La Belle Province Quebec

We crossed the boarder into La Belle Province Quebec. Parlez vous Francais? Non .. but we can try. We stopped at an information centre and Jack had Ham and eggs at the restaurant there and I had Poutine. Ah…welcome to Quebec.

Drove through Montreal and under the St Lawrence River via a tunnel and camped at an RV park just on the other side of the city. There is a lot of construction and detours all around the city, The traffic has been very busy. Once again “Tom” has been more than worth the cost of purchase.

Montréal is beautiful. We drove downtown and saw the old section. We walked around in the old part and had dinner in a small restaurant where I had the best Onion soup that I have ever had. … ever. Jack had venison with maple syrup sauce.. hmmm very canadienne.

Back at our campground we set up our satellite dish for the very first time and watched some TV. Enjoyed.

Today (Tuesday September 14, 2010) we drove downtown again. This time we drove around Parc Mont Royal and got a fantastic view of the city. We walked around the Mont Royal area and had lunch in a small smoked meat restaurant. A very nice man in the restaurant visited with us and we talked about Montreal, the west and language issues. Very interesting and very friendly. The cook in the restaurant made me have a beer with my meal, “can’t eat smoked meat sandwiches without a beer,” he said. Jack had pulled pork and I had brisket, Jack also had mac and cheese with a very hot 911 sauce. It was a neat experience.

Ontario cont'd

After leaving Kitchener at 4:00 p.m on Friday afternoon, we drove the “401” right through Toronto and out on the 427 highway over to Yonge street to Oakridges. Yes we did! It was crazy busy with all the lanes, people and the traffic, but Jack did great and Tom (our GPS) was invaluable. We stopped in Oakridges and called our friend Paul for directions. Once again we were graciously welcomed at the VanNostrands’ homestead where we had a wonderful visit with Mike and Betty. Also had a great quick visit with Gary and Paul’s other brother David. VanDorf/Aurora is a beautiful area. Some of the homes are remarkable… real estates. Mike took us over to the Trillium equestrian centre where they board horses and train children to jump and show them. This is an amazing estate, very beautiful.

From the Van Nostrands we drove to Ottawa. We were going to overnight at a campground and then see some of the sights. However we got to Ottawa late and just parked in Costco parking lot. The security guard checked us out and made sure it was okay for us to park there. We pulled off the highway and stopped near the Scotia place arena, but we didn’t see any senators.

Pics to pause

Firstly.. Life is not sooooobadd afterall

Lutheran church Tavistock
Lake Superior Great Grandfathers tombstone
Bridal Veil Falls Manitoulin

Relatively Speaking

This next part of our trip started at 6:00 a.m. (yes in the morning…alarm clock needed) on Labour day Monday. We wanted to catch the 9:00 o’clock ferry. No, we did not have a reservation. However, it turned out we didn’t need one. We were first in line for standby and got the very last oversize vehicle spot. From there we drove all day towards Windsor. We thought naively that we would stop at one of the many campsites that we had passed by so far on our trip. Turns out there are not as many campsites available in that area and at around 10:00 pm we were tired and needed to sleep… We spent our first night sleeping in a parking lot next to a LCBO outlet. J

We met Jack’s cousins and spent a grand few days visiting and eating. It was great to meet and visit with Wayne Bottomley and his wife Dee in Belle River It was also wonderful to visit with Jacks cousin Carrie, her daughter Cindy and grandson Joel who live in Windsor. From Belle River and the Windsor area we went North East into New Hamburg and visited with Jacks cousin Donna and her husband Wayne. We spent many great hours with Donna and Wayne seeing the beautiful area and exploring Jacks family history. Donna and Wayne took us to the Tavistock Lutheran church graveyard where we saw many of Jack’s ancestors’ grave stones. In particular we saw his great grandfathers John Krantz’s grave. It was a neat feeling to see first hand some of where the Krantz family came from.

Thank you to all of the relatives who fed us (royally) and treated us so warmly. It was Jacks first time to meet with his cousin Wayne and the first time in around 55 years to meet with his cousin Donna.

The landscape and architecture around the New Hamburg area is beautiful. Rolling hills, well established farms with a large traditional Mennonite community complete with horse and carriages and no electricity. Some of the older homes are beautiful large stone and wood houses. We also saw the very first Home Hardware store. There are a lot of small crisscross roads and homesteads. Easy to get lost in. This would be a great place to come back and visit for a week or more. Maybe we will one day.