Montreal

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More Canadian Experiences:  Montreal, Quebec

May 23, 2013- May 27, 2013: We stayed about 25 km (17 miles) out of the BIG CITY of Montreal. Freeways and road construction of every sort surround this bustling metropolis.  We made our way in and out of the city several times, Mike’s excellent navigating/driving skills through different highways, byways, bridges and tunnels were pretty amazing. We were generally pleased that “Miss Maggie”, our not so always reliable GPS, was able to get us to different parts of the city and back to camp each night.

The weather was not so cooperative, it was RAINY and GRAY and WINDY and COLD (RGWC - L) we layered up and made the best of it although not without a few grumbles from this author. Even with the less than perfect touring conditions we decided if we were to see the city we should take a bus tour. We got on a double decker/hop on - hop off Grayline Tour (no we didn’t get to sit up top). The city is big and we really needed this overview to kind of get our barrings straight. Through the raindrops we were able to get organized and set ourselves up a bit of an itinerary for the following days.  There is so much to see, such a mixture of historical places, big bold modern buildings, museums, quirky neighborhoods, and ever present knowledge that you really are in a foreign country with the sounds of French being spoken everywhere.

Montreal is a city with over 500 churches, we went to the evening Illumination Show at the Basilique Notre-Dame – we enjoyed the story and the history of the founding and building of this church. The interior was amazing, so much ornate decoration and glitz!  The sanctuary seats over 3000 people, quite a place.  The church was located in “Old Town” Montreal, so while there we also took in the winding cobble stone streets, cute shops and a dinner at French Restaurant.  Very good, but over ate again!

Sunday was free museum day in the city so we tried to take advantage of it and headed back into the city to see a few of the 30+ museums. Despite the continued GRWC conditions we headed out and wandered several blocks to get to our museums. We visited the Musee McCord – with an interesting display of clothing and how cultures use clothing not only for warmth and protection, but also for show. We enjoyed a bit of walk through McGill University, beautiful old buildings and went into their Redpath Museum, there a small display of dinosaurs and fossils; by this time the museums were really filling up with families and LOTS of kids. We decided that we had soaked up enough culture, really didn’t feel like bucking the crowds, so enjoyed a nice brunch and walked a bit more of this part of the city.   

SUN!!! – Finally a break in the weather, and we took advantage of it. We headed to the Parc Olympque.  There we enjoyed a great view of the city from the Observatory – a 175 foot inclined tower high above the 1976 Olympic Facility.  We walked through the biodome that houses 5 ecosystems, over 7000 animals—we even got to see some puffins that we had missed while in the Maritimes.  We spent the afternoon walking through the beautiful Jardin Botanique, and saw some of the 30 thematic garden areas while enjoying the sunshine and fresh air.

We are glad that we had a few days to get a bit of a Montreal Experience; the city is beautiful and certainly diverse. The TRAFFIC, not so great, but guess that is to be expected in a city of this size.

Quebec

More Canadian Experiences: Quebec City, Quebec

May 20, 2013 – “Bon jour, parlez-vous, anglais?” (my high school French is sadly very pathetic, but everyone we met in this French speaking region has been very nice and tried to help us, most speak a bit of English J) Our North American Safari has exited the Maritime region of Canada and we set out to see more of this amazing part of our continent.  History, history, and history – we continue to be amazed at the age of things here. Explorer Jacques Cartier established Quebec City in 1541, this city has many of the oldest places in North America: first church, first girls’ school, museum….. . Our campground was across the Saint Lawrence River from Q.C., so we rode the ferry over and got an outstanding view of this walled city. We wandered around the cobble stone streets, enjoying some window shopping and trying to orient ourselves. Old upper town is the historical center with many museums, restaurants, fleur de leis tee shirt selling shops and some very engaging musical street performers.  Riding up the funicular railway to the top of the Cap Diamant (upper town) we were at the doorstep of the world famous Le Chateau Frontenac. Wow what an extraordinarily beautiful place. This is reportedly the most photographed hotel in the world, certainly in Quebec City; one can hardly go anywhere where its presence is not seen. We ended our first day’s exploration with martinis in the bar at the “Chateau” Quite a treat!

