July 20, 2017 - Day 01 Montreal & Quebec City
Denise and I are on the move again. This time with a trip to North East Canada...Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. We decided, at the last minute to invite Dale and Julee along. The stand by loads were low and seat availability seemed high. They accepted. So off we went, last night from SLC to EWR (Newark) on a red-eye flight that left at 11:30 PM. Instead of keeping one of our kids up late to take us, we took the train from Farmington to the airport. All in all, the trip to Newark went fine. We did not get First Class seats, like we hoped. However, we each did get a row...Dale and Julee in one...Denise and I in another. When Denise and I first boarded the plan and sat down, I had a rather big guy sitting next to me. It did not take long for him to get up and move. You can monitor seats and if people will be taking them. So he knew a whole row was going to be open and he gruffly got up and moved. He was a cranky guy. Hard to figure people out like that. Maybe he was having a bad night...who knows.
We all tried to sleep. I suppose we all dozed off a bit...but nothing deep. Too much noise and stuff going on. We arrived at 5:45 AM. I had decided than rather take the risk of not getting to Quebec City via air that we would fly to Montreal (more seats) and drive the 2+ hours up to Quebec City. That worked out great. It also allowed me to have a car for the first day. I was not going to do that if we flew into Quebec. We arrived into Quebec City about 2:30 PM and decided to go try to find Old Quebec City and the Funicular that you can take up a mountain. Unfortunately, we came upon police that were standing in an intersection along our route. They were re-routing everyone saying there was a maritime 'parade' going on in Old Town. We did not know what that meant. However, after going to a public bathroom and watching Julee change her clothing, we set out to a popular waterfall. The waterfall is called Montmorency Falls. It was quite beautiful. But what was cool was watching the Zip Liners fly across the big gorge over the falls. Denise and Julee swear they are doing it tomorrow. They did not have the right shoes on to do it today.
After enjoying the falls a bit, we headed back into the city to go into the Old portion of it. It was a zoo. something is going on here which explains the unavailability of hotel rooms and the high costs. I'm going to research what is going on....but there are TONS of people walking around the streets in the downtown area. Anyway, we could not find parking after driving around for a good 45 minutes. But, we did end up on strange cobblestone streets, saw some amazingly old architecture and some very large military boats on the river. Quebec City is a very BEAUTIFUL city.
At around 5 PM, we headed to our AIRBNB place. We paid an outrageous price for this place. It turns out it is a college dorm room with 3 bedrooms and 1 bath. But it is very clean and well located near lots of eateries and stores. We won't be here long but we were able to go to the market and load up with some supplies for the evening and tomorrow's breakfast.
Traveling with Dale and Julee is really special. You get to slow down and really enjoy the surroundings around you. You get to enjoy the 'branch' of bananas brought from home (as if Canada did not have bananas). You get to hear, 'there's a McDonalds, we should stop.'. We miss McDonalds when we are away. And we get to witness the eating of healthy things like Tuna and Onion Sandwiches on the plane or Deviled Egg Sandwiches for breakfast. All good things to live by. Denise and I will be blessed by having them with us on this trip. We really do enjoy traveling with them as they bring us much joy and laughter as we travel about. I truly wish my parents were able to travel and go with us now and again on such trips. They would make us smile and laugh a bit too.
Well...I'm pretty beat. No decent sleep since two days ago. Tomorrow will do a bit more here in Quebec City and then head east toward Moncton, New Brunswick....which sits just off shore from Prince Edward Island. It is a 7 hour drive which we will probably break up into two legs. More to come!
Pictures:
Waiting for train at Farmington Front Runner station....
Excited travelers at 6 AM in the morning....(actually 4 AM Utah time).
Tried using Ashley's new blow up pillow. I really liked it. It was easy to blow up and take down. Still uncomfortable...but much better.
We are off on our trip from Montreal's airport....
I think we killed them.....we were concerned....for a second! :-)
Nope...they resurrected. We are at the falls I wrote about. Really cool place just outside the city. Easy to get to.
Some falls pictures....
This photo was taken down town. It does not begin to share the crowd size that was down there. Long lines were everywhere to do stuff. We were not sure what.
Lots of older churches around this city. Pretty cool...
Our humble abode for the first night....no air conditioner, dorm rooms, loud streets. But...lots of stuff just across the block. So in that regard, a good choice. But we paid more than we wanted too.
Such joy in getting a McDonald's ice cream cone...until it was realized the cone cost $1.20 USD versus 59 cents in the states. What do you do...you just eat it slower! :-)
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