Month: July 2018

Ontario’s humid heat wave continued this week, as we met up with family and old friends in and around Orillia. Pictured below are some of the highlights:

Deb &  Rob, Betty & I almost missed meeting up with Ann & Frank, as they were on a different level of a very large Orillia restaurant.

Update to The Best Laid Plans…  Before arriving at McRae Provincial Park, we spent the night and day at Hitch House, a large motorhome dealership between Barrie and Orillia, hoping that their service department could fix our living room slide that had failed to retract at Pancake Bay.  Despite making the appointment as soon as it stopped working, Hitch House staff didn’t actually look at our coach, but spent the time searching on-line for a replacement slide motor, which apparently they couldn’t find.  So we spent our visit with family and friends in a reduced living space, hoping that the repair would be completed at the end of our stay.

When I called Hitch House on Tuesday, I was told they were unable to find a motor, and we would have to wait until a week Wednesday for them to check the breaker, which was the other possible cause of the failure to slide.  Instead, we visited Heidi’s RV at 3982 Hwy 11 South, RR#2 Hawkstone, ON, and although they only have 1 motorhome tech on staff, they fit us in right away – even though they were extremely busy – fixed the problem (a wiring issue, not a dead motor) and had us on the road again in less than 2 hours! Yeah for Heidi’s!! Not so much Hitch House…

Also, Weber came through with the replacement bbq hose, which Andrew shipped to Orillia, along with TireMInder locking nuts from Minder Research, and other mail. Yeah for Weber, Minder Research, and especially our son Andrew!!

That’s all the excitement we can handle for now. Here’s hoping that our overlandish odyssey is able to continue without too many more things going awry.

Cheers!

On another hot and steamy day, Gavin took time out of his busy schedule to make appearances at the Supreme Court of Canada, Parliament Hill, and the Chateau Laurier Hotel, among other stops. (OK, they weren’t actual stops… The pictures were taken from a moving Smart car as we wizzed down Wellington Street. LOL)

According to Google, the title of this post says we have arrived in Quebec, but

everything here is written in French, so I don’t know for sure… LOL.  This is when we really need our kids and/or grandkids to accompany us as translators.  OK, it would also be great fun to have them here to share the experience of visiting this most unique Canadian province. (I suppose, to be sensitive to the Quebec separatists, I should distinguish it from the other Canadian provinces by calling it this unique land– this unique nation seems just a little too far… LOL)

In any event, we are at Camping Choisy, just west of Montreal. The heat wave is continuing, and we are thankful for good 50 amp service that has allowed us to run both air conditioners throughout the night. It is a large campground on the Riviere Raquette, and it has 2 piscines, so we are hoping to go swimming today, if that is appropriate to do in a piscine… I sure hope it doesn’t mean bathroom! LOL

Betty is now able to affix another sticker to our map of North America, and we are looking forward to posting more pictures and stories from this great, unique (please choose one of the following: province, land, nation, other…)

 

 

à votre santé

(Cheers!)

Back in the day, the motto on Quebec license plates identified it as “the beautiful province”. More recently, the tag is “Je me souviens” meaning “I remember”. Not sure what I remember yet, but I do know that this is one beautiful province!!

After our stay in Rigaud, we braved Montreal traffic, coming out the other side for a nice Boondockers Welcome stay in St. Hyacinthe, Quebec. Our sweet host there, Lisette, invited us in for tea & cookies before a quiet rural night’s stay. The next day we topped up at

Drummandville Costco (in preparation for Bet’s 65^thbirthday celebrations) and headed for Quebec City, ending at a Harvest Host winery – Vignoble Domaine L’Ange Gardien– just east of the city.

This winery is simply fabulous –

from the wine-tasting, to meeting and chatting with the proprietor, to settling into our free camp spot with a fresh baguette, a bowl of Betty’s chili, and a glass of fine wine! The pictures don’t do justice. It doesn’t get better than that!

Except for the fact that we arrived early enough to take our Smart car for a zip around Île d’Orléans, an island in the St. Lawrance River off the coast of Quebec City, both assessing the capacity of the roads to handle our motorhome,

and checking out a campground where we could stay to celebrate Betty’s milestone birthday (not to put too fine a point on the date. LOL). After a most scenic drive on roads too narrow for the Boy, we arrived at Camping Orleans on the island’s eastern tip, and after confirming that a wider road could be used for access, we booked a site.

Now it must be remembered here that everyone it seems, but us, is speaking

French, and some of the local French Canadian inhabitants don’t speak English. When the campground attendant told me the price of our site was two thousand, one hundred and fifty dollars, I almost freaked out, until the person in line behind me corrected his placement of the decimal point. OK, we can handle $215. for our stay in this gorgeous park in this beautiful province! LOL

We look forward to posting more pictures of this quaint island and the nearby historic city. I’m sure our adventure will create many long-lasting remembrances of la belle province!

à votre santé

(Cheers!)

