Geneva’s Blog

We spent the last couple of days at the Antigonish Highland Games.  Imagine big strong men in kilts doing strength contests to a background of bagpipe music being played for the Highland Dance competition, and you’ll have some idea of the very Maritime-ness of the event!  It was really cool to see the men toss the caber and throw the heavy stones, as well as the tug-o-wars.  The dancers were impeccable, and oh-so-pretty in their traditional dresses.  On Friday night there was a concert under the stars, with singing, dancing, bagpiping, and such to entertain.  The highlight of the night was a surprise appearance by none other than Ashley MacIsaac, who played a lengthy song on his fiddle that went from slow and haunting to quick and infectiously toe-tapping!  On Saturay night there was a Highland Tattoo, which consisted of massed pipe bands and military demonstrations.  Very cool!  Thanks to a chance comment I had made on Facebook to a friend back home, I learned that a local lady and mutual friend was actually in Antigonish for the weekend visiting family, so we met up at the games as well.  Such a small world!!   

Today we drove to Halifax.  Because of the Nfld ferry schedule, we only have tonight to spend here, but we toured the waterfront of the harbour and ate our first Cow’s ice cream (Cow’s has been voted Canada’s best ice cream a few years in a row now!).  Unfortunately because of inclement weather as a result of a Hurricane 200 miles off the south coast of Nova Scotia, we couldn’t go to see Peggy’s Cove, but we had a lovely tour of downtown Halifax and a wonderful evening with family. 

Oops, I’m getting behind on my blog posting - my bad! 

On Tuesday we spent the day touring Quebec City – the old city behind the wall.  What an amazing thing, to be touring 400 year old streets - this year happens to be Quebec City’s 400th Anniversary!  Well, actually, as the tour guide said, many of the buildings/streets have burned/been rebuilt over the years so very little is actually 400 years old, but the layout is definitely old, and the buildings have been maintained in that fashion as well.  It makes for a very unique feel as you tour that old quarter of the city.  All in all we visited Chateau Frontenac, the Plains of Abraham, toured around the wall, and saw some very old churches and other buildings, of course.  As in Montreal, the architecture is amazing, and everything has such a history!  It was great to do a guided tour, the guide was funny but also very knowledgeable about everything we visited and passed along the way.  I would definitely recommend a guided tour if you visit!

Oh, we also passed by the stage being set up in preparation for Paul McCartney’s free concert on the Plains of Abraham July 20 - too bad we won’t be in Quebec then, otherwise we’d have to go!!

Wednesday was pretty much a driving day, we drove from Quebec City to Saint John, New Brunswick on the east coast of the province.  We did stop in Hartland along the way to drive across the longest covered bridge in the world - what an eerie feeling, like being in a tunnel!  We also drove a little bit around Saint John, what a lovely little city it is.  The houses, churches, streets, etc. are all very ‘Maritime’, or at least what I pictured a maritime place to be like.  My favourite is the houses with the scalloped trim on the roofs, they’re just so darn CUTE!

On Thursday morning we saw the Reversing Falls in Saint John at high tide, when the Bay of Fundy is pushing water upriver.  We watched a movie showing all about this phenomenon, one of the seven marine wonders of the world - for more info about the falls, go to http://www.new-brunswick.net/Saint_John/reversingfalls/reversing.html.  It’s an amazing natural wonder!  We then drove up the east coast of NB, through Fundy National Park, and took in Hopewell Rocks.  What a fantastic drive, and we happened to get to the rocks at low tide so were able to walk on the ocean floor right around the rocks!  It was amazing to think that 5 hours later, where we stood would be under 28 feet of ocean water due to the Bay of Fundy’s tides, the highest in the world.  To see more about Hopewell Rocks, go to http://www.thehopewellrocks.ca/english/index.htm  We  also rolled ‘up’ Magnetic Hill near Moncton, after having a lovely supper there; the waitress thought Carly and I were sisters, too funny!  Then, finally, we drove to Antigonish, Nova Scotia for the night in anticipation of taking in the 145^th Antigonish Highland Games.  Busy day, but neat in that unlike BC, distances here in the Maritimes are just not so big - you can get to all of these different great places with a minimum of driving!