Funiculair

Le Chateau Frontenac

May 21, 2013 – These adventurers headed back over to the city where we made our way up the hill to Citadel. North America’s largest fort is still an active military base.  Pierre our guide gave us a very interesting and informative tour of this fortification and its history; started by the French in 1750 and completed by the English in 1850. The 22^nd Royal Regiment, the 1^st all French speaking Battalion, is the force that oversees this base. They are a very respected group and hold honors in Canada as extemporary units. The “Van Doos” (Vingt-deux. French for 22) founded in WWI earned 3 Victorian Crosses in combat. The view from this point was great one could see 360 degrees around the city. We walked back down the hill, taking in many old building and sights.  Then made our way to a sidewalk café for lunch, we were enjoying a bit of sunshine after a wet night before and misty morning.  

May 22, 2013 – Today we spent some time exploring the area of Levis. We drove up to the Terrasse de Levis (a former fortification across the Saint Lawrence River built to protect QC) and enjoyed the view of the city and beyond.  Levis is a very old area itself, with many well-preserved stone buildings, colorful residences and shops. One can see that many who work in Quebec City would live over here and go across to work. The weather was not very conducive to much walking (more rain), so most of our exploration was from the car today. Mike wound us through the narrow streets where we took in the sights of this area. We made good use of a free afternoon and caught up on laundry and a bit of organization. Living in a small space of the MoHo really makes keeping things “orderly” essential. Tomorrow we head to Montreal; we are looking forward to some better weather – tv report is giving us hopes of SUNSHINE in a day or two.

Levis

from Ferry to Levis

view from Levis

Maritime Favorite Photos

The Boys resting in the motor home

old cemetery near Glen Margaret

Lobster pots

Peggy's Cove, N.S.

Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia

The Citadel, Halifax

Here are some photos from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia

Bay of Fundy, Hope Well, New Brunswick

Concluding the Maritimes

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The Maritimes / The Atlantic Provinces of Canada Experiences: Part IV

Northumberland area of Nova Scotia, and Highway 2 across New Brunswick.

May 16, 2013 – Today we made our escape from Cape Breton, sadly leaving behind one of our favorite camp sights ever, but looking forward to moving west and seeing what more there is to see. Our morning was justly rewarded by a drive of less than 100 miles to the Glenora Single Malt Whisky Distillery in Glenville just outside of Mabou, N.S. This distillery is the only single malt distillery in North America. We had an informative tour of the distillery; they only make the “nectar” during the winter months when the water from their river is very cold and pure, but we got to see the kettles, tubs and stills used in the processes. The tasting was delightful, who knew Karen would now like scotch too – “oh no, not another vice! “ According to our guide, the Gaels invented the “Usige Betha” – the water of life; Glenora Distillery continues with that tradition. An interesting note is that the distillery uses American White Oak Barrels from Jack Daniels, just a hint of our American Whiskey in the mix. We treated ourselves to a bottle of the Glen Breton Canadian Single Malt Whisky (a bit $$, but oh so tasty).  

Glenora Single Malt Scotch Distillery

Onward and upward, we worked our way to the town of Pictou, on the Northumberland Strait. We had a nice campground with a lot of other RVers – this is the beginning of a 3 day weekend for Canada, Monday is Victoria Day, so besides all of the “seasonals” who keep their rigs on-sight year round, there were a good number of us “transients” in the house. Unfortunately the weather was not really worthy of celebrating, but everyone seem ok with just being there despite the SOGGY conditions.

This B&B was the American Consulate over 100 years ago

Friday May 17, 2013 Day # 57 – Chilly and damp but bundling up we took off to explore the nearby region. We made our way to the towns of Trenton, New Glasgow and Pictou. All had some coastal exposures, but were not especially appealing or touristy; a lot of old buildings and some blocks with sort of run-down appearances.  Karen did manage to buy herself a very bright new purse – phew she finally replaced the one with tape holding on one of the handles J. New Glasgow is definitely a working community with a steel plant and paper mill nearby. We enjoyed a nice lunch of lobster rolls and beverages at Carvers Grill and Pub, looked like it might be even more fun at night with the “open mike” hosting Celtic music groups. We returned to camp and savored just a “wee bit” of our Glenora Scotch, YUM, and sooooo smooth.

very good single malt 14 year Glen Breton

May 18-19, 2013 Saturday and Sunday were mainly “travel days”, kept on heading west out of Nova Scotia, and through New Brunswick. We made good time and covered quite a few miles despite the wet windy conditions on part of the route. The roadsides were colorful with their Spring Shades of green, many miles of pine and hardwood forests to enjoy. We were rewarded to finally see our 1^st moose (no Karen did not get his picture L), he was behind the safety fences that parallel much of the highway. We are next looking forward to seeing some of the province of Quebec.

