H University Drive East: Fill & Download for Free

After 1945 the four allied forces agreed to run Germany as a whole entity, this also included the possibility for German citizens to travel between different occupation zones. But soon it became clear that the Soviet Union wanted to keep their part of the country separately. They also wanted to get full control over Berlin, so they shut off the three transit routes which granted access to West Berlin in 1948. This lead to the famous Berlin air lift - West Berlin with about two million inhabitants was fully supplied by air freight for over a year.After these incidents the Western allied forces made clear that they would not tolerate this again, and the Soviets did not dare to start a war over West Berlin. So they opened the transit routes again, three street routes, several water routes and three railroad routes. However, it was a pain in the ass to travel between West Berlin and Western Germany. You had to apply for a visa, pay a fee, you were thoroughly checked, also your luggage and your car. It was obvious that East German authorities wanted to make the travel as inconvenient as possible. If you wanted to avoid that or if you had a security classification or other reasons not to get in touch with communist officers, you had to fly.Things became better in 1971, when the Allied Forces set up a new four forces treaty which enforced a transit traffic agreement to be negotiated between East and West Germany. This was the first treaty which was negotiated at state level, and it was the de-facto recognition of the GDR as an own country.The transit traffic agreement became effective on June 3rd, 1972, and it brought a vast improvement for travel between West Germany and West Berlin. All Western citizens (both Germans and Foreigners) could just travel over a transit route in their car. They had to show their passport and got a visa for passage directly at the drive-through counter. They did not have to pay a fee. Close inspections of the luggage or the car were limited to cases of suspicious circumstances, they rarely took place. West Berlin citizens had to present their ID card.The image above shows Transit checkpoint in Berlin Dreilinden.You could also travel by train. The East German border patrol did all the stuff during the travel.Neverless, travelling through East Germany remained a nasty thing. When crossing the border, you often had to wait for 45 minutes or longer (and you had to cross the border twice). Most parts of the Transit routes were Autobahns in pre-war condition. The maximun speed was limited to 100 km/h (62 mph) and strictly enforced by East German police. Your time of enter in the GDR was recorded, and when you needed too long to arrive at the exit you had to explain what you did so long. The situation stayed hostile.The transit traffic agreement cost West Germany a lot of money. They payed more than 2 billion German Marks (today approx 5 billion Euro) for setting up the premises for border control and improving the routes. And they paid the traffic fees which probably were another couple of hundreds of millions.One personal story at last: I was on service in the West German armed forces until Oct. 1983. I was member of an armoured reconnaissance bataillon. One of my tasks was to keep the bataillon library of military handbooks up to date. We had so called "Luftfahrzeugerkennungshandbücher", booklets which contained images of allied and hostile aircraft of all kind. These booklets should teach the soldiers how certain planes and helicopters looked like in order to spot them correctly. The most frightening thing I saw in this book was this beast:Say hello to the Mil Mi24 attack helicopter - NATO Code "Hind". This beast is so effective, they still use it today. I always thought: "If you ever should spot one of these in real life, you will be in big, big trouble."A few months before the end of my draft I got the admission to study at Free University Berlin in West Berlin. This required me to travel to West Berlin to enroll to university. Besides that I needed to organize a room for me to live in Berlin. But I was a soldier of the Federal armed forces, and West Berlin was surrounded by the enemy. Going there by plane was not really an option, it would have cost me three months worth of salary. So I applied for a permission to travel through the GDR by car. I had to talk to the commander of the bataillon for that (the first and only time I talked to this man). He ordered me to leave everything in West Germany which could identify me as a Soldier, he forbid me to admit that I am a soldier, and he let me go.And then I was there, sitting in my rusty '71 Opel Kadett and carefully driving East over the Transit route. And there she was: A Hind helicopter, hovering at 30 feet above the ground, just appearing behind the trees.I almost sh*t in my pants.(I travelled the transit routes for four years, and I almost never had any trouble, with the exception of November 1987, but that is a different story…)

