Km 14,699 - Crowsnest Pass, Alberta

Home at last. The last week has been more driving than anything else. After leaving Montreal, we headed west along the St. Lawrence crossing into Ontario. We spent an afternoon in our nation's capital. The only other time I have been in Ottawa was in November 2004 and the city came across as being very grey and lacking character, a typical government town I suppose. I was happy to find that the city completely transformed itself under the summer sky. The landmarks are so much more impressive against a blue sky backdrop (the last time I was there it was cold, dark and foggy). We spent a few hours walking around Parliament hill, checking out the historic Rideau Canal and house hunting for the Prime Minister's abode before crossing the ridge back into Quebec and stopping in Gatineau Park for the night.

The next morning marked the beginning of three long days to get us across Ontario. The first day followed the Ottawa River valley ending on the north shore of Lake Huron. Day two took us into Sault Ste. Marie and along the shore of mighty Lake Superior. I was impressed by the power of the biggest of the great lakes. While the others seemed to be relatively calm, Superior was generating 6 foot waves crashing and an extremely rugged shore. The shore drive around Lake Superior was one of the nicest drives we have had, but there are very few towns along the way. I was surprised how sparsely populated this significant stretch of highway.

Our last day in Ontario turned out to be more eventful than it needed to be. We started out by stopping at the Terry Fox Memorial just east of Thunder Bay. It is very nice tribute to the greatest Canadian of them all. About two hours north of Thunder Bay, we ran into a traffic jam caused by a single vehicle fatality. We were stopped for 7 hours while the accident scene was cleared. We were about a mile back of the accident. By the time that the traffic started flowing again, there was about 10 Km of traffic on each side of the accident. Not wanting this to ruin our day, we drove well into the night and ended up setting up our tent at 1am in a small municipal campground in eastern Manitoba (about an hour east of Winnipeg).

We headed into Winnipeg the next morning for a look around the Forks area in downtown before heading to Grand Beach on Lake Winnipeg for the afternoon. We left in the late afternoon and drove all the way into Saskatchewan to my parent's house. Throughout our trip, we experienced a great deal of the truly Canadian things that make this country great. Parish lobster suppers in PEI, snapping pictures of all the tourists crawling around Peggy's Cove, eating poutine in Montreal, drinking Tim Horton's coffee anywhere. Along these lines, watching and smelling the crops being harvested under a big prairie sunset is right up there.

After a day visiting family, we headed home and arrived Saturday afternoon...14,699 Kms after beginning.

Km 10,377 - Chateauguay, Quebec

As I signed off my last blog entry, I commented on what a picturesque campsite we had on the north tip of Cape Breton island overlooking the Atlantic ocean from up on a cliff. What never occurred to me was that it might be a bit open to the elements. The weather eroded coastline that I was in awe of the entire day might have been a good clue. However, all of the signs escaped me and we were absolutely pounded by an ocean squall. I may be exaggerating a little (artistic license), but it sounded like the sky was caving in from inside the tent. The wind gusts were so powerful the tent poles kept inverting and the tent kept collapsing on itself as a result. In fact, I noticed several broken tent poles on neighbour campers in the morning (no exaggeration). Between the rain, wind, lightning and thunder, we got no sleep, but I do feel proud to say that my $99 tent withstood Mother Nature's stress test.

We packed up a soggy tent (just the tent; our bedding stayed dry) and got the hell out of Meat Cove (no regrets though as it was an unforgettable experience). We completed the famed Cabot Trail by driving the western coast line. The highlight was seeing another roadside moose (thanks again to my wife's ken ability to spot large animals on the side of the highway). As it was raining steadily all morning with no sign of it letting up and an unfavourable weather forecast for the following days, we decided to get off the island and head as far west as we could. After the adventure the previous night, we thought it prudent to get a good night's sleep so we stopped in at a Bed & Breakfast in Fredericton, NB.

