A week ago today we began a seven-week RV trip that will take us through eastern Canada and then back home through the Hudson Valley of New York. Our itinerary includes Quebec, the Maritime Provinces, and Newfoundland, which can only be reached by a seven-hour ferry ride.
We intended to enter Canada on Saturday, but I forgot to pack may passport! Our friend, neighbor and pastor, Dan Clifford, kindly sent it to our campground along the St. Lawrence River near Clayton, NY, via FedEx. It arrived on Monday just before noon.
We entered Canada with our 30-foot travel trailer early that afternoon. The entrance at the Thousand Island station took about an hour. The friendly Canadian border agent asked us if we were going to leave anything in Canada and if we had any firearms (no to both) and where we were going. When we told him our itinerary, he gave us several suggestions of what to see.
With our stay in Ottawa cut down to one night, we only had time to go out to dinner with a long-time friend of Elizabeth from her time in the hotel business in England. Elizabeth had not seen Christine since the mid-1980s, but they had kept in touch and had plenty to talk about, as good friends do.
On Tuesday morning, we hitched up the travel trailer and drove to our current campground on the northwest edge of Montreal. Yesterday we drove the truck into the city and spent the afternoon walking through Old Montreal. We paid $14 (Canadian) each to enter the ornate Notre Dame Basilica and were treated to works played on its giant pipe organ, including Bach’s wonderful Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (see this 30-second FB clip). At a coffee shop Elizabeth wrote a birthday note to her friend in Ottawa and then we caught a one-hour cruise on the St. Lawrence River that took us beneath the huge Jacques Cartier Bridge.
Tomorrow we’re off to spend four nights at an RV park on the Ile d’ Orleans on the St. Lawrence River near Quebec City.
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