Blogs from Canada, North America - page 13

Vous vous demandiez si on n’était pas décédés entre Wasaga Beach et Kingston? Ou kidnappés par des extra-terrestres? Ou partis faire le Jihad en Syrie? Ben non. Juste la rentrée scolaire et le retour au travail…Et surtout Geneviève qui refuse de relire le blog avant publication… D’où le délai de 2 semaine… Bon. C’est un peu bidon comme excuse… 3-4 jours, ça passe peut-être, on est rendu à 15 jours. Cela dit, ça fait partie des perks d’avoir un blogue. C’est comme ma petite dictature à moi! Je suis le roi du monde et seul maitre à bord. Facque c’est ça. Donc. Kingston. C'est probablement notre plus longue ride de voiture sans arrêt de tout le voyage. Une chance qu'on avait Sylvie. Pas sûr que tout le monde aurait survécu autrement. Geneviève avait trouvé un beau ... read more

Editor’s note: We are back home on Pender having flown out of St. John’s the morning of the day Hurricane Fiona hit the Atlantic provinces. Apart from having a 5:00 am flight, our trip was relatively painless. The Baccalieu Trail We traversed part of the trail to get to our B and B in New Perlican (which apparently is older than Old Perlican) and on our first morning there we headed north to finish the job. Several towns were on our way but the main target was Bay de Verde and Blunden House. The house was built in the late 1890s which makes it pretty new in BDV terms as the first European visitors to the area came in the 1500s. It is a good example of the merchant class of housing with one section for ... read more

Observations on bus touring We had never taken a tour of this type preferring to make our own arrangements (I have a great travel planner). We took this one on the recommendation of friends who had taken the trip pre-COVID. I was nervous about travelling with a bunch of “old people”. Yes, I saw the irony in that statement. The people on the tour turned out to be great. We now have lots of new friends (foreshadowing). The tour guides had a great system of assigning us to different seats every day so no one got the coveted front seats for more than half a day. There were twice daily draws to see who would be the King and Queen for the next half day. Patti had arranged for “door prizes” and the drawing of the ... read more

The day started early but at least it wasn’t 5:00am like the Labrador days. But we had a long drive ahead of us as we planned to overnight in Gander. It is one of the tricky parts of the Newfoundland experience; there is only one road that criss-crosses the country and the things we want to see are spread out. The first stop on our day’s adventure was the whaling station at King’s Point. Here we learned not just about whales but also about attempts to create an “All Red Line” to link the British Empire by telegraph in the late 1800s. There also was an attempt to link the Empire by railroad including sailing in the Fog Free Zone. The Lusitania used to call in here on a regular basis. Hard to imagine when you ... read more

THE BASICS We left Perce and drove north to the St. Lawrence River, then headed west along the rest of the not good highways of the Gaspe Peninsula. After a night at a campground/motel, on to Rimouski, which is a town we really like. The highlight of our stay there was a muscle car show! A KOA near Quebec City came next. We did our usual favorite thing in the city, walking around, gazing into shop windows and looking at people. On to Montreal and another pleasant KOA. Our highlight there was a visit to the Botanic Gardens. The weather was not as nice as previously, so we skipped hanging out in other parts of the city, where we have visited several times. After unsuccessful attempts to interact with our Google Maps feature, we at last ... read more