Yesterday was a fantastic day in Montreal!!  Although it was perhaps too hot for my taste (Montreal is very humid and muggy just like the Toronto area was), it was a lovely day for touring, and tour we did.  We started off in Old Montreal, where we took a horse-drawn carriage ride through the busy streets.  Saw lots of beautiful old buildings (we’re talking 300+ years old!!), including the first Inn in Montreal, the old old fire station, and the Basilique Notre-Dame (which, unfortunately due to a wedding, was closed to the public so we couldn’t see inside).  We watched a hilarious street performer who involved the crowd in his highly entertaining ‘show’, it was a hoot!  This part of Montreal just felt so Bohemian – what a great atmosphere, it was so neat to just wander around and drink it all in!

Driving in Montreal – well, I hate to say it, but so far it’s the absolute worst city for driving that I’ve been in so far.  The streets are quite confusing (many a time even the GPS couldn’t figure things out), often there are no lane lines painted so it’s difficult as a tourist to know the proper traffic patterns, and pedestrians for the most part just cross where and when they want to ignoring traffic lights to the contrary, which is just plain scary when you’re already unsure of yourself and trying not to get lost.  However – I do have to say the actual scenery while driving around in the city is magnificent, the trees, flowers, and of course the architecture make Montreal really quite a beautiful city to be in. 

And the people - there were SO many people, everywhere, and of course most speaking French.  I LOVE hearing the little kids speak it, it’s so very cute!  Everyone we talked to (the ice cream vendor, the ‘cadets’ giving us directions, the pizzeria owner) was very helpful, all would cheerfully speak in English for us once they found out we couldn’t speak much French.  No snobbery here at all, in fact everyone went out of their way to help us if needed!  Oh, and there was this sweet old couple in a depanneur (convenience store) who couldn’t believe the curliness of Carly’s hair (yes, the high humidity and warm temperature in this neck of the woods only serve to make our hair even more wild!) – the woman wanted to touch it, and amongst the indecipherable French we could make out her question:  “Naturelle?”  It was too cute!

Probably the highlight of our day was when we spent the afternoon/evening at the Just For Laughs (en francais “Juste pour rire”) Comedy Festival.  Huge blocks of downtown Montreal are blocked off during the day for this two-week event which includes wandering street performers, booths of all sorts, parades, and of course comedy acts both on and offstage.  Carly won a Victor stuffy (Victor is the funny-looking green mascot of the festival) by throwing a ball at a target and dunking a hilarious clown into his dunk tank.  We watched a street performance by the Calypso Tumblers (whom you might have seen on America’s Got Talent last summer!) and a parade of clown-drummers, just to mention a few of the talented acts we saw.  And…we bought tickets to see MacHomer, a one-man comedy act which takes characters from the Simpsons and uses them to act out Shakespeare’s Macbeth – I can’t remember when I’ve laughed so hard!  All in all it was an amazing day!!

Just a note about pictures – I’ve been trying to download all of my pictures onto Flickr as I go, but am finding I take so many it just takes too long to do the downloading and keep up, so I’m going to try just downloading a few at a time whenever I get the chance…and do more when I get a bigger chance!

Wednesday July 9 we visited Marineland, where we saw all kinds of marine life.  We saw a killer whale show (Carly got soaked, she was right behind one of the trainers!), a seal/sea lion/dolphin show, and got to watch a walrus feeding.  We even got to feed and pet a beluga whale!!  I think my favourite of the day was the walruses.  There were three of them in the pool (indoors and air conditioned, of course, as they are arctic animals, so on a hot day it was lovely to be in there to begin with), and they are quite the funniest animals I think I’ve seen!  They would swim around the pool and while underwater stare up and down the viewing area below, then…when they surfaced near where people were standing, they would make the most hilarious sounds!  I don’t want to be rude, but, well…let’s just say their favourite sounds were similar to sounds people make but might blame on the dog.   They also chew/suck on the tips of their flippers when it gets close to feeding time, and make the funniest sucking and slurping sounds.  While being fed they did some great tricks, they’re really very intelligent and personable animals.  Very fun to watch, in my opinion!