Cape Breton Island

The Maritimes / The Atlantic Provinces of Canada Experiences: Part III

Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

Mothers’ Day, 2013 – We made our way toward the northernmost part of Nova Scotia.  Leaving the Halifax area we had a bit of rain and some pretty dense fog, but it only lasted a few miles. 

The region is referred to as Cape Breton; an island that is accessible by driving over a causeway (like driving over a dam) --- wow, more beautiful countryside was our treat today.  Our route took us about 220 miles – through roadsides that look an awful lot like the Pacific Northwest – miles of pine trees and some birch trees sprinkled in for good measure.  Our camp sight in Englishtown is probably the prettiest we have ever stayed at.  The location was right on St. Ann’s Bay – we had the place to ourselves, the campground didn’t officially open until Wednesday, but Mike called and got the owner to open it early for us (pretty convincing, guy).  The adventure for today was getting on and off the Englishtown ferry that crossed you to the campground – we got there at low tide and the pitch of the ramp onto and off of the boat was quite STEEP, bent the heck out of our hitch, oh well a relatively easy and inexpensive fix.

Joyful Journey Campground, Jesery Cove on St. Ann's Bay

May 13, 2013 – awoke to a gray but drying morning after a very rainy/windy night. Good news, no leaks detected (always a bit of concern in the middle of the night when you hear the rain pouring down).  We took the little Prius to see the city of Sydney today, not really much to see, so we drove onto North Sydney, there we saw the big ferry that would have taken us over to New Foundland, a nice drive though.  On the road we stopped at Gaelic College on St. Ann’s Bay.  They teach Scottish heritage classes in dance, drama, and music, including how to play the pipes.  Mike wants to return in the summer to learn the bagpipes.  Throughout the day the weather improved, we were able to sit out by the Bay when we got back to camp and enjoy some sunshine and warm air.

"Fiddle" Sculpture in Sydney N.S.

May 14, 2013 – Yesterday’s sunshine has turned its head on us, and we are back to the liquid form of weather.  It didn’t really slow us down, although it did cancel the boat trip we were hoping to take out to Bird Island to see the puffins that are nesting there.  We visited the local little community of Baddeck, where they have a nice looking center with information about Alexander Graham Bell;  sort of typical of our early visiting experiences, it was not open yet.

Alexander Bell, an inventor and aeronautical pioneer in Canada

May 15, 2013 – Today we set out to drive the much praised and often spoken of Cabot Trail that goes about 200 miles around the northern most point of Cape Breton. The road winds and climbs over the mountains along the Atlantic Coast. This route took us through a cute little town of Ingonish, with the most gorgeous golf course  (Jay Leno referred to it that way too). This was a great day of touring around and seeing some very beautiful ocean views and country-sides (the road is a bit reminiscent of Hwy 1 in N. California and 101 Oregon).

Keltic Resort and Golf Course

Coast view from the Cabot Trail, Cape Breton

Halifax area

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The Maritimes / The Atlantic Provinces of Canada Experiences: Part II

Nova Scotia

May 6, 2013- We headed the MoHo out on the road again this morning, after a very nice stay in Shediac, N.B.  We drove to Nova Scotia and were in camp by early afternoon. The weather was nice so we took a drive to a lighthouse on Peggy’s Cove – a picturesque fishing village.  At the gift shop Karen made one of her favorite purchases of the trip so far: hand-knit Lobster Mittens – OMG just too cute!

