Pat and Dave’s Eastern Escapade – PART 3: O Canada!

This is the third installment of our Eastern Escapade, having concluded Part 2 on September 10 in a state of limbo (actually in the state of Maine, but what’s a little hyperbole among friends?) wondering if we would be allowed to cross the border into Canada. Based on the title of this episode, you’ve probably guessed the outcome, but feel free to read on anyway!

Sep 11-12 (Saturday-Sunday): We awoke Saturday morning and immediately opened our email apps hoping to find the results of the Covid tests we took at the local Walgreen’s on Thursday. We were delighted to see that we both had received notification of our negative results, meaning we still had 24 of the hours allowed by Canadian authorities to enter their beautiful country. Since we were only a half hour away from the border, we were in like Flynn. So, we packed up the RV and headed east. As we neared the border crossing located smack dab in the middle of Interstate Highway 95, it felt rather eerie. There we were, driving along in our RV and our Tesla on a 6-lane freeway, and were literally the only two vehicles on the road. When we reached the border crossing, there were three cars waiting in the automobile lane and none in the RV lane. We each presented our supporting documents, received some instructions about the requirements for visiting Canada, and were waved through within a few minutes. In short, the requirements for getting into Canada were: 1) be fully vaccinated for Covid-19, 2) show proof of a negative Covid molecular test within the previous 72 hours, 3) agree to wear a mask and social distance in all indoor public spaces, and 4) agree to quarantine for 2 weeks if either of us came down with symptoms after entering. Since we are not Republicans, these all seemed to be reasonable requests rather than existential threats to our personal freedom, so we each thanked our respective border agent and happily drove into the lovely countryside of New Brunswick. After about three hours of driving, we arrived at an RV park in Quebec called Camping le Rayon de Soleil, or (roughly translated) Campground of the Ray of Sunshine. The drive through the pretty countryside was very pleasant, though it was a bit disconcerting that all the road signs were in French only, so we often had no idea what they were telling us to do. C’est la vie, … when in Rome, … er France, … er New Brunswick, … er Quebec …

The campground was nice enough, but rather than rays of sunshine, we mostly encountered drops of rain. We stayed for two nights, and it rained fairly steadily for at least 80% of the time we were there. We did have a brief interlude of non-rain on Sunday morning, so we took the Tesla for a spin around the area and found a lovely little park with some spectacular views of the southern shore of the St. Lawrence River. There was also a nice hiking trail at the campground itself that wound along a small, adjacent creek. The only real disappointment was that the 50-amp circuit did not work for charging the Tesla, so we had to use the slow, 15-amp circuit on the side of the RV. Nevertheless, we had enough time to charge it up for the next leg of the trip.

Sep 13-15 (Monday-Wednesday): On Monday morning, we left the Campground of the Drops of Water and drove a couple of hours southwest along the St. Lawrence to Camping Juneau, a large RV park in a southwest suburban area near Quebec City. The friendly man at the camp office gave me a nice map and explained how to go into the city, which we did on Tuesday, an easy half-hour drive along a good freeway that led directly into the city proper. We spent a wonderful, sunny afternoon in the old city, or Vieux Quebec, walking around on the old 18^th century walls and the modern walkways, admiring the beautiful buildings, stunning views of the St. Lawrence, and a lovely fountain by the Parliament building. We enjoyed a nice lunch at Bistro 1640, a nice café with outdoor seating, where we needed to show our vaccine cards and wear masks to gain entry. The only sour note was a small but vocal crowd of anti-vax protesters near Parliament, who can be seen in the background of the last photo below. The good news was that the crowd was small and did not attract any attention from the vast majority of the Quebecoise, who were clearly taking the pandemic seriously while getting on with their lives.