This post is dedicated to the most picturesque island of Île d’Orléans, which is situated in the St. Lawrence River only 5 km from downtown Quebec City. There is more or less only one narrow road that circles the island, which has been described as the “microcosm of traditional Quebec and as the birthplace of francophones in North America”.

Today, for Betty’s birthday, we took a drive from our campground – Camping Orleans – on the eastern point, to the western point, about 20 miles away. These are some of the 193 pictures we took, mainly from a moving Smart car, as there was little or no room to pull over…

à votre santé

(Cheers!)

Québec is always rated in the top 10 North American cities, if not

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Betty & I left Île d’Orléans this morning, our plan was to park our motorhome at a Québec City Walmart, and drive the Smart for a quick tour inside the walls of the old city. Parking at the first Walmart was regulated by a connected mall, so we couldn’t stay there. At the second Walmart we couldn’t park because of a city by-law, but we would likely be OK if we went to one out by the airport. Staff were apologetic, and we were disappointed.

While Betty & I have both visited and thoroughly enjoyed the old city on a number of occasions, Charlie must have gotten into something at the winery that upset his stomach, and we doubted he’d be happy cooped up in the motorhome while we toured the city again. So we decided to head for the bridge to the south shore, and explore the more tranquil, rural serenity leading to the Gaspé.

Was it supposed to be est or oeust? Gauche or droite? Samantha (our gps) or Betty (our navigator)? Not wanting to focus too much blame here, but the CruiseMaster ended up cruising hilly, narrow streets it never should have been on!! In spite of our intentions, we ended up seeing much of the city centre, passing the legislative buildings and, if we had turned left instead of right, we would have taken out the old city gate, along with our a.c. and solar panels! I’m sure the modern version of the Plains of Abraham battle wouldn’t have turned out so well for us!

So confession time, the few pics attached to this post were actually taken on a

previous trip. You can tell by the fall colours and heavy coats. For some reason, Betty was buried too deep in maps to take any pictures this time around. LOL

To decompress and catch up on laundry, we have stopped at a nice park called Camping Pointe-aux-Oies in de Montmagny, where the Riviere du Sud joins the Fleuve St-Laurent. It’s still a beautiful day, even if we didn’t go for a walk…

à votre santé

(Cheers!)

Our overlandish adventure eastward, beside the ever-widening St. Lawrence

River, reminded us more and more that we were not in Manitoba any longer! Other than the relatively horizontal plain of the river, everything around us was up and down, and it continued that way until we took the ultimate CruiseMaster/ Smart car roller coaster ride to Land’s End, at the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula.  Oh, oh, will

we make it down this cliff and up the next one? Stay tuned for the answer. LOL

This post attempts to capture the olfactory, auditory, & visual images that at times seemed so extreme, creating an experience of sensory overload! The further east we drove, the more the air took on the unique fragrance of sea salt. The tides became more extreme, and the waves broke

louder on the shore. But more than anything, it was the unique architecture of homes and churches, the quaint villages nestled in the coves, and the striking vertical landscapes that captured these flat-landers. LOL. Only two dozen pictures were selected from over 300 taken since our last post. We hope they will help to convey the wonder of this amazing land!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The answer to the question in the first paragraph is “Yes, we survived!” LOL.

Betty & I are now relaxing in a beautiful campground between Gaspé  and Percé.We are taking a couple of days to decompress before heading down to see the famous rock, and are sure future posts will continue to differentiate further the characteristics of this amazing land, far from the prairies of Manitoba.

à votre santé

(Cheers!)

 

While all of the Gaspé Peninsula is quite charming and beautiful, the best known destination in the region is Percé, home of the Percé Rock. It is at the tip of an area called Land’s End, and you literally need to drive to the end of this world to see it. Yes, it’s a long drive, but it’s worth it!

The rock is surprisingly visible from far and near. Wherever we went in the area, we seemed to be at a great vantage point for seeing, and therefore taking pictures of, this uniquely shaped piece of stone. Hence the title of this post. LOL. As an aside, many of the ads for hotels and motels in the city claimed great views of the Percé Rock, and I was sceptical, until I saw how geographically layered the town is, and how prominent the boulder is!

The town of Percé appears to be a very thriving little tourist town, with busy restaurants and gift shops all up and down their main street. I’ve had a hankering for fresh baguettes and pastries for some time now, and we finally found a bakery that didn’t disappoint!  The most impressive area was the waterfront, where a

government at some level has invested significantly in designing a most attractive, accessible boardwalk, with stylish seating, swings, picnic tables, benches, and even garbage cans! (Check out the attached pic.) Of course the rock is the prime feature of the waterfront, with tour boats continuously

ferrying people out and about the natural structure and nearby Bonaventure Island.

We returned to our campsite with over 100 pictures from today’s adventure. The inevitable question was, and is, how many can we post? Well, how about 7 or 8…

Enjoy!

Cheers!