Thursday we did the rides and splash park at Canada’s Wonderland – wow, can you say roller coaster?!  There are something like 10 roller coasters there; we didn’t do them all, but the ones we did were spectacular.  My favourite was the one where you are positioned standing up (I thought while watching it go that the line of cars with groups of four standing in each car looked like a train of robots in a factory!) – and Carly and I managed to get into the front row of the front cart, so all we could see was track in front of us as we hurtled around the track!  It was very thrilling, especially when we were completely sideways – wow!!  The waterslides in the splash park were pretty cool too, we especially liked the one where we rode together in a double tube (figure-8 shaped) down a slide into a huge bowl and eventually got ‘flushed’ into the hole at the bottom.  Given my extra *ahem* weight compared to the pairs of 8 and 9 year old kids around us, we really got some speed and height on the sides of the bowl and ended up with a much longer ride as a result, with many more turns around the bowl before getting sucked down to the bottom.  Woohoo!!

Today was our drive to Montreal, where we are now – at a quiet and lovely KOA campground about 15 miles south of the city.  Although I’d been told to expect Quebec to be quite different, it was still quite something to see it in person – I had expected the road signs to be multi-lingual, but no, they are all completely in French!  All that high school training is starting to slowly come back, but thank goodness for the GPS!!  Tomorrow should be even more exciting as we explore the city…I hope my accent isn’t too bad. J

NIAGARA FALLS DAY!!!  As spectacular as they look in pictures and on TV, nothing can compare with seeing them up close and personal!  We caught glimpses of them as we drove up alongside their outflow area, and of course the mist…you can see the mist high in the air above them, and it kept the windshield of the car wet even when we weren’t that close.  And the people - there were TONS of people, crossing the street in droves, lining the brick wall along the river, just everywhere.  We found the parking lot (*gulp* $20 to park - makes up for the fact that the falls themselves are free, I guess!) and walked up…and there they were!  The roar is tremendous, and the volume of water of course astounding - the brochure said something like the flow over the falls would fill a million bath tubs in a minute.  And *she tries not to boast, rather sounding patriotic* the Canadian part of the falls IS the best of it all!! ;) 

We did the Maid of the Mist boat ride, right up to the base of the falls (well, it felt like it anyways).  The spray was incredible, of course we all wore the blue plastic rain coats they gave us on boarding, but our hair was soaked, and I could hardly see as my glasses were fogged and wet for most of the trip up to the falls.  I did manage to get some pictures (even though I seriously thought my camera might drown), but mostly just enjoyed the rush of the experience.  Of course, it was a scorching hot day, so the dousing was actually very welcome.  All in all, it was all I expected and more!!

We’re camping at the Toronto West KOA (actually about 40 minutes west of Toronto in a little town called Campbellville) - and luckily managed to get our tent up and the fly almost pegged down when the rain started pouring down, and I mean POURING!  Very seldom have I been out in such a torrential downpour, but strangely enough it was actually warm…warm rain, the air was warm, and I never once felt cold!  New experience for me, the rain back home is pretty much always arctic cold.  So…we’re now tucked into our tent for the night, dry inside and accessing the campground wireless to post on my blog and connect with people back home.  Almost as lovely as sitting outside by a campfire would be!

We left Sault Ste. Marie a much happier pair of campers - it had rained in the night but we were dry, our fly worked well and we were able to be much more organized in re-packing the car.  :) 

Instead of going further East and then down into southern Ontario via Sudbury, we decided we wanted to ‘cut’ across Manitoulin Island, the world’s largest freshwater island (in Lake Huron).  So we did - it’s a small but lovely island, very rocky with lots of hills and beautiful views.  Also, if you’re a fan of the Canadian comedy band The Arrogant Worms, you might know the song they sing about the Mounted Animal Nature Trail - that’s on Manitoulin as well.  We stopped in - and the animals are no longer on a trail, they are in a small room at the back of the little lodge building.  A bit disappointing, but it was worth it just to see the animals from the song. ;) 

And then there’s the Chi-Cheemaun ferry, which leaves from South Baymouth and takes passengers to Tobermory.  Like Lake Superior, there is a long while where you can’t even see the other shore!  We had a neat experience while waiting for the ferry, too.  We were in the car, in line, and these two guys walking by crossed the road behind our car.  We could hear them comment on the Northland Dodge sticker on the back of my car (Northland Dodge in Prince George is where I bought it, of course), and then they came to my window and showed me their jacket, which showed them to be from Prince George!  They were on motorcycles doing much the same thing as we are, toodling across the country seeing the sights.  Of all places to meet someone from back home, and we end up waiting for the same ferry as people not only from BC, but from an hour away from home.  Too funny!