All the world, without exception, quite sensibly ‘kept left’ when riding horse and carriage for three good reasons.—Firstly swordsman, who were mostly right handed, ‘kept left’ so they could ride more safely by bringing defensive arms to bear on those who passed—Secondly, most mount and dismount their horse on the left and this is practically done from the roadside (as opposed to the middle of a road if they kept right). It is also not possible to mount a horse from the right with a sword in scabbard on one’s left side—Thirdly, people ‘keep left’ because Lords, knights, serfs, travellers and tradesmen alike, when dismounted or with beast of burden, led their mule, ox or horse with reins in the stronger right hand leaving their left with the whip (the reversal is not possible without walking backwards).Keeping left is simply natural and customery the world over. Furthermore, evidence suggests the Romans made these prudent customary ways permanent as archeological study of Roman quarries in Britain show the exit lanes (those with heavy load) made deeper grooves in the road than empty waggons arriving. These deeper groovers are on the left side of the road proving that Romans continued the course of sanity and, quite literally, set tradition in stone.However, along strutted Napoleon who, being a ‘small’ man, had an overly inflated sense of self likely emanating from, and to make up for, his shortness of stature*. Or his left–handedness. Or his French revolutionary mandate. But possibly all three. Furthermore, being a creature of La Revolution he had a chip on his shoulder the size of a quarter slice of a camembert round and resented the ‘old order’ as much as its establishment ways. All in the name of liberté — presumably missing the irony of replacing one autocracy with his version of the same.As a result, the troops which he marched and the nations he conquered were forced to ‘keep right’ in ode to his ego. Such was the centrist, authoritarian and autocratic French revolutionary way —throwing the baby out with the bathwater, with slanted political motive, for good or for bad.“It was the despotic and, importantly, left–handed Napoleon and his obsession with absolute power in the minutest of details which drove France to turn the established norm and everything that is logical on its head”Ed Wright, A Left Handed History of the WorldSuch autocratic knee-jerk reaction and pea-cock posturing pontification is not the British liberal way —the English have been in perpetual change, gradually honing their customs with calm compromise, consensus, reason and polite cups of tea, since Magna Carta (1215) and Wat Tyler’s Peasants Revolt (1381) — when these liberal attitudes and decentralised ways were first committed to perpetuity by the people. Some 500 years ahead of the guillotine. Evolution being all superior to revolution since it involves sensibility’s deliberate checks of moderation, consensus and compromise.Furthermore, at 2.9 deaths per 1,000, Britain has some of the safest roads on Europe. And this may be due to the British using their stronger, more experienced and more co–ordinated arm to steer and hold road position. Whilst in Britain the weaker arm is trusted only with the menial task of changing gear, on the continent it is used perhaps most competently for causing crashes.It may sound righteously imperious but it’s unlikely Britain will change for the ways of a despot from the continent —a national point of principle which has put a wry smile on the face of the British for centuries.For all these reasons the British, and all those Britain influenced during history (some 2 billion drivers in India, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand and many other Commonwealth countries — see full list of all 77 nations below), still ‘keep left’ as the world ever did for millenia.In the meantime, the British politely and patiently wait for the world to revert to its senses and to start driving correctly and safely. This can of course be achieved by all those currently driving on the right to universally return to the left. Indeed, it is quite possible for this to be, as occurred in 1967:Dagen H (‘H day’), less succinctly called ‘Högertrafikomläggningen’ (‘the–right–hand–day–of–traffic–for–diversion’), was the occasion, 3 September 1967, on which all traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the madness of the right. Perhaps no less could be expected from those who daisy–chain paragraphs to form nouns from their vocabulary vacuum. Perhaps the thought of being Napoleon’s lackey did not bother them either.Here follows a list of those nations not living under the hegemonistic legacy of a little