lobster mittens and wine from Nova Scotia

May 7, 2013 – Halifax was our destination today; we spent the most of the day seeing many of the sights in this beautiful city. We took a nice walking tour of the Citadel – a fort on the top of a hill in the center of the city. The high light of this tour was the “noon-gun” – the firing of the cannon at noon, this has occurred everyday since 1856 (with the exception of Christmas Day).  We enjoyed watching the pipers and drummers, and seeing the 360-degree view of Halifax.  We strolled the boardwalk down on the harbor, most of the shops were not open yet, no harbor tours available, but we had an excellent lunch at the Alexander Keith Brewery – good beer, great burger and fantastic “Dark & Stormy” (ginger beer and dark rum) drink!  We returned to camp to enjoy a nice sunny afternoon – sat and soaked up a few rays.

piper tuning up

noon-time cannon firing

May 8, 2013 – Sun glorious sun! We set out to explore more of the St. Margaret’s Bay Area – this is a very curvy coastal area with many inlets to explore. There are many expensive looking homes in the area - $$$, along with some places that makes one wonder how they withstand the winter snows? The 4 of us enjoyed a nice beach walk and worked up an appetite for lunch back at camp. The afternoon was very relaxing, enjoying the sun and our cove view. Took another drive back to the light house and got some good sunset pictures.

Peggy's Cove

May 9, 2013 – We finally lost our perfect weather – rain drops were falling on our heads, but the temps are still pretty moderate, so this wasn’t too big of a deal.  We drove south to the Bridgewater and Mahoney Bay area. More picturesque coastal views: there was so much color, most of the homes and business were brightly painted, maybe this is to help counter the long dark cold winters? Our lunch was a delicious feast of fish chowder and an order of mussels – YUMMY!  Our evening’s activities included some wine tasting – we are trying to pick out some good Canadian wines to take home for our wine tasting group.

May 10, 2013 – Weather report: rainy, foggy: We re-visited the Peggy’s Cove Light House this morning. The views were pretty gray and misty, but the coast is pretty in all of her climates.  On the way we stopped at the Swiss Air Flight 111 Crash Sight Memorial, the plane crashed in September1998 just off the coast of Nova Scotia, no survivors, the Peggy’s Cove area played host to many of the families and friends of the victims who came to pay tribute to their loved ones.  In the afternoon we spent a bit of time doing some souvenir shopping, enjoyed the Acadian Maple Company, excellent maple syrup! We think that tourist season must be approaching, we saw several tour buses and there were a few more shops open today.

Peggy's Bay Lighthouse and fog

May 11, 2013 – Last visit to Halifax today. We enjoyed a nice visit to the Maritime Museum of Nova Scotia – they have an excellent display of various ocean craft.  There were some amazing models of ships from very early schooners to recent military and commercial crafts. Part of the museum was dedicated to the Titanic sinking.  Halifax was where many of the victims were brought for burial.  We watched a launching of the restored Dorthea sailing ship of the Nova Scotia Sea School. This boat was restored by many of the students during the winter. There are several summer camps that will take kids out to sea (5. 10 or 14 day adventures), to learn sailing, teamwork and many other important skills. We walked the boardwalk again, doing a bit of window shopping and enjoying another delicious lunch (got to stop eating so well J).

Theodore Too a working tug boat

Maritimes Part 1

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The Maritimes / The Atlantic Provinces of Canada Experiences: Part I

May 3, 2013- Today began our 7^th week of this North American Safari – 2013. We have had quite the adventures already and look forward to more great experiences. We left Bangor Maine and drove to the Calais Border Crossing into Canada. The Boarder Inspector was very pleasant and efficient – telling us we were OVER the legal limit for the amount of alcohol that we are allowed to take with us, but he smiled and wished a good time while in Canada; nice guy! We motored towards St. Johns, New Brunswick where we had picked out a campground. After driving about 200 miles we got to the ferry crossing that we needed to take to the campground. Onto the ferry we got, 5 minutes later we were across the water and into the campground, EXCEPT it wasn’t open for the season yet! Hmmmm now what? We had pulled right off the ferry into the driveway of the campground to a closed gate. Luckily there was someone on the grounds that was able to open the gate for us to pull through, turn around and get back on the ferry. This was just the beginning of our experiences of “closed for the season”. While this did limit some of our places to stay, eat and things to do, the good news was that things are not crowded and what were open, people seemed very happy to see us. We had to drive about another 100 miles, but we found a good campground to stay in the small community of Shediac, N.B.  Shediac is a small beach town that really must bustle in the summer. This part of Canada is quite Acadian – French speaking.

