Delivery to Montreal

Over the past month and a bit we've been having problems at work. Our supplier for the raw materials that we use to make the wet towels decided we weren't important enough to honour their commitment to deliver to us on time.

My boss, Sid, had placed an order in February for delivery in March. But, our supplier (shipping out of North Carolina) after repeated inquiries told us they wouldn't be able to get our order shipped until the end of May. How ridiculous is that?

So, Sid, had to scramble to find another supplier for this unexpected snafu. He eventually found another one (also shipping out of the U.S.) and they shipped us a truckload of material by the end of April. Unfortunately, up until that point, our plant sat idle for one month. Many of our customers we shorted for that period of time.

One of our biggest customers runs out of Montreal. Normally we would ship them 420 cases (of 1000 wet towels) in a big truck each time. But, since we were so late with our delivery we had to ship them the cases as we made them. Sid would drive up to 90 cases at a time in our Ford van 550 kilometres each way.

He had made many such trips when I offered to do one. It was that or deliver the other driver, Stephen's, route. Stephen normally drives the last half of the week, while making wet towels the other half.

Since Sid wanted him making wet towels to try to catch up on all the work orders we were behind in I offered to drive on the Friday I was off. But, since I didn't know Stephen's route well I thought it might be easier for me to just make one drop off in Montreal instead. The total time on the road would be longer, but it would be simpler overall.

So, after work on Thursday, I loaded up the van with 60 cases of wet towels (that's all that were ready up until that point). I checked Google maps for directions, but also had Sid's GPS. The directions looked simple enough from Google maps - I would just take Highway 401 east. It would change into Highway 20 near Montreal. From there I would briefly go up Highway 30 north then continue east on Highway 40 to Boulevard Roi-René.

The trip for the most part was straightforward and uneventful. Since I was driving so late at night there was hardly any traffic which was great. I stopped once or twice to go to the bathroom or take a little break. The trouble only started when I neared Montreal when the GPS decided not too cooperate.

Instead of taking me the quickest route which I described above it took me into downtown Montreal along Highway 20. So now I was driving through the outskirts of the city where the speed limit was 50 km/h. I was kind of confused because I had no idea where the GPS was taking me (since it was different from the Google map).

Eventually I did hook back up with Highway 40. Though it was brief because they were doing road reconstruction (as they're apt to do in the middle of the night when traffic is lightest). So, along with the other cars on the road at the time, we snaked through the city streets next to the highway at an infuriatingly slow pace.

I also made a few wrong turns because the GPS really wasn't very clear. When two parallel streets are close together sometimes it's hard to see which one you're supposed to go on. Inevitably I ended up taking the wrong one heading off into the middle of nowhere.

Still I made it to my intended destination by 2:00 a.m. Unfortunately it was closed. I had asked Sid if he knew what hours the distribution centre was open, but he didn't. I was hoping they were open 24 hours a day, but they weren't. So I tried to get some sleep in the parking lot. It wasn't very comfortable because the cab (of the van) is pretty small and I'm fairly tall. And I believe the temperature dropped to below 10C overnight and I wasn't wearing anything heavy.

Workers started drifting in around 4:00 in the morning and I was able to unload at around 5:30 a.m. I finished by 6:00 and was back on the road to Toronto shortly thereafter. I was happy about that because I was able to beat rush hour in Montreal.

The drive home was much easier. I ditched the GPS and followed my pre-planned route (in reverse order) of Highway 40 to 30 to 20 to 401. On the way I stopped a couple of times at rest stops along the 401 to take naps. I was pretty sleepy and there was no rush to get back. My job for the day was complete.

I got back to Toronto at 2:30 p.m., got home by around 3:00 and took a short nap before heading out to do an errand and meet up with friends for dinner.