megalomaniac. The list is best scrolled whilst seated and contently humming ‘God Save the Queen’ (although protocol dictates one should of course stand to sing the same — but that might be melodramatic). To start you off, I have written the notes below:G - - G - - A - - F# - G - - AGod save our gracious QueenAnguillaAntigua and BarbudaAustraliaBangladeshBarbadosBermudaBhutanBotswanaBritish Virgin IslandsBruneiCayman IslandsChristmas IslandCocos (Keeling) IslandsCook IslandsCyprusDominicaEast TimorEswatiniFalkland IslandsFijiGrenadaGuernseyGuyanaHong KongIndiaIndonesiaIrelandIsle of ManJamaicaJapanJerseyKenyaKiribatiLesothoMacauMalawMalaysiaMaldivesMaltaMauritiusMontserratMozambiqueNamibiaNauruNepalNew ZealandNiueNorfolk IslandPakistanPapua New GuineaPitcairnSaint HelenaAscension and Tristan da CunhaSaint Kitts and NevisSaint LuciaSaint Vincent and the GrenadinesSamoaSeychellesSingaporeSolomon IslandsSouth AfricaSouth Georgia and the South Sandwich IslandsSri LankaSurinameTanzaniaThailandThe BahamasTokelauTongaTrinidad and TobagoTurks and CaicosTuvaluU. S. Virgin IslandsUgandaUnited KingdomZambiaE - C - B - A - GGod save the QueenAnd, after the warm anthem glow has faded to a rather awkward and sombre silence, we list:ZimbabweTheir membership to the exclusive and rather revered club is rescinded lest the sheet is sullied. Mugabe was a berk.All the while, Britain is quite happy for those choosing Napoleon’s chip–over–logic to continue to drive as they do. However, if it is a return to universal driving protocol they seek, they must bin their shackles and return to the side of the free and to that which is logical, polite and customary. The other option, for Britain to adopt the posturing of a bossy little man quite so intent on sticking two fingers* up to all who went before him, is simply inconceivable — the truly great acknowledge the giants’ shoulders upon which they stand. The French lop their heads off.Högertrafikomläggningen awaits the free. Vive la diference, vive la liberté.*This is of course wild exaggeration — Napoleon stuck only one finger to the establishment because he was a continental. The two fingered ‘V sign’ (roughly translating as ‘F..k off’) is a priveledge reserved for the English (and the Welsh who have equal rights to its official usage).The two–fingered V sign (with palm facing face) is a gesticulation first coined in 1346 by Welsh and English longbow-men at the battles of Crecy and Agincourt where the French would cut off the two bowstring-drawing fingers of captured archers to render them useless in battle. The English and Welsh in turn taunted the French by flaunting their two fingers before battle commenced** and the ‘V sign’ was born. It is a gesticulation of obstinacy, an exclamation expressing contemptuous defiance, is peculiarly English and, like left–hand driving, we would not swap it for the world.On occasion, when in France, we like to proudly show our two fingers (using the left hand) whilst our right hands safely hold road position. Anything other would be madness.*There has been complaint my description of Napoleon’s ‘shortness of stature’ is offensive to short people. This it is not meant to be. The term ‘shortness of stature’ (or ‘standing’) is a popular English euphemism for a person’s lack of qualification to the position in question which, in this case, is Emperor of Europe.The last time I enquired, the study subject for Emporer of Europe (‘How to subjugate the masses, put dissenters to the sword and conquer all of the continent by marching armies across it’) was unavailable at English universities. Although, I concede, such a subject may well be popular abroad* (*see Hitler, The Kaiser, Franco, Mussolini, Stalin, Khrushchev, Ceaușescu et al)As with Napoleon being ‘short’, it for this same reason Churchill refered to the Führer of the Third Reich as ‘Corporal’ Hitler (Corporal is the very low rank to which Hitler rose in WWI) — it is by no stretch of the imagination meant to be offensive to corporals, simply a succinct British illustration of under-qualification or ‘shortness of stature’. A comment concerning standing rather than posture.Ironically, Napoleon was niether short nor French. He was a 5 foot 6 Corsican which is about average height for the time and it was British propaganda which described him otherwise. Although he is possibly the greatest military leader the world has seen, it is the prerogative of the free to mock those who goose-step their way to hegemony. In England, this leaves much room for mocking.** ‘Although there is no written evidence the two fingered gesticulation occured at Agincourt, the event is firmly established British folk-law. If the event is simply a good yarn passed through the generations it is, if nothing else, solid anthropological evidence of an obstinate British attitude never to fold to foreign tyranny.

