ReNe: drive from st louis to toronto

Realizing that this blog hasn't been updated in a while. Well, that's because there's a lot of things happening. Mostly work-related. But there was an interesting event a couple of weeks back I should write down before I forget the details.

This post is about the awfully long trip between St Louis and Toronto by car.

On the Canadian thanksgiving weekend, a couple of guys and I drove up to Toronto. Well, to be precise, they drove, because I don't know how to (yet). The guys were going up to visit their girlfriends in Toronto as well, so it was literally a conjugal visit for all of us.


We left Friday afternoon, 5 Oct, 2pm, taking the I70 towards Indianapolis. Weather was dry and sunny, the scenery was fairly boring, mostly withered cornfields. At Indianapolis, we took a bypass to avoid the city and turned up to I69 towards Fort Wayne. The scenery got a bit better, more trees, less flat grounds, but still very open and empty. Traffic was moderate and smooth, mostly averaging 80mph (120kph). No reckless speeding or weaving here; police here, apparently, are very strict about speed limits.

After a non-stop 5.5 hour drive, we pulled into Fort Wayne at 8:30pm (by then, we had already crossed into Eastern time) for a quick top-up and dinner at Macs. Gas in the US is cheaper than gas in Canada, and gas in some states in the US, like Missouri, is cheaper than other states, so the guys were careful to top-up before heading into Canada.

Change of driver and 30 mins later, we were off, continuing along the I69. The guys said it was best to avoid Detroit for 2 main reasons: that's likely to be much busier because the truckers go through there, and more importantly, it's not really safe in Detroit. So we went through Sarnia instead. I can't remember what time we reached the border but it was around midnight.

Going into Canada was pretty easy. No queues at all (it was midnight after all). There was a toll (your choice of CAD2 or USD1.5, and given the current exchange rate, it was cheaper to pay in USD), the Canadian customs officer asked the usual questions about our nationalities, where we're going, what we're bringing, and so on. But it was all pretty fast, just a few minutes (they didn't check the car) and then we were in Canada.

We stopped over at London, Ontario for that night. From the border to London, it was about 1.5 hours and from London to Toronto, another 2 hours the next day. In all, the drive from St Louis to London took 14 hours, including breaks, and it was within the itinerary the guys had planned.

On the way back, we left Monday afternoon 2:30pm, 8 Oct, with the intention to drive throughout the night. The traffic out of Toronto was very heavy, I suppose because it was Thanksgiving, and often, we found ourselves packed bumper to bumper on HWY401. We stopped at London for an hour, partially to give one the guys a break (caffeine headache) and also to let the traffic clear up. By the time we left London, it was almost 6 but at least the roads were clear, and we made good time to the border. As expected, entry back into the US was harder, especially since my I20 form was new and there was no stamp on it yet, we all had to get out of the car and queue up. After my form was duly verified on some database and stamped, a 20 min procedure, we were back on the road again.

Well, nothing much to report on the drive back; it was the same as the drive to Toronto, only even more boring and dark. Everyone was tired and a bit down. We finally pulled into St Louis at about 4:30am.

In summary, it was a smooth, if awfully long, tedious and tiring drive between St Louis and Toronto. The drive takes about 12 hours on the road, if there is no heavy traffic, at an average speed of 80mph (120kph), so with breaks, I'd say 14 hours in all, each way. Cost of gas both ways was US$156 and split three-ways, that was really cheap.