What biblical person gave his name to a war between the French and British that saw the Brits win; name the battle, too.


So back to Quebec city. Did we tell you that the day we toured the city it rained?!! We were soaked to the skin walking from camp to the entrance to catch the shuttle and the rains came until about 6:30 pm. Gives a nice soft feel to the pictures through the tour bus window. Ladies and Gentlemen may I present Quebec City.

Cheers

Hi ho, hi ho!

We drove the north side of the St. Lawrence today. The colours are spectacular! We also encountered high hills that were so steep that they kicked the mh out of cruise control and I had to push the accelerator to move along. Driving is a dream as one moves through the colours. This is hillside full of colour and around the corner there are more hillsides full of colour. The St. Lawrence is spectacular too, and not just when it meets with the beautiful landscape.

Tonight we are in Riviere de Loup on the south side after an hours ferry ride across the big river. The crossing was very easy and took just over an hour. The ferry backs into the jetty at each side. We caught the last crossing today at 5:15 and saw the sun set as we neared the south shore. The river is a great locater as it runs E and W. I will be lost once we leave the river.

There is a neat Christmas store across from our campsite. What to do? It does not open until noon as tomorrow is Sunday and it is on after summer hours. So what do you think we should do--go or stay in see it. It has a castle appearance with a moat type entrance with a huge Santa standing on the bridge and at night the silhouette of the castle is lit with clear lights. Boy, this a tough one!

September27, 2006Wednesday

The perfume today was eau de farm as we left Montreal and drove the vast flatlands along the mighty St. Lawrence River enroute to Quebec. Our first river today was the Richelieu. Everyone is so friendly and helpful even though we don’t speak de language. A gentleman in his 70s was so excited that we had come to town for the harvest festival that will start on Friday and last for two weeks. We tried to let him down easy. At Otterburn Park on the Richelieu River we met a group of cyclists that had left Montreal at 9:00 and were turning around to head home. None turned out to be Doug Smith.

Ferried across the mighty river at Sorel and drove the north side. There was a charge as we could have crossed to the other side at Trois Riviere. We saw wind surfers in full wet suits. We went through many towns that have houses so very close to the road on both sides and the river would be right behind the homes on one side.

We are starting to see some nice colours. Great sunny and warm day today so why was I wearing my lined pants! The red leaves of the maples can be spectacular.

We are in a KOA just outside of Quebec City but too far from the wireless connection to hookup—tomorrow is another day.


In the picture post, tell us which house was built for Marg's grandmother in 1915 and which building is from Expo 67 and it's name. Win a preeze francais.

the pictures are signs in downtown Montreal, the organ pipes from Notre Dame Cathedral, a boat in the St. Lawrence with one of the 1 000 islands behind, Port Hope and fisherman, Our Lady of the World Bascilica, a turtle sign.

Cheers
Cheers
Cheers

September26Tuesday

Rained through the night but the skies cleared for our 9 am ride into Montreal.

We walked St. Cathrines Street and Marg found a store that sold scrap booking materials and walked out at under $100—must not have been a very good store.

We had lunch with the beavers. The Queen Eliz. Hotel has a dining area that is called the Beaver Club and Marg and I ate their with a long-time friend of my Mum. Auntie Jean (not really my aunt) used to take pictures of Brian and I and our family when we lived in Montreal many moons ago. I decided that I would have dinner since the menu offered dinner entres for lunch. We shared a floating island soft meringue with pistachio cream for dessert then gobbled the iced grapes and sweets that were given complimentary at the end of the meal.

We looked at few stores after lunch but the time was closing in our bus rendezvous (practicing my francais—sorry, no cedilla) time. Don’t tell anybody but we snuck into Winners and Marg came out with two cashmere sweaters.

Tomorrow we leave greater Montreal and head for Quebec City.

Cheers

oops, September 5--starting reruns already

Tuesday, September 5, 2006

Warm breeze from start to finish. Did I mention that Saskatchewan and Manitoba have flies? Marg and I ran out of names to call our little winged friends-boys names, girl’s names, dogs, cats, horses etc. Right now I have a fly running all over my screen proof reading my work.

The sunflower crop is ready to harvest. The heads are so heavy that they face the ground. The blackbirds are enjoying the early September feast.

Marg found an insect bracelet—one size fits all. Estevan was the source of this bounty. It was in an old church turned sun tanning biz and gift shop.

We have seen lots of oil pumps in the grain fields. Fields are huge and the machinery that works the fields is gargantuan.

The mh is white again. We stopped somewhere in Saskatchewan and put it into a manual carwash. It took 14 minutes to do the deed. Diesel is one, that is, one cent cheaper than regular.

DMS where are you when we need you? So many of the place names are en francais.

