Last few days in North America (for now)

[Kyle]After leaving Kate and Mark's in south Virginia, we had a long, but otherwise uneventful drive for the last leg back to Canada (via West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York, before reaching Ontario) . As we headed further north, the season seemed to advance by about a week for every hour of driving. We had started with a cloudy, drizzly sky full of falling and blowing leaves. By the time we crossed the border into Canada, the trees were all bare and we were driving through a proper blizzard of big, fluffy snowflakes that squeaked under the tires as we laid our tracks.

Driving North back to Canada

Since we were just to the south of them, we made the short detour for a look at Niagara Falls again, this time from the Canadian side.

Compared to our previous visit to the American side of the falls, it was much, much colder, with some of the mist even forming into ice and snow along the paths. We stayed until darkness fell and the multi-colored floodlights came on to illuminate the falls through the night. Then it was time to head for our hotel, just a short drive from the Hamilton, Ontario airport.

Niagara Falls - from the Canadian side

Our rental car return did not end up involving any drama as a result of either our high mileage or our repairs from the October bear attack. (Our credit card rental insurance ended up denying our claim on the basis that it only applied to short-term rentals that don’t leave Canada for more than 30 days.) Hamilton is much smaller and less crowded than Toronto Pearson International Airport, so we were checked in for our flight and sitting at the gate with hours left to go before boarding time.