Canada 2023

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Nous sommes ici, enfin.

It's been on the bucket list for a long time - to drive northeast in the fall to see the colors.

So when we agreed to help present a Marriage Encounter in Niagara Falls Canada, we also decided to spend a week wandering. Last night, after an 8 hour or so drive from Kent OH, we arrived at the home of Ted & Jane Guthrie in Brockville Ontario. We enjoyed a lovely ribs dinner, and then Zoomed to participate in a Bible study. We were pretty beat when we climbed into bed, after all the driving. And I do mean climbed, as the guest bed is set up high so storage is beneath. Still, it was an honor to sleep under two gorgeous homemade quilts Jane has made.

Jane always participates in an indigenous people's water ceremony in the morning, so Jean joined in, as we have done at our house at the dock. It's quite lovely. After a stop at a market garden veggie stand, we were on our way through flat Ontario north of the St. Lawrence River, which we could occasionally see. The leaves were turning. It took about 3 hours to get to Montreal, and because we feared rain, we headed straight for Mount Royal area (a set of e hills in the center of the city virtually) and the St. Joseph Oratory. It's celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. Can't relate all the history, but evidently a Brother Andre cured hundreds of people in the name of St. Joseph, hence the building. they were working on many gardens and steps, so we couldn't get a photo of the front - where pilgrims will ascend the steps on either side going up, on their knees - I'm assuming during Holy Week. We drove around another part of the hills to another view and were not disappointed. We could see the actual down town, the docks (where David grateful disembarked the empty oil tanker in 1968) and the Olympic stadium. That was said to be 6 miles or so away but it took us 40 minutes with the traffic to get to our AirBnB. The city was actually quite residential, 3-4 storied buildings with outside entrances into the various flats. Well kept up. Lots of trees along the boulevards. But definitely traffic.

The AirBnB is spacious and has everything except a beater. We brought our meats and milks and coffees and breakfast fixings from home, so we're trying not to eat out. But it was quite lovely to order coffee and cappuchino here and there - in French bien sur - and sit outside in the lovely temperature. We didn't even wear our coats. The weather forecast is not so kind for the next coming days 😞

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