After waking up refreshed and rejuvenated (a soft bed never felt so good after several weeks in the tent), we headed for Quebec. We made it as far as the St. Lawrence River valley, about an hour down stream from Quebec City. The scenery in this area is superb, one of my favourite places on the trip so far. We set up camp within about 100 feet of the river. I went to sleep wondering if I made the same mistake by sleeping so close to the water. We did get rained on, but there was no wind. We awoke with the rain still falling. There was one of those cooking shelters nearby our site, so we dragged our tent over there and strung everything up under the shelter and gave it about an hour to dry. With all of our gear haphazardly strewn about, I'm sure it looked like we were conducting a very peculiar yard sale.

Once everything was shoved back into the truck, we headed into Quebec City and spent the afternoon walking around the walled city. It was shocking to me that something so old and so European could exist in Canada. Growing up on the prairies, I have two rather large misconceptions about the world. The first is that the world is flat. The second is that "old" means about 100 years old. It seems silly to me that I can't seem to shake these false ideas despite my extensive travels and experiences. However, I am still amazed that the world isn't as flat or young as the prairies whenever I am in new territory. This aside, Quebec City was great. It is very charming and very different from any other place in Canada with a great deal of history behind it.

In the late afternoon, we left Quebec City and headed in the direction of Montreal. We pulled into a campground as it was getting dark to find that we didn't have enough cash to pay for the site. We headed into the nearest town to find a bank machine. The result of all of this was setting up the tent by using the headlights of the truck. In the morning, we made a critical mistake that would kind of sour our visit to Montreal. We decided that we would head into Montreal and try to find a room at one of the university dorms. Without going into the frustration of the day, we found that all three universities as well as the youth hostel were completely booked up. Admitting defeat, we left Montreal to find a campground. The net effect was that we spent an aggravating day in Montreal and didn't see experience much other than the insanely bad drivers. The next morning, we headed back into the city. We didn't fare much better, again getting frustrated by the traffic and the lack of parking. Coming within a few moments from deciding to leave the city for good, we found day parking outside the Montreal Canadiens' hockey arena. We bought a day pass for the subway and actually made a decent day of it despite the poor start. We spent time in Old Montreal (including touring the Notre-Dame Basilica), Little Italy, Downtown and Mount Royal. It turned out to be a decent day and we headed back to the campsite once it got dark. However, the day's excitement wasn't over.

As we've been touring, we are constantly learning little things about setting up and taking down our campsite in order to make the process more efficient. We learned a pretty good lesson last night. Since we were obviously not in bear country (being within 20 kilometres of Montreal), we innocently left our garbage in a plastic bag under the picnic table. About 2:30 am, I hear some rustling around just outside the tent. Almost immediately, I realize that we have a visitor interested in recycling our waste. With all of this happening within about ten feet of where we are sleeping, my imagination is running wild about how big and ferocious this creature might be. I tried to make some noise to scare the animal(s) away but this got no result. In a bit of amazing courage, I got my flashlight out and poked my head out of the tent, fully expecting to have it whacked off by some large animal upset that I was interrupting meal time. I shone the light over to where the action was and caught a glimpse of a black and white tail. I can't be sure, but my guess was that there was a skunk, a real-life Pepe LePeaux, lurking dangerously close to where I was.

Now, I've never been sprayed by a skunk, but am guessing that it is not pleasant. I carefully got back in the tent and did not twitch a muscle in fear that this might incite some sort of offensive action by the skunk. About an hour went by before he polished off a few scraps of food in the garbage. So there you have it, my tale about the wild nightlife in Montreal. We packed up this morning and are now on our way through Ottawa. We are now getting near the end of our touring and need to start covering some ground in order to get home for my Tuesday flight back to work.

Km 8,521 - Meat Cove, Nova Scotia

We are now sitting at our absolute furthest point from home. We are camped at water's edge at the absolute northern most point of Cape Breton island. Without options (other than the ferry to Newfoundland & Labrador), I suppose it is time to turn around and go home.

