Too tired to tell you what happened. I'll get back to you tomorrow :)
I am back finally.
OK, so, where did I leave you off. I think it was that we had to get up in the morning and drive like stink.
We were up pretty early. I think Joel was a little stressed and didn't sleep well. We could get some brekkie at the hotel so we were in there pretty early and got some cereal and stuff. Remember the couple from Calgary--the guy who was the photography instructor? We bumped into them again at breakfast. Turns out he took 18,000 images in a month in Newfoundland. And I thought I took a lot of pictures. I can't even imagine how long it would take to go through them all.
We were on the road by 5 to 7, coffee in hand. We stopped for gas, coffee and pee stops but kept driving pretty steadily. It was foggy and hard to see. We followed someone who seemed to know where he was going and pulled off when he did. I saw him inside the gas station and said that he couldn't leave without us because we needed him to get through the fog. He said that he was pulling off and going somewhere else but that we were just about out of the fog. He was right. We were out of the fog soon.
We saw all the same trees and rocks and lakes that we had seen on the way across the first time. We stopped in Corner Brook to get a sandwich for the ferry since we didn't think there was too much choice on the boat.
We made it to Port Aux Basques by about 5:00 and we were to check into the ferry by 8:00 for a 10:00 p.m. departure. We went to the check in booth and the lady there gave us our tickets but wouldn't let us go into the waiting area. We couldn't go in until 6:00. We drove around Port aux Basques (that took about 5 minutes), I called Dad to say we had made it there and then went and hung out in this sort of parking lot place. Some people had been there for 2 days waiting for their ferries. I was feeling lucky that at least we were getting on to the ferry we were supposed to be on. We met some interesting people there. One guy had driven a lot and had boats and motorcycles and Joel enjoyed talking to him. We soon got in the line to get into the actual line for the boat. We were supposed to get in at 6 but then they didn't let us in until 7:00. But that meant that we were pretty close to the head of the line.
We had some time to kill in line. We had our sandwiches--at them at the hood of the car so we wouldn't get any mess inside. I did some crossword puzzles and went into the terminal. There was a seating area in there with a big TV. They had a video on but it was the part before the movie actually starts. You know where they have "play", "extras" and whatever and the sound plays over and over with the same tune?? That's what people were watching. I mentioned that in order for the movie to start someone would need to press play. Someone there said that they supposed someone would push the button. I had nothing further to say.
There was still a ferry ahead of us that was loading and preparing to leave. Our ferry hadn't even come into the dock yet. When the earlier ferry was ready to leave, I went over to watch it leave. It was really cool when the ship left how much water was stirred up and how long it took to settle down. No wonder I didn't see much stuff living on the bottom. It would need to have one heck of a suction cup to stay on the rocks near there.
We got to get on the ferry--finally. We were among the first to get on. People we had talked to earlier had said there is a good spot on the 7th deck. The ferry people only want one person per seat so they put up bars in between seats that could be a bench and used to lie on. And, they don't want you sleeping on the floor. Joel made me run up all these flights of stairs to get to the good spot first. It almost killed me. But we got the good spot. Joel undid the light bulb so it was dark. I could hardly keep my eyes open by this point. There was a family with teenage kids who came in and had to sit right next to us. They weren't bad but they were just a little loud. Joel asked them to keep it down and they did. I wanted to roll our mattresses right out but Joel said we should wait until we leave. So we waited. The ship finally got going, only 2 hours late. But I was OK with that--it meant that we weren't getting off the ferry at 4:00 in the morning but that it would be 6:00. I was a little nervous about driving across Cape Breton at 4:00 in the morning. There are a lot of moose there too.
The boat rocked quite a bit at the beginning and I thought we might have a rough trip--something Joel wasn't looking forward to but it settled into a nice smooth ride (or I assume it did). We rolled out our mattresses and I had my pillow and my travel blankie and I was good for the night. The PA came on to say we were docking in and hour or a half hour or something so we had to get up and brush our teeth and roll up our mattresses and get ready to go back down to the car.
