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!

Ottawa, Canada

We are actually back in the US and very happy to have Internet again!  While in Canada we found out that using our wireless card was costing us a fortune.  I actually also found out that our phone bill was thru the roof (luckily I convinced AT&T to take $390 off the bill). Unfortunately, most everywhere we went did not have Internet.  So, I was not able to write the blog and once again I am behind :-(    Well, I am going to try and slowly catch up.

Ottawa!  After we left Toronto we drove to Ottawa.  It was a very pretty drive and we really enjoyed seeing the beginning of the fall color change.   It is amazing!  Ottawa is the capital of Canada and is a very nice upscale community.  It has a nice mixture of new and old.  The downtown Capitol area is quite remarkable with its ornate, European looking buildings.  We took a very nice drive around the city and really enjoyed the view.  I was still really sick when we were in Ottawa so we never got out of the car.  Bummer! Oh well!  We stayed the night at Walmart and around 6pm October 1st we started our drive to Montreal.  We made it to the outskirts of Montreal and decided to stay the night at a truck stop.  The good thing was it was right next to a McDonald's Playland so the kids had fun running around and we had fun watching them burn off their excess energy.  We all had a ice cream and got our first dose of everything being in French.

Some of the amazing colors.

Countdown to the Olympics.  Only 499 days until the Winter Olympics in British Columbia on the other side of Canada.

Toronto, Canada

On Sunday we rested and schooled some more and then headed back into Ontario, Canada and drove to Toronto.  We found a campground right on the outskirts of the city called Indian Line. We decided to just hit the hay when we arrived.  Have I mentioned that we have all been very sick?  Well, I've had this for over 3 weeks and I seemed to get sicker and sicker.  I was quite the mess and then after talking to my parents I realized that I happened to have a full prescription of Amoxicillin (which was what the Dr. had prescribed my parents when they went in) right in the RV.  I started on the meds immediately and by morning I was already feeling a little better.  I'm still congested and coughing like a life-long smoker but at least my sore throat and ache body are a lot better.  The kids and Dave are also on the mend.  Praise God! 

Anyway, back to Toronto.  So, Monday Sept 29th we drove into the city and headed to the CN Tower.  We had many suggestions from my facebook friend Cindy (from high school) who lives in Canada.  One, was to eat lunch at the top of the tower.  Since you have to pay $21 per adult $15 per child to ride the elevator up it is worth it to pay a little extra and eat at the 360 Restaurant (if you eat at the restaurant you don't have to pay to go up, but you have to order a full meal which started at $36 adult $16 per child).  It was a very expensive day but we all agree it was well worth it.  The restaurant rotated a full rotation every 72 minutes.  It was definitely the nicest restaurant the kids have ever dined in.  It was well worth the price and the food was excellent.  The whole experience was absolutely incredible and a "top 5" highlight of our trip so far.  

I forgot to mention that the CN Tower is currently the tallest structure in the world at 1,815 ft.  They are building a taller one in Dubai 2,684 ft, but according to the Canadians it doesn't count yet since it is still under construction.  Plus they say the CN Tower will still have the highest observation deck in the world.

The coolest thing about the tower (according to the boys) is that on one of the observation decks there is a glass floor.  Yes, the floor is literally made of glass (well, it's probably a lot stronger than traditional glass).  You can walk on it and look straight down.  There was a lot of people there that were way too freaked out to even take a step out on the glass to see through the floor.  They were probably even more freaked out when they saw our family practically doing handstands on the glass.   We all thought it was way cool.  There is solid line that connects the glass panels.  It is almost more freaky trying to balance walk across the beam.  You feel as if you fall off of it you will fall to the ground.  We spent a lot of time playing and taking pics on the glass.

This was taken from the outside observation deck.Dave was trying some creative photography.  
This one was tough because the camera was on the floor so you could not look thru the view finder to see if we were all in.  We got close!
This is the one headed, 4 legged monster of Canada. It kept following us around even though we tried very hard to lose it :-)

This is in front of the fountain in front of the CN tower.
This is a rare picture of the 5 of us.

After we left the city we went and found a Canadian pharmacy and bought some more flu drugs for the boys and then headed back to the RV.  We spent the night and got a fairly early start for our drive to Ottawa.  We got a lot of homeschool done along the way.  I have to mention how beautiful the fall leaves were along the drive to Ottawa.  Wow!  I can't wait to see them in full color next week in Vermont and Maine.  Well, I am finally totally caught up on the blog!  Yeah! We are at Walmart for the night and I made a big RV made lasagna dinner.  Tanner is on the other computer as I type practicing his Spanish (which he is getting very good at).  Dave, Peyton and Sterling are playing a game of Basari at the table (competitive Sterling almost always wins every game).  Tomorrow we will take a drive around Ottawa.

I love reading everyone's posts!  Kathy, it was cool to read about Chuck and your time out here. Thank you all for your comments, it keeps me motivated to keep writing.