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All work and no play in Canada. Dad gets up early for the fitness “centre,” by the lobby, eh. The rest of the crew rises by noon and we cruise the strip for brunch. After scoping the street and our GPS suggestions, we swoop down on the Golden Griddle.

Fortunately for us, the breakfast buffet doesn’t close until 2pm—their loss! Brunch highlights: bottomless coffee, eggs to order and a full blintz-topping-bar. There was also complimentary 7-grain, pre-buttered toast. Outstanding. Our Canadian waitress remarks that she occasionally buys the New York Times in order to peruse the sex-and-the-city-type-listings.

It takes roughly four hours to get through customs and out of Canada. We pass the time watching Superbad and Ratatouille. Our cutting edge GPS device supports a Bluetooth connection. When there’s not too much static we run our laptop audio into the GPS device, like a handset, which can distribute all of its sound on unused FM radio channels. We arrive at Cornell after dark. The whole gang is there waiting for us: Andy, Hugo, Sammy. We dropped off Jack, but not a moment too soon.

The remaining six of us (dad, mom, Zoe, Em, Sam and Mike) could not have been prepared for our next reservation, the Binghamton Econo Lodge. We check in, pick up our keys, drive out back and enter the building. Mike was prescient in his initial observation of our room. “What is that smell,” he asked. “I don’t usually mind smells, but this is really something.” He couldn’t have known then that we (Mike and I) got the “good smelling room.” Room number two, we decided, smelled like rotten Brussel sprouts. The initial remedy, proved to be opening up the adjoining doors and letting the bad smells in each room (spoiled milk + cigarettes) mix and equalize. Zoe was an initial objector, but we were prepared to sit it out. After all, “everything is booked up in Binhamton” and we’ve been through worse. We began settling in when dad made a shocking discovery. He tempted the fates by slowly peeling back the comforter on his bed. And, as if he willed it, discovered a used, hairy bandage. And that was the gauze that broke the camel’s sense of dignity.

In no time flat we were back in the van, exploiting the Econo Lodge’s wi-fi to find a better hotel. At some point, Rietje woke up her parents in the middle of the night to see if we needed a emergency lodging. We decided to suck it up and do tomorrow’s driving tonight. Hello Bethlehem, PA, here we come!