Montreal, Canada

After Ottawa and a peaceful night at the truck stop.  We drove into Montreal.  We found a small family owned campground through our Passport America discount membership.  If I haven't mentioned Passport America before I need to say "We love Passport America"  It seriously has saved us so much money.  We get 50% off at all participating campgrounds...cool! Anyway, we stayed at for 3 nights.  After we got settled in we headed out to see downtown Montreal.  It is a very big city with a drastic contrast of past and present.  What I mean is that you can drive by a very modern building that is sitting next to a very ornate old church.  They're all very tall glass modern  buildings and then you go into old town and everything looks as if it hasn't changed a bit since the 1800s.  The streets are very narrow with cobblestones, brick and stone buildings, and brightly colored awnings.  It was really fun to walk the streets and stop into some interesting art galleries.  The only downfall was that we were freezing our California buns off!

We walked into this church and were blown away by the beautiful arcietecture.  I actually remember going into this church when I was a teen traveling with my Grandma and Grumpy.  I was quite emotional on the whole visit to Canada since I miss my Grandma and Grumpy so much and I have such fond memories traveling thru Canada and the East Coast with them.  So don't be surprised if I bring them up a few times in the next few posts. 

The second day we were in Montreal we got up early, hopped in the red car and headed back into the states.  We had a meeting with the boys' home school teacher/supervisor Sherry.  She was on vacation with her husband in Vermont.  They had come to the East Coast for business but also to see the dramatic color change.  We were so blessed that she made time in her schedule to check up on the boys and monitor their progress.  We met at a library in Burlington, Vermont.  We spent about 4 hours with her and left feeling good about the kids' home school progress.  On our drive back we found the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory so we had to stop for a tour.

We drove back up through part of upstate New York touching the Adirondack Mountains.  Unfortunately we missed the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Factory and Lake Placid (we can't do it all).  We were exhausted by the time we got back to Montreal.  We all fell right to sleep.

The next day we went to the sight of the 1976 Summer Olympics (remember Bruce Jenner? Edwin Moses?).  They have turned part of the olympic area into a Biodome.  It was really cool.  Each section of the dome was set as a different animal habitat.  You first walk into the rain forest.  It was warm and humid, which actually felt nice since it was so cold outside.  

Look how he is looking at me from the corner of his eye.  Glad I was not down in the dirt with him....gulp!

I love this pic.  He looks as if he has something to say.

This cute little glow in the dark frog is highly poisonous.  Hunters would take their secretions and put it on the tip of their spears to insure death in their opposition.
This guy reminds me of someone in my family...Dad, I won't mention any names!  He's cute!
This bird liked to follow us around.
There was also a forest section and a coastal section, but Tanner's favorite was the cold artic section where his favorite animal was housed.  The penguin!  

We really had a great time at the Biodome de Montreal.  We would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Montreal.  After we left we went to a great grocery store called IGA.  I had such a great time shopping at this really cool Canadian grocery store (the simple pleasures in life). 

Off to Quebec!