We got back down there, threw everything in the car and waited. They were letting all the campers and trucks off first. That made a lot of sense. Let's let all the slow stuff off first so that the faster people will have to pass them all on the 2 lane highway that goes all the way through Cape Breton. Joel just shook his head. There was one poor guy--actually the farmer from Saskatchewan who had a trailer and a cat and a dog and his wife who had waited for 2 days in the parking lot to get on a boat--who was trapped behind someone who had not come to get their car. That would really suck because he was a little stuck.
So, we took off into the wilds of Cape Breton. It was really pretty driving through it as the sun came up. We did have to get past some slower vehicles but it wasn't too bad. we just kept driving, and driving, and driving. Through Cape Breton. Through Nova Scotia. Through New Brunswick. Even though it wasn't exciting it was a relief to finally see farms. We couldn't figure out all the difference between Newfoundland. Maybe it was because the brush was cut back further from the road, maybe it was because we could see houses--I don't know. It just felt really different.
We got to Edmonston and decided to keep going. We had decided we would stop when we got too tired. Into Quebec. Don't even get me started on the single language signage in Quebec. At least I can read enough to know what's going on. Got to Riviere du Loup. It was about 4:00 p.m. and too early to stop--Joel couldn't imagine waiting around for 6 hours before bed. Thought we would head to Quebec City. Got to Quebec City. Kept going. Got to Montreal. I was driving. There was a car crash we were stuck behind for a while. Is Montreal always under construction? Joel navigated. I went on all the roads I was supposed to. Yay. We were going to look for a place to stay on the far side of Montreal so we wouldn't get caught in the traffic the next day. Hadn't seen anywhere to stay. Then we saw the sign for Ontario that said something like 70 km. Then I began to think that if we could make it to Ontario, we would have been in 5 provinces in one 24 hour period. I asked Joel if he had another 70 km in him. He said he was OK. So, we switched drivers at an A & W. I was so hungry. Off we went again. We hit the Ontario border. Woo hoo!!!!
I knew I should have pushed harder to go over the PEI bridge. Then we could have hit SIX provinces in one day. Oh well.
We really started to look for a place to stay once we hit Ontario and didn't find anything until we got to Cornwall. We found the first place--a Super 8. It had a pool. The only place we stayed the whole time with a pool and I was too tired to use it. :( :( :( We checked in at about 9:30. I would say that was pretty darn good time.
The next day we were up and away again. We made a quick stop in Kingston to see if Bob and Patsy (and maybe Lou) were there. Nope. We left a note. I hope they got it.
We were in traffic steadily from Brockville and solidly from Kingston. Joel kept getting frustrated at all the smurfs in mohos. Translated, that means all the old people in motor homes who were doing barely the speed limit. Or, they were over taking someone who was in the slow lane at 100 km/h while they were in the passing lane at 102 km/h. Uphill. Have you seen that little clip of the cartoon guy and the computer and he is bashing his head on the keyboard until blood comes out and eventually his head pops off?? That was Joel.
We did notice a few things on our travels though.
Based on our extensive and extremely scientific study of beaver ponds in Eastern Canada, here are the conclusions of the study.
I am back finally.
OK, so, where did I leave you off. I think it was that we had to get up in the morning and drive like stink.
We were up pretty early. I think Joel was a little stressed and didn't sleep well. We could get some brekkie at the hotel so we were in there pretty early and got some cereal and stuff. Remember the couple from Calgary--the guy who was the photography instructor? We bumped into them again at breakfast. Turns out he took 18,000 images in a month in Newfoundland. And I thought I took a lot of pictures. I can't even imagine how long it would take to go through them all.
We were on the road by 5 to 7, coffee in hand. We stopped for gas, coffee and pee stops but kept driving pretty steadily. It was foggy and hard to see. We followed someone who seemed to know where he was going and pulled off when he did. I saw him inside the gas station and said that he couldn't leave without us because we needed him to get through the fog. He said that he was pulling off and going somewhere else but that we were just about out of the fog. He was right. We were out of the fog soon.
