On The Road Again ...

bj Short post .. uneventful drive back to Toronto.  Grabbed coffee/bagels at Tim Horton's in Dorint, Grabbed sandwiches/coffee at Tim Horton's in Kingston. Did laundry (lots and lots and lots of it) ....will start to pack for the next trip tomorrow. Had a great road trip! Ate too much, drove lots (well, actually Dad did all the driving except for 1 stretch to Quebec City).   We'll have to do it again sometime :) Hugs !  Mum <3 Mike Nice to get home. Cleared the mailbox from 2 weeks of junk mail. Did laundry and had a couple of hours ironing. Then to bed and up early at 5:30 am to get to work the next day.

bj Had a lovely brunch with Allie and Mark at Burgers & Benedict, served by their favorite waitress who knew exactly what they wanted -- ya think they eat there often? (hehehe).   Then we ventured on the metro and headed north east to a quaint little shopping street (like our Avenue Road/Yonge street row of  shops we've never wandered up!).  Couldn't leave Montreal without buying anything, so I purchased a lovely scarf!  After more walking and a quick lesson on geocaching, we decided to head back to Allie's "hood" to scour the little parkette near the apt to see if we could find the elusive "brown mushroom corky thing with green stripes".  After about 45 minutes of searching this tiny little patch of green (I wonder what people were thinking as they were walking by), behold!.. Mum found it, tied to a tree branch.   It was a film canister camouflaged with duct tape.  We then decided to search another elusive park near the 720.  After hour of aimlessl

bj After a quick breakfast courtesy of Tim Horton's we hit the road at 9:00 this morning for an uneventful and overcast drive to Montreal.  We arrived around noon, and wandered over to Station for lunch.  Allie met us there and we walked forever ... along St. Catharines nearly to her old stomping ground and back.  Then we headed south on Atwell to do some shopping at the market which is very similar to our St. Lawrence Market.  We visited a bit at Allie's place, then Dad headed back to the Hotel du Fort for a workout.  I stayed at Allies and we visited for awhile before heading over to meet Dad for Dinner.  Had a wonderful Italian dinner at Guido and Angelina.  More calories to work off next week. Tomorrow we're meeting Allie and Mark for brunch, then will subway to the Plateau to wander through the shops.  Not sure what we'll do after that.. and before .. you guessed it -- dinner! Mike Great to have a short 2 1/2 hr drive to Montreal. Had my first " meat d

bj Walked for miles and miles and miles today!   Explored old Quebec City including pit stop at Chateau Frontenac, took the elevator down to the riverside, explored some more.  Hmmm.. what did Mum buy today? A sweater coat; a sweater jacket, and a chapeau.  Had lunch at a quaint restaurant down by the river .. SSS .. had yummy onion soup and rib eye burger (which was really rib eye steak/roast pulled, and served on a panini burger.  Seems like all we are doing is eating! Just came back from Dinner at Crepes Breton, yummy crepes (Mum had cheese, spinach, bacon, mushrooms) and the best was the dessert crepe .. butter sugar with ice cream and whip cream. Tomorrow we hit the road again for a short jaunt to Montreal to see Allie... yummy mike Old Quebec city with lots of shops and restaurants at almost every corner. Plus musicians playing at each square, either a guitar, harp and even a guy singing opera or at least trying to. The Funicular was fun but your mom wouldn't look due

bj The drive today was long and grueling!  Up and down, around mountains, through fog, and rain, and more fog and more rain, but we made it!   Checked into our B&B about 10 minutes from the old part of QC and found a restaurant that we had dinner at 34 years ago.   I was still full from our pizza road-stop lunch so I just had soup and salad.   Dad had baked salmon in filo pastry .. and finished the dinner off with 1/4 (yes, girls.. one quarter) of a pie.  Not just any pie.  Maple sugar pie.  We had had it the last time we were here, dad has never forgotten it... it was the first thing he looked at/for on the menu!  He ate the whole thing (except I had 3 little bites)... 1/4 of a pie... yup! Tomorrow we will meander down to the old part of QC and check out all the little stores Mike What a rotten day to drive for 9 hrs. Stopped around 3:00 pm for lunch in Edmonston NB at a local Boston Pizza. Wrong decision, to have some crappy fast food for a very late lunch. I let Mom drive

bj Today we headed up to Cavendish, where the author of Anne of Green Gables (Lucy Maud Montgomery)  lived.  We toured the Anne of Green Gables House, which has been decorated and restored based on the descriptions Lucy wrote in her books.   It was very small house, and sparsely decorated.   Then we meandered along the coast, not much action, as most tourists have left the island.  Dad was surprised at how many golf courses there are on the island. Then we wandered up to Stanhope, where Dad's clients live.   We golfed at the Stanhope golf course and then had dinner with Ken and Heather at their beautiful home beside the sea.   Dinner was an amazing board salmon, yummy!  Will have to make it one day when the weather is better .. you really use a cedar plank, soaked in water overnite (so it doesn't burn) and then you put sea salt on the board.. and the salmon skin down.   Tender, sweet, and delicious!!! Tomorrow we take a marathon (9 hour) drive from Charlottetown to Quebec