Ferry to closed campground

Saturday – May 4, 2013 we drove to the Hope Well Cape – where the Petitcodiak River empties into the Shepady Bay, on the Bay of Fundy. This is a very interesting area where tides rise and fall as much 50+ feet per tide cycle. We walked the path down to the mud flats – the ocean floor. Surrounding us were some very unusual eroded sandstone Hope Well Rocks some 60-70 feet tall that looked like something out of Dr. Seuss. We were able to enjoy this experience under absolutely beautiful blue skies and warm weather, how lucky are we?

Low Tide on the Bay of Fundy

Steps to the ocean floor

May 5, 2013 – Happy Cinco de Mayo!! We celebrated by driving to Prince Edward Island (another Maritime Province). This was about 50 miles from our campground, across an 8-½ mile Confederation Bridge.  The day was amazing – more perfect weather.  We drove through picturesque farm lands to the town of Cavendish, where we walked around the home of Anne of Green Gables.  The author Lucy Maud Montgomery grew up in this area and based her stories on many of her own life experiences. The house itself was not open, but we walked around the grounds and on the Lover’s Lane and Balsam Trails. There were only 2 other cars in the parking lot. For lunch we made our way across the island to Charlottetown. We found a wonderful restaurant on the wharf where we sat on the deck and had the mandatory margarita.  We enjoyed a ½ dozen oysters, 1 lb. of mussels and two – 2lb lobsters! What a fabulous feast and all locally caught.   We returned back to camp and enjoyed a nice evening out by the campfire.

P.E.I. and the gulf of the St. Lawrence Seaway

Anne's house of Green Gables

Charlottetown seafood feast on Cinco de Mayo

Maine

Moving Through Maine

April 29, 2013 sees the traveling Wraights heading north into Maine. We had a wonderful 5 days in Connecticut, but now it is time to make moves and get on with our travel plans. Monday morning saw us motoring through Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Today we put about 250 miles under our wheels, we stopped in South Portland, Maine. The day had been another beautiful drive; we rode a lot of Highway One, which gave us many picturesque views of the water. We camped at a quiet Elks Lodge for the night. A simple dinner and a glass of wine, we were ready for bed by 8:30pm.

Guinness and his Maine Lobster

April 30, 2013 – Tuesday morning saw us continuing our Maine maneuvers – our stop for the night was the coastal town of Rockland, only about 80 miles of travel today. More amazing Maine Coastal views, spectacular weather today, how lucky can we get? We got to camp and discovered that the Elks were hosting a community lunch - haddock chowder was the special for the day and it was amazing! We took a drive into the town of Rockland and wandered along the few blocks of shops. We are a bit early in the season; many of the stores were not open yet.  It was still fun to window shop and duck into a couple of the places for an up close browse.  We had an afternoon drink at the local pub and then enjoyed our Maine LOBSTER at the Rockland Café. Not fancy, but excellent seafood!

Rockland Cafe, a local favorite

May 1, 2013 – With more of Maine to see we headed back out on the road this morning, driving towards Bangor.  Another relatively short travel day, we enjoyed traveling through a few more small idyllic looking towns and on into Hermon, just outside of Bangor for our campground. We wanted to have facilities to dump and fill our tanks prior to heading into Canada. It was nice to take advantage of the Pumpkin Patch Campground; Mike washed and waxed the MoHo; I caught up on our paperwork (paying bills, writing in our journal, typing up the blog…), did several loads of laundry and spent some time knitting. The weather, once again, was just wonderful – we have been so lucky along most of our route.

Beautiful Bridge over the Penobscot River

May2, 2013 – we took another day to enjoy a last little bit of Maine. We went into Bangor enjoying a fantastic lobster roll and chowder lunch at the Sea Dog Brew Pub. We had eaten there a few years ago when we visited last time. Sitting on the back deck over the Penobscot River, sipping a very nice merlot wine and enjoying a wonderful bit of lobster – “just doesn’t get much better!” We ran a few errands seeing a bit more of the town as we went.

Corona's favorite pub!

We are excited to set out tomorrow – we will be heading up to Canada - to see new places and spaces.