Thanks Renate and Tim for the chocolate slabs. I have a piece about 4 pm and the caffeine keeps me awake at the wheel until we pull off the road.

Cheers

September24Sunday

Bonjour from La Belle Province. Nous etre situate sud-est (spell check gave me a choice of saddest) de la cite de Montreal. Cette soir nous etre prepare pour notre visite Montreal au jourduis.

We are in the outskirts of Montreal and boy is my French non-existent.

Highway 2 along the St Lawrence River is a wonderful road. It is so scenic that it is almost impossible to make headway as there is always another picture around the next curve. There is so much history and so many beautiful old brick and stone buildings in Brockville. This is true for Cornwall and many of the other places we have passed through and will approach as we continue east. We also saw turtle crossing signs and buffalo being fattened for the market.

We had a blustery day. The wind almost blew my pants down as I walked along the St. Lawrence. Do you think of scuba divers when you think of this river of the marine locks—the St. Lawrence Seaway locks are not quite the Panama Canal—no crocs.

Lots of access to the USA via all kinds of different bridges.

Cheers

Hello from the other side of the River from Quebec city.

Having trouble getting connections and when a connection is available, pictures cannot be added.

Tres frustrating.

Great weather, wonderful sites and the colours are coming through.

We will keep trying.

cheers

September24Sunday

Bonjour from La Belle Province. Nous etre situate sud-est (spell check gave me a choice of saddest) de la cite de Montreal. Cette soir nous etre prepare pour notre visite Montreal au jourduis.

We are in the outskirts of Montreal and boy is my French non-existent.
Having trouble adding pictures.

Highway 2 along the St Lawrence River is a wonderful road. It is so scenic that it is almost impossible to make headway as there is always another picture around the next curve. There is so much history and so many beautiful old brick and stone buildings in Brockville. This is true for Cornwall and many of the other places we have passed through and will approach as we continue east. We also saw turtle crossing signs and buffalo being fattened for the market.

We had a blustery day. The wind almost blew my pants down as I walked along the St. Lawrence. Do you think of scuba divers when you think of this river of the marine locks—the St. Lawrence Seaway locks are not quite the Panama Canal—no crocs.

Lots of access to the USA via all kinds of different bridges.

Cheers

September 23, I think.

We arrived in Kingston last night. We took a ferry from Picton back to the mainland. The ferry was like a small BC ferry.

Met Uncle Donny for breakfast. Last night we took in the Rideau Canal and a set of locks that helped with transportation from Ottawa to Kingston when boats were the main source of travel.

There are two federal prisons here; we could not get in to visit Paul Bernardo who is in the crummby old one. The minimum security prison looks like a chateau.

We are heading to Montreal.

This email is made possible by Best Buy who said come on in and send your e-mail message using our wifi.

Cheers

September 22, 2006 Thursday

New vetrans' memorial in Queens Park Downtown toronto reflections

Toronto is a busy city. The downtown core is more spread out than Vancouver. We visited the new veterans’ memorial that was unveiled by the province of Ontario in Queen’s park. There are many boardwalks along Lake Superior. We walked one that Marg’s Mum and Dad walked in their youth. Another highlight of Toronto was visiting the home that Marg’s Mum grew up in on Scarborough St. near the Scarborough Bluffs. The current owner’s invited us in and gave us a tour and indicated the changes that they implemented.

My cousin Eric and his family hosted our motor home and we stayed at my Aunt’s apartment.

Marg and I drove into downtown Toronto on a Saturday and found a spot to park the beast. We then walked Queens and University Streets. Queens is like Robson Street, but not as European. John Fluvog has a shop on Queens.

The weather was not cooperative and this prevented us from taking an elevator up the CN Tower.

I am going to work a little harder on solving this internet problem of no service.

Toronto supports a nuclear power station on Lake Ontario near Pickering just off the boardwalk and swimming beach.

Cheers

September13Wednesday

From Britt to Barrie for lunch with Marg’s cousin, Donna who is one of the Mitchells of Mitchell Sign and Imaging. We met a merle coloured dog who is attached to Donna’s ankle. This type of dog is owned by QEII only her dogs are reds. Name the type of dog to win a prize.

Next stop is Newmarket to meet Marg’s cousin, Ruth. We jabbered on and on and it rained and rained. The kind of rain that would cause a major wash out in Kelowna. The wipers would not go fast enough to clear the water on the window. Ruth has invited us to sit in her and Doug’s driveway over night. There will be no moose in the Aroura campsite. This was almost a Walmart camp night.


Tomorrow it is off to Etobicoke to visit Marg’s cousin Barb and her two kids Jenny and Carson. This spring they lost their husband and Dad at 50 years old. Keep them in your thoughts.