Did that drive a little over 3 years ago - was cheaper to have me drive the equipment out than ship it and fly. Kinda helped that I had always wanted to do it. It was a great drive and we live in a gorgeous country. I did it solo, but that's how I roll.First and foremost. Make sure your sled can make it. Do an oil change and full tune up, including brakes & coolant system. Your first day of driving has a chance of breaking your car if you don't ensure it's ready to haul you and your stuff through the mountains.Now, once you've ensured your car will make it & you're all packed, make sure you will be able to make it. Will you be rolling solo or do you have a passenger? Sharing driving duties or are you doing all the driving? Is there a deadline for you to get to the center of the universe? What route are you planning on?The reason you need to answer these questions now is that those answers will determine a few things. If you've got a passenger who will share driving duties, you can go farther each day than if you drive it all yourself - of course, if you suffer insomnia like me, you can also drive farther daily by yourself, but you should be able to judge for yourself. Having a deadline and the route you take also factor in.Day drives v night drives: This is something many people don’t think about. Each has pros & cons. Day driving has the benefit of good visibility, more places are open, whether it be gas stations, restaurants or other stores, and if something goes wrong, more traffic means it’s more likely you’ll get help - particularly in remote areas, plus the scenery is incredible. Cons of day driving are increased road traffic which will slow you down, particularly in urban areas. Road works, which are everywhere this time of year, are active construction zones in the daytime, featuring heavier than usual traffic and reduced speeds. Night driving has the benefit of much less traffic on the roads with you, meaning you can make better time as it’s just you and the truckers rolling that late. If you do have a problem and are in cell range, there’s less chance of having to wait a long time for CAA to send someone, though depending on your location, it may still take a while. Construction zones aren’t active at night, with some exceptions, and depending on the area, speed zones aren’t in effect when workers aren’t present. Now, of course, being night time, visibility is reduced, though adding light bars can make that a non issue (I’ve got light bars on my truck putting out in excess of 19,000 raw lumens, not including my low and high beams, meaning I hit my brights and it becomes damn near daylight in front of me). Less services are open overnight, so you’re limited to what the 24hr gas stations may have for food or Tim’s, which typically serves a limited menu overnight - Denny’s does have a few locations along hwy1, so that’s always an option. Less traffic also means fewer cars to blend in with if you’re speeding. A cop snags you, they got you. On the flip side, there’s also a lot fewer cops rolling at night, so your odds of getting pulled over are lower.The biggest danger isn’t during day or night driving, but the transition between. Daybreak and dusk are the times when wildlife are most active, daybreak being worse than dusk. And despite what you may have heard before, deer are the critters you need to watch out for the most. See moose and elk aren’t so much of an issue because they’re bloody huge. And they know it. Even when they’re standing in the middle of the road, they won’t move. They’ll stand there, looking down on you as you pass, like they’re going, “What you lookin’ at?” Unless you’re rounding a blind corner way too fast, you’ll see a moose or elk in the road. Now deer, on the other hand, are much smaller and unpredictable. Add to that the fact that their coats blend in to the background at daybreak and they can literally appear out of nowhere. Contrary to what the phrase, “deer in the headlights,” implies, deer typically don’t freeze up as you hurtle toward them. At least not for long. They’ll dart across your path at the last second, instead of jumping away. A couple of years ago, at daybreak, just out of Golden, right as I reached the posted limit of 100km/h, a grey streak flashed across the road ahead of me, dodging the 18 wheeler doing 110km/h the other way and clipped the corner of my front bumper. Front of my truck looked ok until i looked at the passenger corner of the bumper where Bambi had taken out a fog light on his tumble into the underbrush. Pretty sure he became dinner for a bear or cougar because he wasn’t in the ditch beside the road and there’s no way he clipped the truck and didn’t get a broken leg. So yeah, daybreak is the time you need to pay the most attention and drive most cautiously, because that’s when Bambi like to come out and dart across traffic. And hitting a deer square on ends badly for both you and