Connecticut

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Cruising Connecticut:

April 24, 2013 – Day # 34 of our North American Safari saw us leaving our little Elks Boondock in Port Jervis N.Y. and heading the almost 200 miles to S.E. Connecticut where Kristin and her partner Laura live. It was a beautiful drive through the countryside despite the “shake, rattle and roll” roads we seemed to find along the way. The MoHo seems to hold up surprisingly well through these conditions, only found one screw on the floor when I swept. We arrived in camp mid-afternoon; we stayed at a nice KOA campground in North Stonington CT, about 15 miles from New London where the “Girls” live. We drove into New London and enjoyed a delicious pasta dinner at their apartment. We spent the evening planning the itinerary for the next few days.

Guinness and Corona at camp

April 25, 2013 was an exciting day for us. We met Kris and her boss Ann at the Pawcatuck Middle School. They were teaching a class for their Violence Is Preventable (VIP) Program to a 6^th grade class. The class was talking about dealing with emotions – specifically anger. WOW – did we ever enjoy watching and participating in the class. Kris is a natural as a teacher, you can tell that the kids enjoyed interactions and responded so well to the materials and presentation. We were so impressed and proud of her. After sharing a quick cup of coffee with Ann and Kris, we drove around the Westerly Rhode Island area (just outside of Pawcatuck) a cute little down town, and beautiful old homes. We then drove down to the beach and were able to see the sand piles and some of the damage that had occurred during Super Storm Sandy – the sand had to be bull dozed back on to the beach before the Plover birds started nesting and laying their eggs; there was a lot of construction going on to repair many of the ocean front properties. Our evening was spent enjoying a wonderful pub dinner in Mystic at the Daniel Packer Inn. This is a 250-year-old place, great ambiance, and wonderful food. It was so nice to meet up with Kris and she brought Suzie (Laura’s mom) for dinner.
A WONDERFUL DAY!

Still recovering from Super Storm Sandy

April 26, 2013 – we slept in a bit and then headed into Mystic for a bit of window shopping and dining, we ate lunch right down on the Connecticut River at the S & P Oyster House. The weather was picture perfect, sunny and warm. Our seats had a ringside view to the drawbridge, to let boats pass through.  Later in the afternoon we met up with Kris and Laura in Groton, CT. We took a walk up a pretty steep hill to Fort Griswold, which was the sight of 1781- Revolutionary War Massacre let by Benedict Arnold. Then a great dinner at "Paul's Pasta".  Such history back in New England; this fort is situated on the Thames River – beautiful view and interesting standing where so much had happened.

April 27, 2013 was a day off for the “Girls” so we spent it doing several things. Our first stop was the Pequot-Mashantucket Museum – this featured so much interesting information about the S.E. area of CT and specifically the Native Americans who settled there. After about 2 hours of soaking up knowledge (J) we went back to New London for a bite to eat and a bit of a rest. We then went to an opening in New London at Expressiones Cultural Center. Kris and Laura’s friends Guido and Jose own this art studio. They were having an opening reception for Nancy Clark a New York artist showing her “Mystery of Play” Exhibit.  Along with Nancy’s pieces there was a heart warming display of art works by 16 teenagers who participate in the New London Youth Affairs program. This is one of the programs that Laura works with.

We finished the evening at “Dutch” a real working class pub.  We really enjoyed seeing the art, meeting Kris and Laura’s friends and spending time in down town New London.

Oysters on the Connecticut

April 28, 2013 – Laura’s 32^nd birthday! We had a wonderful day celebrating Laura’s birthday. We started with a nice brunch followed by a walk around an interesting and colorful little town of Chester. A bit of window shopping and stretching our legs and we were off to see the Gillette Castle. We took a short ferry ride across the Connecticut River and came off right into Gillette State Park. We were once again treated to spectacularly beautiful weather.   Gillette Castle is this quirky place designed by William Hooker Gillette 1914-19. Gillette was a well-known stage actor, writer and producer of his time. The House is made of a fieldstone that comes from the local hills.  We enjoyed a walk around the castle and then headed back to camp for a birthday barbeque. We made pizzas on the grill, and topped off the evening with a chocolate mint ice cream cake. It was a wonderful day, and had been a fantastic few days in Connecticut. After many hugs and kisses the girls headed home. We had so much fun seeing them again.

at Gillette Castle