Ready to Go

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Here goes our first attempt on the Travel Blog. Camper's packed and we are ready. Maritimes here we come!

For a great Canadian blog check out VIA rails website: http://www.canadatravelblog.ca/en_index.html

We have had a beautiful summer here at the lake in southern Saskatchewan where we live. What a great place to live - golfing, fishing and great people. Our kids were here for two great weeks too! But, with summer nearing it's end, we look forward to seeing the beautiful fall colors down east that many have told us about.

Our itinerary:
First to Yorkton to say goodbye to the grandkids. Then southeast through Manitoba and into the US. We'll pass through Sault Ste. Marie and on to Ottawa for first sightseeing stop. On to Quebec, where in Montreal, we will visit June and Keith. Through the Eastern Townships up to Quebec City. Up the St. Lawrence and around the Gaspe into New Brunswick. Of course we will tour Nova Scotia and PEI and hopefully get to Newfoundland. If we still have the drive (so to speak) we will ferry over to Maine and down to Boston to visit Judy and John. Then over to Niagara Falls and into southern Ontario. There we want to scout around Huron County where both our great grandfathers farmed. Home by early October, through Sarnia and across the Mackinac.

Hope you will follow us drive and blog along.


August 19/20
From Grand Forks, ND we drove to Wakefield, MI. In the state of 10,000 lakes we saw a few lakes and a lot of trees. At Duluth we came up over and hill and got our first surprise view of Lake Superior. Found a lovely, little campground on a little lake at Wakefield for $12 which included water and electrical.

On Saturday, we drove to Sudbury. More trees and views of Lake Superior and views of Lake Huron after we crossed through Sault Ste. Marie. The big event of the day was a bear that ran out across the road in front of us. And we were just wondering the day before if there were bears in the Great Lakes area. We are sure not impressed with the major highway from the “Soo” to Ottawa - single lane and not great at that.

August 21/22/23/24 - Ottawa
Arrived in Ottawa, mid-afternoon. Found a campground on the west side - $30.
On the 22nd we drove to Parliament Hill just in time to see the Changing of the Guard Ceremony. We got a brochure from the Info desk for a self-walking tour around the outside of the buildings where there are a lot of statues of former Prime Ministers, etc. We then took a free guided tour inside the building and saw the House of Commons and the Senate. The architecture and sculptures are fantastic. After lunch we toured the Supreme Court of Canada. We went back to the parking lot for the truck and camper and they tried to charge us $40 for parking. The sign said $12 for the day in the morning when we parked so needless to say we were pretty peeved. After much arguing and threatening to write Steven Harper, (ha ha) we paid the big black and brown guys $25 and were happy to just leave!

We then went to the Canadian War Museum for the rest of the day. It is excellent. Makes you realize how lucky we are that others before us gave up so much so we could have the life we do today.

On the 23rd, we again drove to the centre of the city and found a parking spot - but for sure for $7 for the day - even though we had to then take a taxi to our first sightseeing spot. He dropped us off at the fabulous statue of the War Memorial. We walked to the Rideau Canal and then to the Basicila of Notre Dame. All wood carving inside is very ornate. Across the street from the Basicila we toured the National Art Gallery. Seems we relate to the art from the 14th - 17th centuries better than we do the 20th century. Anyways, lunch there was great.

We then walked across Pont Alexandra bridge to Gatineau, PQ to the Museum of Civilization. The exhibit of Canada the “Last 1000 Years” was excellent.

From there we drove by Rideau Hall and 24 Sussex Drive but were too tired to stop in for a visit.

On the 24th, we went to the Canadian Aviation Museum on our way out of Ottawa. Drove to Montreal.
We have to tell you that our GPS - Garmin Nuvi has been and excellent navigation tool. We bought it several months ago in anticipation of this type of trip. We may not know where we are all the time, but it can sure get us to where we want to go. Ottawa is a great city and well worth visiting.


Finding Internet Access

Have to tell you about one of our biggest challenges - finding internet access to upload this travel blog. Oh yeah, we can find internet access but it often won’t have a disk available for us to use our CD that has the written journal and pictures on OR it doesn’t have the program that we use to write the journal. So the next best alternative has been to find wireless internet as we have a wireless card in our laptop. Sure lots of hotels have access if you stay there but not campgrounds of course. And there are restaurants and coffee shops but they are always in the middle of the city. Well, parking this truck camper in the middle of these huge cities is even more of a challenge. We finally found a restaurant, where we could use their wireless network for free. We bought the obligatory coffees and got their network key (password) and got to work. Well, not to name this world famous restaurant, but at exactly 30 minutes after we started, up popped Ronald on the screen to say our time was up. Even the bribe of buying a McMuffin wouldn’t give us more time. O Canada where is your public wireless that we came across in the good ol'US of A???