Cheers

Sunday 17

We were at Terry's cousin Barb and then off to park in Eric and Mary's garage for Saturday night. We took the plunge and drove into downtown TO. Saturday's traffic was minimal until we tried to exit and found our street was blocked due to the free concert in the outdoor performance area three blocks up--Kerry park X 7. This is the place where Beyonce did a free concert the night before.

The city traffic interchanges are brisk and nobody except Marg and I leave space between the vehicle in front-whoosh, zip, zip, zip, whoosh.

Overcast and a bit humid.

We are off to have a few adventures with Terry's Aunt Aud.

We are in the big TO as my Aunt Aud would say. One burb runs into the next until one is right downtown. Wow, what a series of rain storms we went through all day and night. Two hundred homes were evacuated due to flooding.

Last night we were at Marg's cousin Ruth and tonight it is Marg's cousin Barb. Barb and her two kids are in Etobicoke burb.

No pictures of TO yet but working on it. I will back fill when I can. Sites are still hard to find.

cheers

Kenora on Lake of the Woods

Then there is Kakabeka Falls after Fort Frances. In Fort Frances there is a good reason to behave: cousin Colleen the cop!

Cheers

SundaySeptember10

Made an unexpected stop at a Canadian Tire store as when I tried to start ye ol diesel dog, she sputtered and died. This CT store did not do diesel and so off we went as today is Sunday. I am hoping that going down to two degrees was the, problem and that the glow plug was not really ready to go. No problems the rest of the day.

Lots of bog, lakes, rocks and trees; no moose or mousse!

Tonight we are near Marathon. I went out looking for moose. The game bag was filled with squirrels and a rather chubby chipmunk. Lots of mushrooms for food. The forest is very dense with lots of skinny trees.

I am not too happy with one beady eye at the Terry Fox memorial near Thunder Bay. While I was generously breaking off a piece of my Tim Horton’s toasted BLT on whole wheat, the little bugger picked up the top half of my untouched bun, avec tomato and took off with it. The tomato slid off and another of the squirrels took it. Marg thought that this was very funny. We enjoyed riding a few miles along Terry's Highway of Courage.

Cheers

Monday September 11 and we are at the Soo. Yea, the campsite has wireless. Lake Superior is beautiful. The small lakes cradled in the Canadian Shield are very pretty. Marg did most of the driving today--good job Marg.

We were in the town that means wild goose. Tell me the city and you too can win a prize. There is an iron goose on a huge pedastal as you enter this town. Don't forget to go to Young's General Store and get your camping basics--fudge and live minnows. Congrats to Fran for guessing Grand Forks.

White River claims to be the home of where Pooh started. A captain brought a bear with him when boarding the train for the European theatre of WWI.

We are in Kenora at Marg's cousin's place. Going to the cabin on Lake of the Woods overnight.

Will up date the pictures another time. The availabilit of wireless in the hay fields is nil.

Cheers

Tuesday, September 5, 2006

Warm breeze from start to finish. Did I mention that Saskatchewan and Manitoba have flies? Marg and I ran out of names to call our little winged friends-boys names, girl’s names, dogs, cats, horses etc. Right now I have a fly running all over my screen proof reading my work.

The sunflower crop is ready to harvest. The heads are so heavy that they face the ground. The blackbirds are enjoying the early September feast.

Marg found an insect bracelet—one size fits all. Estevan was the source of this bounty. It was in an old church turned sun tanning biz and gift shop.

We have seen lots of oil pumps in the grain fields. Fields are huge and the machinery that works the fields is gargantuan.

The mh is white again. We stopped somewhere in Saskatchewan and put it into a manual carwash. It took 14 minutes to do the deed. Diesel is one, that is, one cent cheaper than regular.

DMS where are you when we need you? So many of the place names are en francais.

Thanks Renate and Tim for the chocolate slabs. I have a piece about 4 pm and the caffeine keeps me awake at the wheel until we pull off the road.

Cheers

Saturday September 3, 2006

and heading for Lethbridge to get travel insurance for Terry; Marg had hers a month ago.

We are riding a plateau and were surprised to find a McCains food plant on the prairie. Not so many propeller wind machines now and only one or two cement elevators.

Lethbridge has a wonderful trestle bridge built in 1909 to handle train traffic over a huge coulis that’s source of water is the Old Man River which we have followed for miles.

Not as many wireless connections as we had hoped. Bluie, my computer, is listing 3 unprotected networks but Bluie cannot connect.


We are in overflow camping in Medicine Hat which is situated down in a draw on the Saskatchewan River. Our site is up on the plateau which had a warm breeze and I am sure it is the same warm breeze we had in Lethbridge.

Cheers