Bambi.About the route. If you choose to do the entire drive north of the 49th, it will take you nearly a day longer than dipping south when you hit the great lakes. It's deceptive when you look at the map, but when google maps says driving through Illinois & Michigan is faster, they mean it. I thought they were full of shit, but northern Ontario is huge and the route around the lakes is very twisty and almost exclusively 2 lanes except for larger urban areas. I didn't have the option of going through the US due to a youthful indiscretion, so I'll give advice on a full Canada only drive. Expect it to take between 4-5 days - even if you drive with a heavy foot, like I do.Among the items you pack, make sure you have some essentials. Make sure you've got some basic tools to change a tire, tighten or fix things that might get damaged and definitely, *DEFINITELY* make sure you pack at least one or two 20l+ Jerry cans. You don't want to get stuck running out of gas on the road. Also make sure you've got lots of road food, snacks & drinks for the trip.Now, get rest before you leave. Load up, then go inside & go to bed for a nap at least. Make sure you have a 1/4 tank of gas or so before leaving. Don't bother filling up in Vancouver, you'll pay way too much. Seriously. Highest fuel prices in the country. Just make sure you have enough to get you to Abbotsford. Fill up there. Either at the Costco off the Sumas exit (if you have a membership and you get there when they're open) or at one of the regular gas stations. Your choice - there are 24 hr stations at each exit from Clearbrook to Whatcom. Filling up in Abby will save you between 12c/l and 21c/l (at the Costco). You don't have to fill your Jerry cans here, Kamloops is the better place to fill them.Get comfy and settled in and head east. Take the Coquihalla when you hit Hope. It's a lot faster than the canyon or crowsnest. Just past the snowshoe, the Coq gets really steep and this is the first area that wants to kill your car. Just take it easy and you'll be fine. Make sure to leave plenty of room when passing the ever present 18 wheelers. Once you hit the summit & the plateau where the old toll booths used to be, you'll see bathrooms. Pass those and take the next exit for the Britton Creek rest stop. It's bigger, nicer, with better bathrooms and your car will need a short break to allow the transmission to cool down. You'll likely need a short break yourself by now.Once you're ready to hit the road again, get going. Lots of twisty hills, but it's 4-6 lanes the whole way to Kamloops. I prefer not to stop in Merritt, though there is a Walmart there if you need something.Gas up in Kamloops. They have the cheapest gas in the province. Once you leave Kamloops, prices go up substantially until you hit Calgary. Make sure your Jerry cans are full before you roll out. If you feel like having a sit down meal, this is the place to do it. Lots of options in Kamloops, though most are closed late.Hitting the road again, stay on hwy1 leaving town. Hwy5 takes you to Edmonton, which you don't want. At this point you'll be sticking to hwy1 until you hit the lakes. Be aware when driving through Sorento, Salmon Arm & Sicamous - there are lots of speed traps along that stretch, particularly in Salmon Arm. And they really like handing out tickets. If there's nothing happening on the lake, they can be pretty aggressive on the speeding because they have nothing else to do. Don't give them a reason to stop you, because they can be pretty assholic. Just saying. If you need a break, just past Malakwa, there's a rest stop where you can use a proper bathroom & chill. Trains run right beside it, so it can be noisy, but it's a decent rest stop.The next town that you come to is Revelstoke. Lots of people stop for fuel and Tim's or McD's, but gas is spendy there. I normally keep going - my truck can go Kamloops to Calgary on one tank - but you definitely want to check your fuel level as there's no services til Golden, a bit over 150km.Heading east from Revelstoke, you're now going up through the Pass. Rogers Pass to be precise. Mostly twisty 2 lane, with a some passing lanes and a couple of 4 lane sections, this stretch of blacktop can be unpredictable. Depending on time of year, you can hit torrential rains, pea soup fog, snow, etc. Sometimes all of them during the same trip. Remember, it's an alpine region & snow during summer isn't unheard of. Just before the summit, there's a very sharp curve that can catch drivers off guard. It's also subject to slides. Pay attention and it's nothing to get worked up over. One side note: Revelstoke marks the beginning of the string of national parks you'll be driving through - Mt Revelstoke, Glacier, Yoho & Banff are essentially back to back, broken up by towns along the way. You can tell when you're in a park by the speed limit dropping to 90km/h.Golden has lots of gas stations & truck stops on the