June 14, 2006

June 14, 2006

Pont Rouge ( Quebec City ), Quebec to Alfred, Ontario ( near Ottawa )

YEAR 2 DAY 362

 

Today was a lovely, sunny, warm, perfect "June 18" type day. The weather helped salve my emotional distress of the last couple of days, but I'm still feeling somewhat shitty.

This morning as we pulled out of the campground we noticed a road side stand at the driveway to the farm across the road. It was a strawberry farm. We lucked out ! Today was the first day of strawberry sales for the season. The strawberries were ready to be picked this morning, about 10 days earlier than usual. We bought fresh strawberries, picked this morning, fresh asparagus, picked this morning, and a dozen farm fresh brown eggs, laid this morning. We dipsy doodled our way around back roads, just a little lost, trying to find our way back to Hwy. 40. We found Hwy. 40 at the town of Neuville, where we also found another RV dealer. This one had 1 of the remaining 2 items I needed < sigh >. One more to go ! We drove west on Hwy. 40, stopping for lunch at another one of Quebec's very nice road side rest areas.

We stopped to fill up with diesel at Louiseville. We stopped at another RV dealer, looking for the last, elusive item I need. They didn't have it. Story of my life ! As we approached Montreal, not surprisingly the traffic got thick, and rude. It was the right decision to go around the north side of Montreal. The traffic was thick, but flowed quickly. We turned north onto Hwy. 15 to Mirabel, then turned west again on Hwy. 50, until it ended, and became Hwy. 148.

Joanne had been wanting to have authentic Quebecois poutine ( pronounced "poo tin" ) before we left Quebec. To celebrate our reasonably painless journey through Montreal, she wanted to stop at a casse-croute ( snack bar ) as we passed through Lachute, and have poutine. For my American friends who don't know what poutine is, it's fresh, hot fries, with cheese curds poured over, then hot gravy poured over. The hot gravy melts the cheese curds, and the cheese and gravy slowly oozes down into the fries. It's said that each serving of poutine shortens your life by 2 days. It's worth it ! Joanne went into the casse-croute, and came back with the seldom seen, but favourite variation of hers, poutine Italienne. Poutine with freshly made, hot, tomato based meat sauce ( like chili ) poured over. I think each serving of poutine Italienne shortens one's life by 3 days. Hey ... live large ! And, by the way ... HA HA HA HA HA ... Bo loooooves poutine !

We crossed the Ottawa River at Grenville, to Hawkesbury, Ontario. We drove west on Hwy. 17 to Alfred. Hwy. 17 from Ottawa to Hawkesbury and Montreal / Mirabel is very familiar to us. We used to live just off Hwy. 17 at Cumberland, and catch international flights out of Mirabel. We decided not to drive all the way into Ottawa today, stopping at Alfred, about 45 minutes east of Ottawa. Joanne wanted to check out the campground we're staying at tonight, Evergreen Camping Resort. It's a very nice campground, although I think it's just a bit too far from Ottawa to stay here when we need to be in Ottawa. We checked into the campground, got set up in our site, then went for a long leisurely walk around, checking out the grounds, the pond, and the pool. I sat on the edge of the pool with my legs in the water for a few minutes, but the pool was still pretty cool. Not like the pool in Yuma, Arizona on Christmas Day.

Back at the trailer, with Bo on his tie out, and Teddy in his screened nylon kennel on the picnic table, I sat at the picnic table working on the computer, and barbecuing supper.

I just walked across the campground to take a look at a 1999 GMC 1 ton diesel dually. Man, what a nice looking truck. HA HA HA < SNORT > HA HA !

DSK