We saw all the same trees and rocks and lakes that we had seen on the way across the first time. We stopped in Corner Brook to get a sandwich for the ferry since we didn't think there was too much choice on the boat.
We made it to Port Aux Basques by about 5:00 and we were to check into the ferry by 8:00 for a 10:00 p.m. departure. We went to the check in booth and the lady there gave us our tickets but wouldn't let us go into the waiting area. We couldn't go in until 6:00. We drove around Port aux Basques (that took about 5 minutes), I called Dad to say we had made it there and then went and hung out in this sort of parking lot place. Some people had been there for 2 days waiting for their ferries. I was feeling lucky that at least we were getting on to the ferry we were supposed to be on. We met some interesting people there. One guy had driven a lot and had boats and motorcycles and Joel enjoyed talking to him. We soon got in the line to get into the actual line for the boat. We were supposed to get in at 6 but then they didn't let us in until 7:00. But that meant that we were pretty close to the head of the line.
We had some time to kill in line. We had our sandwiches--at them at the hood of the car so we wouldn't get any mess inside. I did some crossword puzzles and went into the terminal. There was a seating area in there with a big TV. They had a video on but it was the part before the movie actually starts. You know where they have "play", "extras" and whatever and the sound plays over and over with the same tune?? That's what people were watching. I mentioned that in order for the movie to start someone would need to press play. Someone there said that they supposed someone would push the button. I had nothing further to say.
There was still a ferry ahead of us that was loading and preparing to leave. Our ferry hadn't even come into the dock yet. When the earlier ferry was ready to leave, I went over to watch it leave. It was really cool when the ship left how much water was stirred up and how long it took to settle down. No wonder I didn't see much stuff living on the bottom. It would need to have one heck of a suction cup to stay on the rocks near there.
We got to get on the ferry--finally. We were among the first to get on. People we had talked to earlier had said there is a good spot on the 7th deck. The ferry people only want one person per seat so they put up bars in between seats that could be a bench and used to lie on. And, they don't want you sleeping on the floor. Joel made me run up all these flights of stairs to get to the good spot first. It almost killed me. But we got the good spot. Joel undid the light bulb so it was dark. I could hardly keep my eyes open by this point. There was a family with teenage kids who came in and had to sit right next to us. They weren't bad but they were just a little loud. Joel asked them to keep it down and they did. I wanted to roll our mattresses right out but Joel said we should wait until we leave. So we waited. The ship finally got going, only 2 hours late. But I was OK with that--it meant that we weren't getting off the ferry at 4:00 in the morning but that it would be 6:00. I was a little nervous about driving across Cape Breton at 4:00 in the morning. There are a lot of moose there too.
The boat rocked quite a bit at the beginning and I thought we might have a rough trip--something Joel wasn't looking forward to but it settled into a nice smooth ride (or I assume it did). We rolled out our mattresses and I had my pillow and my travel blankie and I was good for the night. The PA came on to say we were docking in and hour or a half hour or something so we had to get up and brush our teeth and roll up our mattresses and get ready to go back down to the car.
We got back down there, threw everything in the car and waited. They were letting all the campers and trucks off first. That made a lot of sense. Let's let all the slow stuff off first so that the faster people will have to pass them all on the 2 lane highway that goes all the way through Cape Breton. Joel just shook his head. There was one poor guy--actually the farmer from Saskatchewan who had a trailer and a cat and a dog and his wife who had waited for 2 days in the parking lot to get on a boat--who was trapped behind someone who had not come to get their car. That would really suck because he was a little stuck.
So, we took off into the wilds of Cape Breton. It was really pretty driving through it as the sun came up. We did have to get past some slower vehicles but it wasn't too bad. we just kept driving, and driving, and driving. Through Cape Breton. Through Nova Scotia. Through New Brunswick. Even though it wasn't exciting it was a relief to finally see farms. We couldn't figure out all the difference between Newfoundland. Maybe it was because the brush was cut back further from the road, maybe it was because we could see houses--I don't know. It just felt really different.