By Tuesday evening, the sunshine was long gone and it was raining again, so we puttered around in the RV all of Wednesday morning. Luckily, the rain stopped by midafternoon, and we drove to the nearby Montmorency Falls Park, just east of Quebec City. At 272 feet, Montmorency Falls is more than 100 feet higher than Niagara Falls. We spent a couple of hours walking around the park, riding a cable car from the upper parking area to the bottom of the falls, climbing 187 steps up a walkway for a nice view of the area, then down again, then up and down 44 steps again to get a photo of the cable cars, then back up in the cable car to admire the view from the top. (Full disclosure: I myself climbed up and down the stairs, but 187 steps only amounted to about a third of the way due to excessive huffing and puffing. Pat didn’t get winded at all, because she didn’t even try to climb the steps.)

After visiting Montmorency, we stopped at Buche Cuisine Quebecois, a nice restaurant in Vieux Quebec, for dinner. Pat had a delicious salmon meal while I enjoyed the national dish of Quebec – Pate Chinois – which is basically a local version of shepherd’s pie. The story goes that this meal was named Chinese Pie when developed as an economical way to feed the mostly Chinese workers building the railroads in the late 1800s, but soon became wildly popular throughout all of Quebec. I gave it two thumbs up, causing me to spill some on my shirt.

Sep 16-20 (Thursday-Monday): We departed from Camping Juneau on Thursday morning and headed for the Montreal West KOA RV Park. We had decided to stay there for five days because it was somewhat near to both Montreal and Ottawa, and we figured we could travel relatively easily to either city for day trips without having to worry too much about moving the RV around. That decision was made before we learned about traffic in the Montreal area. By the time we waded through the sea of cars and trucks on the Montreal freeways, my poor knees were aching and my head was spinning. The total trip was supposed to take just over three hours. The first 80% or so was smooth enough and took about 2 hours, but then we hit the beginning of the Montreal traffic and it was stop and go for another hour or more for the next 10% due to an accident somewhere in the vicinity – at least that’s what I think the French language traffic alerts were telling me. The final 10% was better, taking about a half hour to get to the KOA. The campground itself was nice and fairly sparsely occupied. There was a short “nature trail” that made for a nice evening walk, and good restroom and shower facilities suitable for a long stay.

On Friday we made our first foray into Montreal and discovered that the traffic back into town was just as miserable as the traffic coming out of town had been on Thursday. We eventually made it into the Old Port, or Vieux-Port, where we walked around for several hours. This part of Montreal was pedestrian-friendly, a welcome relief from the stifling traffic on the way there. We had a nice lunch at a café called the Vieux-Port Steakhouse, which again required proof of vaccination and masks for entry. We visited a wonderful square across from the Notre Dame Basilica, where two statues outside the Banque Nationale du Canada featured a pair of whimsical statues: a haughty man carrying an English Pug at one corner and a fashionable woman with a French poodle at the other. The people are looking in opposite directions, but the dogs are focused longingly on each other. We saw the remnants of a hospital founded by nuns in the 18^th century alongside modern business establishments. We strolled through an amusement park, where we had an ice cream cone, before driving to Mount Royal Park where we found some lovely views of the St. Lawrence. Best of all, we once again had sunshine. Fully refreshed, we were able to handle the grueling traffic on our way back to the KOA.

Saturday was somewhat rainy again, and we just didn’t have the gumption to face that awful traffic again. There was a decent laundry facility at the KOA, so we decided to make use of that instead. I had a little difficulty explaining to the French-speaking woman in the office why I needed so many quarters for the machines, belatedly realizing that $1.50 Canadian in a washing machine or dryer required only 2 quarters, plus a dollar coin, instead of all quarters like US machines. Duh.