bj On the Road Again... After a lovely breakfast with our very funny hosts, we hit the road to "not see" Cabot Trail, Alexander Graham Bell's town, Louisville. We took the ferry to Wood Islands, about a 1 hour ride on calm seas. We arrived around 2:00ish so we meandered up the east coast of PEI. Spotted many potato fields, and lots and lots of beaches and marinas. Checked into our B&B around 4:00... will head out for dinner (yet another Lobster feast)in town shortly. Tomorrow we are meeting with Dad's clients to play golf (hopefully, the rain will hold off for a bit). And then Dinner with them at their home. We are staying 2 nites here in Charlottetown, so dad will get a bit of a breather from driving (and mom's slow down nagging). Had a 2 pound lobster! A big bowl of mussels to start, and yummy potato salad! Dad had pan fried sole and french fries :) Mike Great to be able to catch the ferry from Pictou to Wood Island, PEI. We just got on the b

bj A beautiful sunny sunny day. Our road trip today is about 7 hours. Up the coast of NB, then over to NS, through Truro (where the Hurrican was headed yesterday), and on to Sydney. An uneventful trip, only critters we saw were Porcupine road kill. Long windy road up to Sydney; finally arrived around 4:00 ish and checked into our B&B. Our hosts Ann and Alex are a riot. Very, very funny, hospitable and the room was quite lovely with a very large bathroom. If/when we go back to Sydney we will definitely stay with them again. Dad discovered that the drive through the Cabot trail (one of the highlights of visiting Cape Breton Island) is about 6 hours. Way too long for us to attempt tomorrow as we are headed to PEI. Well, it will give us an excuse to come back. We had dinner at the Govenors Restaurant in town (Sydney is a very small town). Dad had Haddock, Shrimp and Denby Scallops, and I had a "non-menu" item; Steamed lobster with caesar salad. Mike This felt

bj We decided to stay in Saint John another nite rather than race Earl to Halifax. We were very lucky, not much effect of the hurricane other than a few downpours and wind. Earl was tracking directly to Yarmouth, Halifax, Truro, and on to PEI. The ferry to Digby was cancelled so if we were to drive today, we'd have been following Earl up the coast and then driving into it as we headed to Halifax. We walked a bit in town (not much "town"), then had dinner at Grannon's, a seafood restaurant. Dad had blueberry salmon (salmon that was placed on, and covered with, blueberries). Not that great :( Mum had NB snow crab, I've had better at Red Lobster. Oh well. We watched a cruise ship leave town (those poor people, not much to do in Saint John). But the "Canada and New England Cruise" was only $150 for 5 days -- what can you expect. So tomorrow, we bypass Halifax totally and head up to Sydney, NS. Hopefully the roads will be clear. Supposed to be

bj Mom's still frustrated with how to format this blog.  Every post is shows different html tags!  I can't figure out why some pages automatically show grey text, and some black (which have to go in and fix by replacing black text with white).  I wish there was a standard template!!! We left our B&B Captain Jeffries at 9:00 a.m. this morning after another 3 course breakfast!  Strawberries, walnut coffee cake, and spicy cheese quiche with salsa garnish.  The drive to Saint John was uneventful, we travelled inland as opposed to following the shore, as Dad wanted to get to Saint John early.  Our TV is on the weather channel and we are tracking Earl .. no worries, we will be safe :).  We didn't have lunch today, so we're going to head out shortly to find some crustaceans! mike The drive to Saint John was pretty non eventful. Lot's of speeders who don't pay any attention to the speed limit, both US and Canadian drivers. Got to Saint John around 5:00 pm. Went

bj Another round of golf for dad; so I went shopping!  Bought another bag! A lovely canvas carry-all :)  Then we went out on the Schooner Eleanor, a 50 foot 4 sailboat.  We sailed in the ocean about 2 miles from shore.  We saw the Bush compound; apparently the (former) President is in Kennebunkport right now and we saw a couple of the speedboats (secret service, we assume) heading into the compound to pick him up for a ride.   While we didn't see him (Dad was really disappointed that he didn't "show up" for the Birthday Party), apparently the Bush's and Peers' are friendly -- they attend the same church, and later this week, the Peers' family is invited by the Bush's to attend a special viewing of a film (I don't know the name) made by some Chinese director. Later that night we attended yet another "out of towner" event -- a cocktail party at the Peers' home.  Lots of food and drink, laughter and friendship.   Tomorrow we head to S

