though we were just on it and there were regular vehicles on it moving south. The officer said he wasn't allowed to let us return. About 10 minutes later an OPP cruiser with 2 "older" officers came by and removed the barrier, and we again were on our way. To our bewilderment, all the way to Toronto the on ramps were still blocked and the cars were piling up waiting to get on. We felt "privileged" to be moving. The usually busy highway was anything but and we sped along well over the speed limit passing all the blocked on ramps and lines of cars, knowing the OPP were not going to give chase to us speeding. Even Highway 69 south from Sudbury at Barrie was blocked. We arrived in Toronto and then went through G20 chaos effects on the subway lines. This was at the same time that the protesters torched a police cruiser and smashed and destroyed downtown property. We were again lucky as all north and south subways were just shut down, and we were going west to east on our "trek" to Yorkville. At the Younge Street exit as we disembarked, the cars on the north/south line were crammed with people with the car doors open, going nowhere. The folks looked like they'd been there a while, and it looked like they were going nowhere soon. We made it to the UC's condo finally, and had a fabulous evening/night revelling in UC's retirement while in Yorkville, away from the G20 nonsense a few blocks south of us.
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