After packing up after three nights in PEI, we headed to Nova Scotia via the ferry. He headed straight for our campground in Dartmouth and headed into Halifax for the evening. Halifax is a real nice city with a great deal of character. We got a bite to eat down at the waterfront and then walked up to Citadel hill to enjoy the good view of the harbour. Our second day in Halifax was nonstop rain. This poses a bit of a problem when camping. Luckily, we were in a city, so we spent the afternoon getting an oil change and strolling around the mall. Our last day in the Halifax area was spent touring the southern coast of Nova Scotia. We did all of the famous tourist stops like Peggy's Cove and Historic Lunenburg. We stopped in Mahone Bay and did a sunset sea kayak paddle. There was a boat festival on so the harbour was crammed with boats, including the Bluenose II, a reproduction of the famous vessel that adorns our 10 cent piece. The kayaking reaffirmed the notion that I need to get myself a kayak. Next Spring.

We headed out of Halifax Sunday morning and headed for Cape Breton. We passed over on the Canso causeway and did a short, but beautiful drive on our first day on the island. The highlight was passing through Creignish, childhood home of Frank MacDonald (a.k.a "Frank the Bank"), my rotational partner in Yemen. We stopped for the night at the most amazing campground situated high on a hillside overlooking Bras d'Or Lake, Cape Breton's large inland saltwater lake. Today, we set out to do the Cabot Trail, one of Canada's most scenic drives. We have completed half of it and it has been unreal. As I mentioned earlier, we are camped at Meat Cove in another great campground. We are perched high up with sheer cliffs dropping below us to the ocean. Very dramatic.

Our intent is to finish up Cape Breton in the next 2 days (a real shame as it really deserves more time), and then head for Quebec. We have no real ideas for Quebec, but are thinking of starting with the Gaspe Peninsula and heading down the banks of the St. Lawrence to Quebec City.

Km 7,289 - Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island

Now that we are in the Maritimes, we have kind of changed gears. With not as much ground to cover on a daily basis (things being closer together), we have been seeing a bit more and doing a bit less driving. We have even got the bikes out a few times.

After a lazy morning in St. Andrews on Sunday, we headed north east along the New Brunswick coast through Saint John. It is quite a neat city with some great old buildings. Unfortunately, it was a Sunday so it was a little dead. We enjoyed a nice walk through downtown anyway. We also checked out a tidal occurrence known as the reversing falls. New Brunswick is home to the highest tides in the world. In some areas, the water level changes up to 17 metres. What happens at the reversing falls is that the incoming tide actually overpowers the St. John River and forms rapids that travel upstream.

From here, we kept going through Fundy National Park and camped just outside of the Hopewell Rocks, New Brunswick's signature postcard stop. We checked it out in the morning and were impressed. The interpretive centre and lookouts give a very visual display of the immensity of the tides.

We did stop in Moncton for a grocery top before heading for PEI. We crossed the Confederation Bridge and seemed to cover a quarter of the island before finding a campground. We set up camp with the intent of staying in the same spot for 3 nights. This is a nice change from having to pack up each morning (tent goes up, tent comes down, repeat). We had a great day yesterday driving through the eastern half of the country (this province was made for the afternoon drive). It is a very calming place with very gentle features. Also, the island is covered with agricultural pursuits. It resembles Saskatchewan in many ways with similar landscapes. We spent some time on a beach on the Eastern coast which was a nice break. For supper, we went to one of PEI's famous church lobster suppers. Melissa said it was in the top ten of her list of best meals.

Today, we are in Charlottetown just relaxing. I am sitting in a Laundromat as I type this as we are catching up on some much needed laundry (I'm wearing my last pair of clean undies). I'm not sure where the rest of the day will take us, but I know it will be relaxing. Tomorrow, we are heading for Halifax via the Wood Island Ferry, to spend the long weekend there before heading to Cape Breton.