Boy, if I thought it would be easy to get internet along the way on this trip. I was mistaken!  I mean, if I hunted it down and put much more effort into it I could get it somewhere I suppose, but to just find it along the way is a bit more difficult than I had imagined.  Here I am today, Monday morning, posting almost a week’s worth of travels using the first stable wireless I’ve encountered since Red Deer - at the KOA campsite in Sault Ste. Marie!!  Not even in an apartment in Winnipeg could I find wireless, but luckily most KOA’s have it - go figure. :)  We’ve stayed two nights now at KOA’s and are in love - we’re far from expert campers and are definitely not ‘roughing it’ people - KOA’s are friendly, clean, usually have a pool, and most especially feel SAFE!! 

Anyways, be sure to check out the two previous posts to this one as well, I’ve summarized events since leaving Red Deer on Tuesday morning.

On Saturday we drove from Winnipeg to the KOA campground just outside of Thunder Bay.  Boy, people weren’t exaggerating when they said Ontario is huge - we travelled a full day and we’re barely in!  It feels very much like BC here: it’s mountainous, the forest looks the same for the most part, lots of lakes and creeks/rivers, etc.  One thing I found immensely interesting were all of the rocky outcroppings along the highway, there are SO many, and we noticed as we drove that there were hundreds of little Inukshuks on these rocky mounds.  They’re all over!  Every corner there’s a new rocky thing at the side(s) of the road, and almost every one has an Inukshuk, or even two or three.  I’m going to have to try to find out more about this phenomenon - if anyone knows more about it, I’d love to know! 

Saturday night was our first night camping since we left home - we’d managed to stay at relatives’ places so far along the way until Ontario. ;)  We swam, had a wiener/marshmallow roast, etc., and just enjoyed the lovely evening, it was still very warm (as it’s been the whole way across the country, in fact).  However, there were a few hitches along the way.  First - we discovered one of our tent poles was broken just where it fits into the next section of tent pole.  Likely this happened when it was set up at home.  So…out came the duct tape (I knew there was a reason I packed a brand new roll!), it works but there’s still a serious bend in the pole that may or may not hold as we camp daily.  Will likely look for a new pole at the next Canadian Tire we find.

Second hitch - it was such a lovely evening, we didn’t put the fly on the tent (lulled into a false sense of security no doubt by the extremely good weather we’ve had all week!).  Which was fine for the night, we had a lovely sleep, I woke up early and sat reading on a chair for a long while and watching the chipmunks scour neighbouring campsites looking for food.  Then, around 7:30 the heavens opened up and we got DUMPED on - pouring rain!  We packed up quick and beat a wet, hasty, and disorganized retreat, and continued on our way to Sault Ste. Marie. 

The road from Thunder Bay to Sault Ste. Marie follows the northern shore of Lake Superior much of the way – it’s HUGE and definitely superior!  Often you can’t see the other shore, it looks like the ocean it’s so big.  We stopped at Old Woman Bay, a sandy beach on the lake, and dipped our toes in the lake.  There were big waves rolling into shore, just like the ocean!  As we drove we saw lots of lovely views, rocky little islands, outcroppings, lovely coves, etc.  Not lots of sandy/gravelly beaches, often the lakeshore is sheer rock!  As well, we continued to see lots of little Inukshuks along the way.  Got to the KOA campground just north of Sault Ste. Marie and this time were much more organized, putting up the tent and fly properly and finding proper places to store our gear.  Will be much better packed tomorrow, and I daresay camping experts by the time we get home! J

Thursday was pretty uneventful.  Got an oil change in Moose Jaw (the first for my new car, we were already just over 5000 km - will likely be a couple more before we get home!) and then set out east.  On our way through Regina we took a small detour north to visit an EBUS family’s parents’ home, the Haryetts’ farm.  They have a huge red barn that is featured on postcards for the province of Saskatchewan!  Unfortunately when we got there the Haryetts weren’t home, but we had been told to have a look around when we got there regardless, and so we did.  The barn was lovely, and of course Carly wanted to take all 8 of the kittens there in the barn home with us!  We left a note for the family and then drove on, stopping in Brandon, Manitoba for supper and then on to Winnipeg.  We stayed the next two nights at our Aunt Joan’s apartment. 