stretch that sits on hwy1, if you need to stop. Kicking Horse rest stop is just past a really twisty 2 lane stretch of switchbacks. Pretty easy drive all the way to the BC/AB border. Takes about an hour or so to cross the Park - aka Banff National Park. Whilst you’re supposed to have a pass to stop anywhere in the park, you won’t be hassled at rest stops or if you stop for gas at Lake Louise or Banff. Honestly, even if you stopped in Banff for lunch, I doubt you’d be bothered by anyone.The speed limit jumps to 110km/h at Canmore & Calgary’s about an hour east. At this point, unless you’ve got a co-pilot switching off driving duties, you’ll have been going for somewhere between 10–14 hrs. Calgary is a good place to gas up & stop for the night. Loads of hotel options along 16 Ave N (which is what hwy1 becomes within city limits). If you used any gas from your Jerry Cans, refill them in Cowtown.Day 2: Head east out of Calgary. You’ll want to gas up in Medicine Hat, then get going again. Speed limits outside of cities is 110km/h across the prairies, which is a good thing because it means you can get through Saskatchewan fast. Saskatchewan is kinda like Twilight (that crap “vampire” novel) - 630 km of nothing fucking happens. Seriously. Other than hwy1 taking an unannounced jog over in Regina (as far as I could tell, solely to route traffic past a bunch of strip malls), it’s a rather uninteresting drive. The one thing to be aware of while rolling through the province is the signage for rest stops. Or rather, the near complete lack of. You’ll see a sign at some point that says, “Rest Stop - 10km,” and that’s it. One single bloody sign, 10km out from a rest stop and nothing any closer. No sign saying, “Rest Stop - 1km,” or anything. Most of them don’t even have a sign AT the rest stop entrance, letting you know it’s there. You kinda have to guess whether it’s actually a rest stop or someone’s back 40. And there aren’t always bathrooms (outhouses, really) visible from the highway. You’ll be happy to cross into Manitoba.The first big town you hit is Brandon. Depending on how efficient your car is, you can either gas up there or keep going & wait til Portage La Prairie or Winnipeg, where you’ll want to bunk down for the night. There’s a Motel 6 right on the edge of town that typically has vacancies.One thing to be aware of across the prairies, from the outskirts of Calgary to the Ontario border, particularly in summer is the chance of hail storms. These are nothing like you’re accustomed to in BC. Even Calgary rarely gets serious hail, due to it’s proximity to the Rockies. Out on the Great Plains, the hail storms are on roids. I’m talking golf ball sized hail carried by crazy winds. On my drive, literally as I left the city limits of Brandon, the sky went black and the hail came down with a vengeance. Loonie and Toonie sized stones battering anything out in the open. And there is no such thing as an overpass in the prairies, so no place to seek shelter. Most people pull off the road, with their hazards on & hope for the best. As I had $50,000 worth of gear in the back of my truck, I decided to keep going as the winds threatened to tear the topper off my truck. So I followed an 18 wheeler who was going near sideways down hwy1 - like I said, crazy winds. Then, just like in the old Loony Tunes cartoons, there was a visible line across the landscape, black sky on one side & bright, blinding sunshine on the other. One of the most bizarre things I’ve ever experienced. Kept going and the damn storm followed me all the way to Winnipeg. As I gassed up, I could see the lightning in the storm front as it approached. Drove into town, looking for a hotel and saw people pulling out lawn chairs to the roadside, with a sixer of Molson or whatever, getting a good spot to watch the storm roll through. It’s a prairie thing, I think.By the time you roll into the ‘Peg, you’ll have about 12 hrs, give or take, behind the wheel. Bunk down and get some rest, because you’ll need it.Day 3: If you look at a roadmap, it doesn’t look like it will take that long to get to TO from the ‘Peg. But like I said earlier, it’s deceiving. Winnipeg to Thunder Bay is a tick or two over 12 hrs. And if your timing is right (or wrong, depending on perspective), you’ll hit the thickest, deepest, most disorienting pea soup fog. With Thunder Bay literally on Lake Superior, lake effect fog happens. A lot. Not so much in town itself, but on the outskirts. And FYI, hwy1 turns into hwy17 at the MB/ON border. Hwy17 takes you to Thunder Bay. Again, 12 hr drive, bunk down for the night (my deadline didn’t allow me that luxury so I kept going, which turned that leg into a 36 hr marathon behind the wheel. A rare time when my insomnia was useful).A couple of interesting side notes: polar opposite to the Saskatchewan practice of nearly no road signs, Ontario has gone with so many road signs that it’s nearly impossible