We got to Edmonston and decided to keep going. We had decided we would stop when we got too tired. Into Quebec. Don't even get me started on the single language signage in Quebec. At least I can read enough to know what's going on. Got to Riviere du Loup. It was about 4:00 p.m. and too early to stop--Joel couldn't imagine waiting around for 6 hours before bed. Thought we would head to Quebec City. Got to Quebec City. Kept going. Got to Montreal. I was driving. There was a car crash we were stuck behind for a while. Is Montreal always under construction? Joel navigated. I went on all the roads I was supposed to. Yay. We were going to look for a place to stay on the far side of Montreal so we wouldn't get caught in the traffic the next day. Hadn't seen anywhere to stay. Then we saw the sign for Ontario that said something like 70 km. Then I began to think that if we could make it to Ontario, we would have been in 5 provinces in one 24 hour period. I asked Joel if he had another 70 km in him. He said he was OK. So, we switched drivers at an A & W. I was so hungry. Off we went again. We hit the Ontario border. Woo hoo!!!!
I knew I should have pushed harder to go over the PEI bridge. Then we could have hit SIX provinces in one day. Oh well.
We really started to look for a place to stay once we hit Ontario and didn't find anything until we got to Cornwall. We found the first place--a Super 8. It had a pool. The only place we stayed the whole time with a pool and I was too tired to use it. :( :( :( We checked in at about 9:30. I would say that was pretty darn good time.
I slept really well that night.
The next day we were up and away again. We made a quick stop in Kingston to see if Bob and Patsy (and maybe Lou) were there. Nope. We left a note. I hope they got it.
We were in traffic steadily from Brockville and solidly from Kingston. Joel kept getting frustrated at all the smurfs in mohos. Translated, that means all the old people in motor homes who were doing barely the speed limit. Or, they were over taking someone who was in the slow lane at 100 km/h while they were in the passing lane at 102 km/h. Uphill. Have you seen that little clip of the cartoon guy and the computer and he is bashing his head on the keyboard until blood comes out and eventually his head pops off?? That was Joel.
We did notice a few things on our travels though.
Based on our extensive and extremely scientific study of beaver ponds in Eastern Canada, here are the conclusions of the study.
- There are many beavers in Newfoundland--too many for an accurate count. I would say at least 12.
- There are beavers in 50% of the ponds in Nova Scotia.
- New Brunswick is rife with beavers.
- There are 2 beavers in Quebec.
- No beavers at all live in Ontario.
We also noticed something else. Down near Brockville, some of the leaves are changing. We had a good yell at those leaves so that should solve the problem.
We saw more police between Cornwall and Prescott than we did in all of Newfoundland for 8 days.
We saw 2 people getting their cars impounded by the OPP on the highway. Or at least that is the assumption we made when we saw police, a tow truck and a cab all in the same place at the same time.
We determined that Ontario drivers are self-important dumbasses and the more expensive the car, the more important the person driving it seems to think they are. Therefore, they have the inalienable right to butt in and cut off anyone they want. I'll take the Newfoundland drivers any time. They have a much better sense of driving fair play.
I have also concluded that people who travel only by GPS are missing out on the experience of the paper maps. How can you get a sense of the lay of the land when you are only looking at 4 inches square of a map at any one time?? Yes, I am a Luddite in many ways.
We got back to Joel's house in Whitby right where we began. We unloaded the car and then Joel had the Q Tips out cleaning out the car. I watered the plants and did a crossword puzzle. I was waiting to get the car to go to Aunt Joyce's to go for a swim. I went over there and Magnus and I played around the pool for a while. Back to Joel's. I was really ready to go home but we had to wait for the traffic in Toronto to clear.
Finally we were off to my house but had to stop at Mom's to change over the cars--moved all the stuff from hers into mine and Joel's and I was at my house by 9:30!! It was nice to be home.
I think Merlin and Pixi were actually happy to see me.
I slept well again last night. And now, things are all back to normal. Good or bad, that's the way it is.
So, I guess this is all I have to say about things for now. I hope you have enjoyed the trip. I had a great time doing it and it was fun telling you all about it. I hope you weren't bored to tears.
.jpg)
