In my last post I talk about going to the East Point Lighthouse on PEI. I knew that I had taken a couple of photos while we were there but couldn’t find them on my phone or Ray’s. So I thought I was going a bit c-r-a-z-y,,,, then I remembered that I had taken my camera with us that day. So I am starting this post with a couple of photos from East Point Lighthouse and a shot of the red cliffs overlooking the Atlantic ocean from the lighthouse that were on my camera. Sometimes I wonder where my brain is at……I must be sitting on it or something!!
Okay so lets hit the road again. As this is our 2nd trip to the east coast and it was more or less a trip to visit with family and friends, we decided after seeing Hope for Wildlife, we would start heading west. Back to Guelph to see Riki and the girls before making the rather long trek out of Ontario. That Province is huge! We left Dartmouth and headed into New Brunswick again. In the 2012 trip we had stopped to see the world’s longest covered bridge, in Hartland and the “falls” in Grand Falls NB, which is off the main highway. This time we just continued north west up to Edmunston. It took pretty much the whole day of driving with no mishaps from the navigator. Well maybe just one. Being the navigator it is also my job to select a camp site for the night. For those who do not already know this, New Brunswick is a mostly french speaking Province. The super friendly people are bilingual but always start the conversation with Bonjour. I do know what that means! All their highway signs are in French and then English (unlike Quebec which are in French only). I had selected a campsite in Saint Jacques which is just west of Edmunston, just inside the NB border from Quebec. Once again I tried to put the address into the GPS. The campground we were looking for, according to the website was on Chemin Albert St. I could not get it to map out on the GPS in the truck. My phone did get us to the site right around the time that I figured out that Chemin means Street. So I should have selected Albert Street on the GPS. Thank goodness we bought some more GB for our phones because without them, I am not sure how sane I would be right about now. Anyway we located the campsite and we welcomed by a wonderfully friendly young lady. We met a really nice fellow when we went for our walk, who asked us in English if we were from Quebec. He was very helpful when we said that we wanted to visit Quebec City the next day, but were not sure how to get to the old part of the city and were not really sure what to do there. He suggested that we stop at an information centre upon entering Quebec an they would provide us with any information we needed to make the trip into old Quebec enjoyable.
Eastern Quebec has now become my favourite Province for the beauty of the rolling hillsides. I can imagine them in the Fall in all their colourful glory! It is not however not my favourite Province to be in. As the gentleman from the previous night suggested we stopped at the first Information Centre upon crossing into Quebec. The sign on the door said that it was closed until 0900 which was, according to my watch, only 15 minutes away. There was a Tim Hortons right beside the Info Centre (surprise, surprise). I was sitting there drinking my coffee when I looked at my phone and noticed that we had entered another time zone and would have to wait for over an hour for the Centre to open. We decided to head down the road and catch the next centre and gather our information there. We stopped at every Information Centre from there right into Levis (is that “Levis” like in Strauss ?), which is where we had planned to spend the night. All were closed!!! I could feel myself getting more tense by the minute and it didn’t help hearing all the “F” bombs from the person in the drivers seat! It did not help that we were in a traffic nightmare……finally I just said “screw it” we can fly here one day and take a cab right into the heart of Old Quebec City and hire an English speaking guide to take us where we want or thought we need to go. ARG!!! We continued west towards Montreal.
Montreal is another story in itself. I have always thought that I was a pretty good navigator. I punch addresses into the GPS like a pro, and can read a map in my sleep. I am good with directions (north, south, east or west), except for Ontario…….not sure why that is. After our 2nd trip through Montreal I may consider hanging that hat up for awhile. Everyone tells us that Montreal is easy, just take the “bypass”. Where the hell is the “bypass”? How do you say that in french?? I need highway numbers!!! We were doing really well following Highway 20, until I saw a sign above our heads that said “Pont Tunnl”, I took this as meaning we were in the lane to go into that horrendous tunnel that goes right downtown. So we took the exit (because we had stayed in the right hand lane). After driving about 3 minutes we saw the dreaded tunnel ahead like an ugly dragon with its wide mouth open like a black hole. We drove through not one but two tunnels which spit us out onto a street that had an odd right lane causing us to turn right while the GPS is screaming “rerouting” about 5 thousand times! Ray did an amazing u-turn with the help of a parking lot so we could “reroute” back to where the GPS was yelling at us to go! (imagine the voice of John Cleese from Fawlty Towers)…….OMG!!!! The GPS was taking us in the direction of Trudeau Airport, which was okay because I was pretty sure that was in the southern west part of the city,,,according to the map. We listened to Mr Cleese (I wish), directing us all over the place. All of a sudden we are going through what appeared to be a war zone! Highway overpasses have been knocked down and are in the process of being replaced, which is great because in 2012 they looked like they were going to fall down! There was huge chunks of cement and metal all over the side of the roadway. Oh and by the way, we were also in rush hour. I can tell you that Ray was not the only one dropping the “F” bomb. Sorry there are no photos of this as I was too busy dropping those bombs. It was like we had just driven through Beruit! I felt like saying to Ray “I think I will meditate now, you are on your own”! LOL
Honestly,,,,I should have paid more attention to my French classes.....We did make it safely into Lancaster Ontario. We camped at a great provincial campsite where I found this table on the Saint Lawrence River where I could do a quiet meditation and chill out. This I needed for me!
Next up is Guelph,,,,,
Lori and Ray
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