davemerrill

Neil has a kayak and two smaller kayak type boats and a CRV so he loaded them all on his CRV and Saturday morning we drove out to Woodward Reservoir and we did some paddlin'!

Here I am in TACTICAL MODE with life vest and sunscreen and sandals.

Beautiful day on the lake, a tad windy, but sunny and warm.

Here's Mom Loon and Dad Loon and Baby Loon just hanging out on the water.

That was a giant bunch of fun and I'm looking forward to doing it again sometime. Anyway then we went back to Rutland, got some lunch, and then pointed our nose north through lots of small "established 1729" towns and then to Burlington VT which looks like a very nice town, actually, very Portland-esque, and then onto the highway and across the border into Quebec.

Here we are using the wi-fi at a rest stop on I-89 near the border.

All the time you can look west and see big mountains in the distance, beyond Lake Champlain. It's a really pretty part of the country that I had previously never visited, and I'm glad we had the chance to go.

We had zero trouble at the border and we took increasingly larger roads through rural Quebec towards Montreal and our motel, which actually was in Brossard, across the St. Lawrence. We checked in and changed clothes and then got back in the car and went across to the big city. Montreal FEELS like a big city, lots of giant bridges and tunnels and little cafes and giant skyscrapers and bars and sidewalk strollers and hilly, narrow streets and alleys lit by one bulb, etc. We had dinner at Belle et la Boeuf, one of those noisy high-end burger joints pitched at the older end of hipster. I say this because their menu is aimed straight at the 70s kid demographic with a burger named after 70s cartoon icon Goldorak - that's Grandizer to you and me - and murals in the washrooms depicting your favorite 70s anime heroes.

Food was great, and we headed over to Arcade MTL, which is a new 'barcade' that just opened in town. I'd been told the cover was $5 and the games were on free play. The games were on free play, but the cover was $7, the place was crowded, the games didn't include any of our favorites (heavy on the Street Fighter/Mortal Kombat era of gaming) and the one pinball machine didn't work. So that was kind of a "nice try", I guess.

Sunday we got up, checked out, and headed back into the city to Marche St. Michel, a big junky antique market, filled with old stuff and dealers in front of every stall chatting with each other in French about Star Trek or whatever, I dunno, my French is not great. We tracked down some cool old Francophone comics including two Albator (Captain Harlock) volumes. The place was filled with old Tintin and Asterix books - every dealer seemed to have two or three - and a good selection of the kind of mid-century junk we like. Had a great time shopping and then it was time to go.

We were told the main highway from Montreal over Toronto way was blocked for construction, so we went across the St. Lawrence again south of the city, and we wound up toodling along the water for a while, going through small towns and under tunnels and past giant power plants, and then we realized, hey, we missed our exit and we're heading for the New York border. And at that point it was the shortest route between two points, so we kept on going, crossed into the USA again, drove 45 minutes, and then crossed back into Canada at Cornwall, and we made our way to the 401. Traffic was terrible pretty much the entire length of the highway so we stopped for gas and got off onto Hwy 2 which parallels it for a while and made decent time, I guess, but we didn't get home until 11pm, more or less. And that was our trip! And now here's a big fish, in Gananoque near the Thousand Islands.