bj Another hot day in Kennebunkport!  Dad went out for a round of golf early this morning...just returned as I'm writing this post.  I wandered into town to shop a bit.. didn't buy anything!  Trying to figure out why the post Dad added a couple of days ago shows black text... still trying to adjust (quite unsucessfully) to the trackpad.  The left mouse button doesn't seem to work, and I don't have the external mouse here as I'm writing this in the garden of the Inn. Will be heading out shortly to have lunch at Pier 77 with Jim & Maryann and Chip & Lyn, then a bit more down time until we have to dress up for the big 60th Birthday Party at the Golf Club tonite.  Not sure if I'll wear the new tuxedo shoes; they're really high!  We'll see :)   Mosquitoes had a party at Mom last nite so I'm trying not to scratch!! The 60th Birthday Party was a lot of fun!  There were lots of "older" people (white hair) there from Maine; not surprisi

bj Golf day today!  Very hot today; over 90 degrees in the shade!  I managed to complete 13 holes and then decided I needed to cool off or risk feeling lousy at dinner.   5 more holes or Lobster dinner ... a no brainer!  Met a lovely gentleman a friend of Jim's from Chicago, who kept us entertained and was very patient and encouraging on this hot day of golf.   We finished around 5:00 pm, then booted it back to the Inn to shower and change for dinner. Then back to the clubhouse to meet Jim and Sylvia's other out of town guests where we were treated to a lovely Lobster bake (yay!).   "Home" by 9:30 to our wonderfully air conditioned room.  Early to bed, dad has a 6:50 a.m. pickup for a golf game with Jim Simpson and Chip. mike Sorry for the late entry but I wanted to add my two cents. Our playing buddy in our group was a man from Chicago who was a long time friend of both Jim & Sylvia and he was even sponsored by Jim & Syl to their Golf Club in Chicago ca

mike We left Manchester at 9:00 am after having a great home cooked breakfast of French Toast and sausage at the Ash street B&B. Took a slow twisting route to get to Wells, ME where we were going to play a game of Golf at the Old Marsh GC. Got there around 10:30 am and tried to see if we could get to start early and very surprised to find them busy and all booked right up to 12:00 noon. So we left to go to a local driving range to warm up. It really wasn't more than a cow pasture with a couple  of flags stuck in the ground. Anyways got back to start our game and Mom and I finished playing after 4 1/2 hours. Really slow and really HOT, drank 6 bottles of water during the round. Then to find our new home for the next 4 days. The Captain Jefferd's Inn B & B. A beautiful old place and we got the room at the top, on the 3rd floor. No elevators here so guess who got stuck carrying the bags up 3 floors ? Off to dinner with Chip & Lyn at a local place called " Hur

bj It’s 9:30 am and we are already on the road!  Leaving the bustling city (6K peeps) of Bromont, Quebec.  Darn, I wanted to drive by the IBM manufacturing location before we left; we make chips and substrates here that are sold to computer manufacturers.  Apparently they have about 1500 employees – that’s ¼ of the town population! Breakfast at our hotel Le St. Martin, Bromont consisted of toast, coffee, juice, 2 hb eggs, cheese.  We are now driving on Auto 55 and will hit the Canada/USA border.  Sue, our Aussie gps lady keeps re-cal-cula-ting since we are continually losing signals (we are in the middle of mountains surrounded by miles and miles and miles and miles of evergreen trees – very very pretty; reminds us of BC; long windy roads). lots of lakes and rivers. We just cleared US customs in less than a minute, probably thanks to my pre-clearance through the travelling Nexus card.  We have decided to let Daniel, our British gps guide lead us to Manchester, New Hampshire, the n

bj Ok, so we drove out of the driveway at 8:18 am this morning.  Chauffer wasn’t too  grumpy (I think he was actually surprised that I was up and relatively packed at 7:00 when he surfaced).   Took us 2 hours to get out of the city; traffic was backed up for miles rubber-necking at a forensic trailer (must have been a pretty bad accident) but there was no sign of the accident or traffic on the Westbound 401.  Traffic going the other way (to Toronto) wasn’t backed up too far.  Had lunch at Tim’s in Cornwall.  Meandered (actually stop and go traffic) through Montreal to reach 15/10 ...just arrived in Bromont around 3:30 pm.   Not bad for our first day.  Crazy drivers here!  Crazy road signs: Moose crossing, deer prancing, cars driving into clouds. Motorcycle Parking We must be in Quebec :) mike Downtown booming Bromont – Art Galleries in tents all down both sides of the main drag as they were having an Art Show of local artists all this  w/e. We decided to have dinner at Le Ma

bj Tomorrow we start our 2 week road trip!  This should be interesting :) I'm told that the bus leaves at 8:00 a.m. sharp.  We'll see .... first some dinner, then I'd better start packing mike The "chauffer" is packed and ready to head out .. so we'll see???????