Friday we visited and toured the Winnipeg Legislative Building first thing in the morning.  It’s touted as one of the most elaborate/fancy provincial government buildings in the country - and it was amazing!  It was built during World War I and was built to fit an estimated Manitoba population of about 3 times what the actual population is now, so it’s much bigger and more elaborate than you might expect.  The tour guide had some great stories - my favourite was how they got the Bison statues into the building.  They were late in coming, so instead of being lifted in by crane through the open roof as planned they had to be brought in the front somehow as the stained glass dome was already on the building by the time they came.  The floors are Italian marble, and each of the bison statues weighs over 5000 pounds, so they had to figure out a way to get them in without damaging the floors.  So…legend has it they waited til winter, flooded and froze the floor, cut two huge slabs of ice from the river, and brought the statues in on these slabs of ice - all to protect the priceless marble floor from scraping!  The guide did mention that as the statues are not pinned, glued, or in any way fastened to their pedestals anyone would be more than welcome to try and take them - although the front door as it is now is much to small to get them through anyways…never mind the weight!

Today we also toured the Royal Canadian Mint, where circulation coins are made.  They make 15 million coins per day, including coins for around 80 countries besides Canada (Italy, Thailand, etc.).  We saw all sorts of coins in all states of progress, including toonies without their centres!  We weren’t allowed to take pictures of the coin-making process, however, although I would have loved to show you how it all works - fascinating!! :(  

For the afternoon we walked along The Forks, where the Assiniboine and Red Rivers meet - lovely park, market, etc.  Our last must-do for the day was to stand at the corner of Portage and Main, one of the most famous street intersections in Canada - supposedly it’s the coldest and windiest corner in our country! J

Tuesday we drove from Red Deer to Moose Jaw via Calgary.  We passed through a ton of little towns along the way, seems there’s one at every corner (or should I say meandering dog leg, there are very few actual corners on the highway between Alberta and Saskatchewan).  I’ve driven this route before, or at least been on it, twice, once as a teen and again when Carly was just a 10-month-old baby.  It wasn’t quite as flat as I remembered, there were still lots of rolling hills in places.  We met our Aunt Sandra in Moose Jaw, had supper, and then shifted our gear (which incidentally filled up the entire back seat and hatch area of our car!) enough to cram Carly in the back seat, in order to give Sandra a ride with us to Assiniboia, our night’s destination.  (Sandra has an apartment there in a lovely old building, as well as a store/shop where she makes and sells glassware and jewelry - some of her work is even in the local Art Gallery!).

Wednesday was a big day for us, especially Carly who is a HUGE fan of the show - we all went to a tiny town called Rouleau, about 25 minutes souteast of Moose Jaw, to see the Corner Gas set!  They built the gas station on the outskirts of this real little town, and they actually film their outside scenes there and at other locations around town.  Inside scenes they film at a sound stage in Regina, which is where the cast and crew were today.  We had hoped they might be there filming and that we might even get a few autographs, but as it turned out if they had been filming, we wouldn’t have been able to see much of the set, so it worked out in the end.  We toured around the Corner Gas station and The Ruby, signed the guest book, and chatted a bit with the two security guards who were at the site.  The outside of the gas station and the Ruby are exactly like in the show, the front made for some fantastic pictures!  The inside of the gas station is one of the few indoor locations actually filmed in Rouleau, we were able to peek in through the windows and get some great pictures of the inside set.  We also saw the Leroys’ house (Brent Butt’s parents in the show), the Police Station (which is a gift shop inside) and a few of the other buildings along main street, where many outdoor scenes are shot.  Of course we bought some souvenirs.