So anyways, if you are tired of reading this blathering blog, just think of all the work that has gone into it. And, dear friends and family, if you read this blog, you may not have to hear all about our escapades over coffee after we get home. But there will be a quiz. Ha Ha.



August 24/25/26/27 - Montreal
Arrived at June and Keith’s in Beaconsfield at 4pm on the 24th thanks to Garmin. Put in the city or town, street and the house number and it speaks the directions to you as you drive. We drove around Montreal without knowing where we actually were, but it got us to our final destinations. Can’t imagine trying to map read it.

On the 25th, we drove to the nearest metro station where we left the truck and took the metro into Old Montreal. Kelsey was happy to stay and visit with June and Keith while we toured around. Thanks to Lonely Planet (the best of the best of travel guide books) we did a self-guided walking tour of Old Montreal. We walked from the Historical Centre at Place Royale to the Museum of Archaeology where we went up the elevator and had a sweeping view of the Old Port on the Saint Lawrence and across the river to Habitat ‘67. From there we walked among some of the oldest streets and buildings of Montreal to the Basilica of Notre Dame, past the Palais de Justice (old and new Courthouses) to Place Jacques Cartier where we had a nice lunch on a terrace. After lunch we browsed the old marketplace, Marche Bonsecours.

Saturday we again used the metro to go to the Oratoire St-Joseph near Parc du Mont Royal. It is built up the mountainside and many do penance or pay reverence by going up the stairs on their knees. (I had enough trouble getting up the numerous steps on my feet.) Having seen several illustrious Churches and Mosques in Europe and the Middle East, I can’t say enough about this Basilica. While the interior does not have the gold guilded carving, paintings and sculptures of the older Churches, the size of it’s dome is one of the largest in the world.

We hopped back on the Metro to go to an area of the “Underground City” a network of over 20 miles of shopping that is connected to the Metro. Just like being in a mall but endless. Back onto the Metro again to head back down to the Old Port area to the Flora Show which June recommended we see. Fabulous for those of us interested in gardening. An international show of miniature theme gardens with an artistic flair. Lots of interesting ideas for our yard!

By this time, we have the metro memorized and headed back to base to take June and Keith out for supper. We had a super time at an Italian restaurant that is run by the mob - at least that is what Keith told me!

We left Montreal on the rainy morning of August 27th with good wishes and a bag lunch from our wonderful hosts. Thanks, June and Keith, for everything.


August 27th - a ‘Bleue’ Day

We depart Montreal with great plans to take the day to drive through some of the Eastern Townships on our way to Quebec City rather than just zip up the major highway which would take only 2 hours. Well we grossly underestimate the time it takes us prairie landers to drive through Montreal - June and Keith live on the West side - and it is raining. So we decide about 2 hours into this that it’s a mistake, we can’t see anything anyways in the rain so let’s detour back up to Quebec City. Now, Nuvi Garmin is great, but she only knows what you tell her. We make the mistake of putting in a little town about half way up where we think we will be back on track and suddenly Ms. Nuvi says “in 400 meters board ferry”. What!!! So backtrack again and head north east up the south side of the Saint Lawrence to cross the bridge at Trois Riviere. A slow trip through towns all the way - at times some of the houses were about 10 feet off the highway - no kidding! We arrive in Quebec city and it is time for diesel. Now, diesel in not as easy to find as regular gasoline. And especially when we program the GPS to find an Esso and we go around in circles about 4 times till we realize the Esso has changed to a Shell and they don’t have diesel. Even Ms. Nuvi was getting dizzy. And poor Kelsey in the backseat was starting to choke on the ‘Sacre Bleue’air in the truck.

We did finally find diesel but I think we were back to Saint Foy. Camped at the marina parking lot with no hookups for a mere $35 but were glad to crawl into our little top bunk.


Note: It seems difficult to situate the pictures in the blog to match the journal so please bear with me on that.


August 27/28/29 - Quebec City
Coming next time we get lucky at finding internet service. To our friends and family: We are leaving Quebec city today the 29th and will be heading around the Gaspe towards New Brunswick. Bye for now.

Note August 31 to whoever is following us along. Just arrived in Campbellton, NB. There is free internet here at the Tourist Info centre so just a hello! Will update the rest of Quebec later. Cool 16C but sun and cloud - no rain. Good weather so far.

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Photos

At June & Keiths
Beautiful garden!