to take all the information in. As in clusters of a dozen or more signs within a single km. And the posted speed limit is 90km/h, because, Ontario. Also, there is a point (marked by signs, surprise, surprise) where you are far enough north that rivers run north toward the Arctic rather than south toward the equator. If you’ve lived near the 49th your whole life, then it’s a neat thing to see.Day 4: East on hwy17 around Lake Superior. The next big town you hit is Sault Ste Marie, about 6–8 hrs drive. The Soo is rather pleasant and a good place to top off the tank. Keep on hwy17 to Sudbury. Don’t have anything good to say about Sudbury. The vibe as I rolled through was - sticky. That’s the best description I can give. Lots of visible urban decay and I didn’t want to get out of my truck. Seriously. Some people compare Detroit to Windsor, due to the auto industry parallels, but Sudbury is a much closer analogue to Detroit in the vibe and obvious signs of a city in decline. Personally, even without a deadline, I would’ve pushed onward and bunked down elsewhere. About 4 hrs or so south, you’ll hit Barrie - much better place to bunk down for the night, even though it pushes the drive past 12 hrs. There are signs to direct you south, but you’ll want to be on hwy69 southbound, which turns into hwy400 north of Barrie.Day 5: Assuming you bunked down in Barrie for the night, you are only an hour or so away from the center of the universe. Take hwy400 south and you’ll hit the GTA before your next meal.On driving in Ontario. Highways are patrolled by the OPP, who typically won’t bother pulling you over unless you’re 30km/h over the posted limit. Through all of Northern Ontario, I kept the cruise control locked on 119km/h and never got stopped (there are signs that display the fines for speeding at +30km/h, +40km/h, and +50km/h. Don’t recall the fines for the first 2, but 50km/h over gets your ride impounded. No worries about forgetting that fact either - their love of road signs means you are reminded about the speed laws constantly). Once you hit the GTA, the driving dynamic changes. OPP still patrols highways, but you need to pay more attention to other drivers than the cops. To put it mildly, the drivers are aggressive in Toronto. All through the GTA, in fact. I found the drivers aggressive all the way past Hamilton and traffic only eased near Niagara. And they don’t care what plates hang off your bumper either. It can be overwhelming driving any of the 400 series highways that border Toronto. Don’t panic or drive meekly. You’ll never make it into town. Drive decisively and try to match their style. Shouldn’t take too long to get used to how traffic operates there. And be prepared for gridlock during rush hour. Fortunately, unlike Vancouver, where rush hour starts at stupid o’clock in the morning and stays pretty much til 8 pm, Toronto rush hour gets intense for about 2 hrs in the am & 2 hrs in the pm, then it tapers off. And it’s expected that if you’re driving slower than the car behind you, that you will move right to allow them to pass.So, effectively, don’t drive like a Vancouverite when you reach the center of the universe. Don’t putt along in the passing lane and for gawdz sake, don’t drive around with your high beams on all the time (as many in Vancouver are guilty of doing). Within city limits, move with the flow of traffic, but try to stay within 10km/h of the posted limit as city cops are more strict about speeding.One final note about the drive. I’m not sure if it’s changed by now or not, but Saskatchewan has the worst mobile phone service in the country. Within cities, like Regina, Saskatoon, Moose Jaw and Swift Current, you’ll get signal no matter who your provider is. Outside those cities though, if you’re on Rogers or a provider using Rogers’ network, you’ll have nothing. Literally, along hwy1, from the western border with Alberta to the eastern border with Manitoba, outside Swift Current, Moose Jaw and Regina, there is no signal. Even Telus & Bell signals are spotty. Because SaskTel controls the show and that’s how it goes. But it’s been a couple years since I last drove through, so things may have changed, but I doubt it. Another reason to get through there as fast as possible. I was able to tell when I crossed into Sask, because Spotify stopped playing until I got to Manitoba. So make sure you have some music on hand on CD or USB or whatever your deck plays.That’s pretty much everything I got on doing that drive. Scenery is stunning across the country - many rest stops along the Great Lakes are literally on the lakes themselves and are worth stopping briefly, just for the daytime view. Make sure you’ve got music on hand for areas where you don’t have signal. Stop regularly for breaks so you don’t get fatigued and beware Bambi at daybreak.Hope this wasn’t too long for you and have a safe drive out to the center of the Canadian universe.