On Sunday we opted for a trip to Ottawa. Even though it was twice as far away, the trip was much more enjoyable due to the lack of traffic and rural setting for most of the way. The traffic in Ottawa itself was also less congested, and we easily made our way to a parking ramp in the CF Rideau Center near Parliament Hill. The ramp conveniently had a Tesla Supercharger on its lowest floor, so we stopped for a 12-minute sip of electricity (just to have a comfortable margin for the return trip and to try out a Canadian Supercharger) before parking and heading off to explore Ottawa. We spent several hours there, walking around Parliament Hill with its impressive array of Government buildings, enjoying beautiful views of the Ottawa River, enjoying lunch at an outdoor café, and exploring the upper locks of the Rideau Canal, a 126-mile canal to the St. Lawrence River opened in 1832. We watched a couple of small boats pass through the locks, and it was interesting to see the lock attendants manually opening and closing the water gates to let them pass through five or six drops down to the Ottawa River, a process that took about half an hour to go 500 yards or so. We concluded our Ottawa visit by strolling through the ByWard Market, where Pat bought some tea and we enjoyed watching a bevy of dogs attending some sort of pet event.

On Monday, we psyched ourselves up for another trip to Montreal, this time to visit the famous Botanical Gardens. We were pleasantly surprised to find the drive in much smoother, taking only an hour to make it the whole way. The Botanical Gardens were absolutely fantastic, with sections devoted to various habitats and cultures, including a very large exhibition greenhouse with various exotic plants, a First Nations garden, an Alpine garden, a Chinese Garden, a Japanese garden, an Aquatic garden, a Rose garden, and more. We spent four hours exploring the various gardens, with an outdoor lunch at the appropriately named Garden Restaurant to sustain us halfway along, and left totally satisfied.

The drive back to the KOA took a little longer than the trip in, about an hour and a half, but it was nowhere near as bad as our previous trips through Montreal. We knew we were still in Francophone land, though, when we saw this sign for that well-known fried chicken restaurant, Poulet frit à la Kentucky:

Sep 21-22 (Tuesday-Wednesday): On Tuesday morning, we departed the KOA and drove to the Sandbanks Provincial Park just north of Lake Ontario. Our campground was near West Lake, which was formed when a huge sand bar, apparently the largest freshwater baymouth barrier sandbar in the world, worked its way across a bay of Lake Ontario, completely sealing off the bay and forming a contained lake. The park area consists of massive sand dunes and regions known as pannes, which are at times completely filled with water and completely dry at others (as they were during our visit). We had an excellent site, very remote from any other campers, with easy walking access to a multitude of hiking trails. We walked along the Dunes Trail on Tuesday afternoon and planned to do more hiking on Wednesday, but – you guessed it – it started raining shortly after our hike, coming down in sheets and buckets at times, and rained all Tuesday night and all day Wednesday. So, instead of hiking, we drove to the nearby town of Picton for groceries on Wednesday and hunkered down in the RV until it was time to move on.

Sep 23- (Thursday): On Thursday morning, we headed for my sister’s home in Dundas, Ontario. We drove through rain for about the first half of the journey, after which it finally cleared up in time to make our way through the massive multi-lane freeways in the greater Toronto area. At one point, my phone’s GPS gave up the ghost so I was following Pat in the Tesla. When she moved a lane to the right, I couldn’t immediately follow due to cars whizzing by in the right lane, and by the time I got over there she was completely out of sight and I was completely lost. It took me about five miles to find an accessible freeway off ramp, but I finally did, stopping to reset my Google maps app and reestablish the route to a Tesla Supercharger in Burlington, Ontario. When I got there, Pat was halfway through charging up the car. We ate lunch in the RV while the Tesla finished charging and then took off for Ellie’s place. She and her husband, Richard, are octogenarians in excellent health, and they did a fine job of feeding and entertaining us Thursday evening, as we caught up on each other’s lives and shared tales of each other’s escapades. We spent the night in our RV, parked in their driveway.

This stop essentially ended the Canadian portion of our Escapade, as our plans called for returning to the US in the morning. Here’s a map of the journey so far:

So, this epic post has finally come to an end. All is well. The Eastern Escapade will conclude in the next episode, so stay tuned …