Ontario and Quebec

So this morning we woke up to a beautiful sunny day. Steve had gotten up earlier and turned our new heater up to high, and it was toasty warm in the tent, but very chilly (not quite frost) outside. Our campsite was next to a small lake, and the steam was rising off the lake, making it all very magical. We had a breakfast of cereal, coffee, and strawberry muffins, and headed off after getting the tent packed up. We are getting pretty efficient at packing up the tent by now.

We passed Ottawa and stopped at a tourist info center and decided to alter our route a little, and go off the beaten path for the night. We stopped at a cheese/chocolate/apple store along the way, and have some wonderful cheeses stinking up our ice chest. We are working on eating the chocolate caramels.

Tonight we are staying at Le Cite de la St. Lawrence B&B in St. Alexis-des-Monts. It is definitely off the beaten track. We are the only guests and the place is in a quiet small rural French Quebec town. I actually miss my little trailer tent nest, which is compact and cozy.

We had a pretty exciting day today. Steve is a great driver, he has maneuvered our rig down the highway amid the roaring semi’s, through pot holes, through construction gravel and traffic that was just insane, learned how to back the bike and trailer up, and has not yet dropped the bike! But the most masterful thing he did today was to get us on the ferry from Hudson to Oka. I have never seen a ferry like this one before. It is pulled by a power boat back and forth across the river. After the ferry is loaded, the power boat takes off and tugs it across and picks up speed as it gets near the other side, then steers to the side and gets out of the way as the ferry sort of rams into the other side. What an experience! But even better was getting the bike and trailer on and off the ferry. The approach has about a 10 inch drop, so the ferrymen put out some boards for the tires to go on. But the drop is not completely covered up, there are still gaping holes to drive into. So they directed Steve across the boards, and after the bike crossed, they quickly moved the boards so that the trailer wheels would also go across and not into the holes. I was screaming as I watched this happen getting on the ferry (I had insisted on getting off the bike before he tried this), and laughing on the other side as they did the same thing. These guys had obviously done this a lot and had their timing and moves down perfect!

I have a few pictures, but they don’t do justice to the event! Steve said at dinner if he had known what he was going to face as we took the turnoff to Oka, he wouldn’t have done it!

Well, I guess that is it for tonight. Tomorrow we head for New Brunswick.