Friends, Family & Fauna

Ottawa to Waterloo

One of many cabinets full of curios in Glenna's house:

An anonymous barn:

My cousin's barn:

Dad's home in Burlington:

The 401 past Toronto, with it's express/collector system is a wonder to behold: 16 lanes wide & no skidmarks! Canadian drivers are just so civilized. Again, no pictures due to lack of forethought, but here's a link; just click on a camera! =)
http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/traveller/compass/camera/camhome1.shtml

My cousin Glenna & Murray Collings' big old farm in Campbellville has been in their family since the early 1800's. They've got scores of fallow dear, lilacs, knicknacks and woolie mammoths, and gave us about 50lbs (literally) of loose change and old bills to distribute amongst the siblings, plus some scribblers of Mom's from the '20s, antlers, and artifacts of unknown lineage. Good thing we're driving a Tupperware; it's getting awfully full.

There sure is a lot of farmland around here, though they're planting more houses than corn in places. There are some beautiful estates, too, especially along Cedar Springs Road, right around the corner from dad's home in Burlington, which is now up for sale. Had lunch with Uncle Walter in the old hotel in Waterdown; 2nd big meal of the day, with one to go. This whole trip has been an eating marathon.

Roman and Michelle Rak sheltered us in their beautiful Waterloo home; he's an ID guru at RIM and showed off his Blackberry prowess. Nice work if you can do it. They took us to a Woodstock concert with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and the Jeans and Classics combo, with some great guitar and vocal tributes to Hendrix, Grace Slick and the rest. Teared up more than once.

Cried for all the kamikaze raccoons and deer lining the highway too. Gee, but they must be dumb, plentiful or both.

Crossed into the States again at Sarnia. Lunch at Big Boy Burgers = good value.

Every so often you stumble into a restaurant, expecting nothing, and discover a gem. La Senorita was just so, and we had another memorable meal, after the teaser at the hotel turned out to be just that: free drinks, but no food available at any price. And no outside booze allowed? Curiouser and Curiouser.

Heh heh...found F1 Qualies live on the internet. It's in Italian, but who cares! Go Jenson!

Civilization?

Our capital:

Our radio:

Meant to tour the Parliament Buildings but spent the whole day at the Museum of Civilization. Here we are 10,000 miles on, and the very first display we see is about the Musqueum reserve, two blocks from where I grew up! I thought "I came all that way to see THIS??" But we never even made it to the third floor, the place is so full of interesting stuff. They even had our kitchen radio...boy, do I feel old now.

Had a Chinese feast at Aunt Rachel's, and reacquainted with cousin Ted (after 40+ years) and met his wife Christine. Does he look like his dad! Same twinkle in the eye. He used to race Mini's, now he just tinkers. Here's one of the surviving loves of his life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6iyVSakz4U

...and then the trail went cold.

Really cold! It was one degree overnight in Quebec, but warmer today in Ottawa, where Brandon, Morgan's ex, has revived my laptop, and our blog is alive once more. He's also graciously relinquished his bed to us, and cooked an excellent steak dinner last night.
Brandon's named his golden retriever 'Carmen', which I should find offensive, but he showers the thing with so much love that it's obviously meant as a tribute. Hmm....

His new mate Drew is in stem-cell research, but it doesn't show. No Frankenstein ambitions.

Today it's off to the parliament buildings and museums, for the usual tours, then dinner with Aunt Rachel in Nepean. If I'm not still full.

Quebec City

Strong headwinds and showers buffeted our little box all the way down the St. Lawrence to Quebec City. We've been lucky with the weather though; only about 1.5 days of rain TOTAL since we left Vancouver, nearly six weeks ago. The roads were pretty quiet too; Queen Victoria's birthday doesn't seem to be a big deal here for some reason. We stopped at the first indigenous 'restaurant' we recognized (from all the road signs) St. Huberts, but mistakenly walked into the take-out entrance, and not finding a place to sit, had to eat in the car. Duh.

Then we drove downtown and walked around the old city until we'd burned thru two sets of camera batteries, and with sore feet, sat on the street with the laptop, 'borrowing' wifi from an anonymous donor so that expedia could find us a home for the night. Very, very strangely, it put us in an excellent hotel, 4.5 miles across town, and RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the VERY SAME St. Huberts where we'd bought lunch!!! Wow...life is weird sometimes.

Our arrival coincided with anti-homophobe day here, which was quite cool.

Quebec City is without a doubt the nicest town in Canada, maybe in all of north America. They obviously value and have preserved their history here. It hasn't been re-created, as in so many places, but lives on, uninterupted. Their melodic language fills the sidewalks and shops, and there's no evidence of the anti-anglophone sentiment that we feared. Maybe it's because we always try to converse in French, no matter how pitifully. Our hosts have been, without exception, gracious and accommodating. The whole place oozes charm and pride. Beautiful! Speaking of oozing, we happened into Casa Calzone, home of the best, what else, calzone anywhere. Scrumptious! This little family-run eatery alone was worth the trip here.

New Brunswick revisited

(.......above photo is in Halifax, actually)





Felt a lot better about New Brunswick on the way out. There are a lot of prosperous and attractive farms here, and I feel bad about slagging Saint John! We really had little time in Nova Scotia, either, as the race to Halifax kind of did us in, and we'd felt we'd 'been there, done that' and had best keep motoring. The highways really offer little to look at, unfortunately being mostly cuts through endless forest, but it's the same from here to Florida, so what's to expect?

Cape Breton

Robbi's welts continue to grow and spread, and we may have to forego our tour of Halifax harbour today, in favor of a visit to Emergency.

Yesterday we drove the Cabot Trail, which can best be described as the old Sea-to-Sky Highway without all the assholes. It was virtually empty, and a real pleasure to drive. It's a good thing we ate first, though, as the tourist season hasn't arrived here yet, and EVERY restaurant was closed. There's still snow here! Bought a CD of Atlantic women's music to accompany us, which was very nice. Once again, the views that haunt me are the ones I couldn't photograph; I need a movie camera permanently running, attached to my head.

Day 40!

Hard to believe it's been 40 days. Today we spent $97 on gas, and still haven't made it out of New Brunswick. Can't help but feel that our race thru NS and NB has denied us the best scenery, but we did chance upon the longest covered bridge, and some pretty scenic spots. Actually saw a moose too, so the signs don't lie. We're in a cheap dive in Edmundson, with 'free' wi-fi that you can't connect to, and anyway no google-related app will run on this laptop anymore. Bizarre. Got the full poutine treatment from two charming young francophone filles at a new little restaurant where we felt like their very first customers. Stuffed. Happy to be back in Canada with good ol' Canadian TV, though and was even able to watch Man. U clinch the English title with a fiercely fought 0-0 draw over Arsenal.

Lots of French spoken here. Wished I'd learned more. Robbi's swelling is going down, just a painful itch remaining. Didn't need hospital treatment, just some anti-inflammatory medication and calomine lotion.