Day 1 - Whitby, Ontario to Hawkesbury, Ontario - July 13, 2010

July 13th, we left our home at 8:44 am. We had a lot of miles ahead of us in the next thirteen days so we decided not to rent a car, and took the Crapalier. It's what my mechanic husband named the Cavalier he bought for $300. No thats not a typo. Three hundred dollars!! Check out the photo below and see the emblem our friend Chuck did for us.

We also joined the Canadian Tire Roadside Assistance plan, which about paid for itself in the Choice hotel chain special rates. Or Crappy Tire as most Canadians call it. No one will give it a second thought if you forget and call it "Crappy Tire" as I did when making a reservation with choice hotels.

Our first stop was for lunch in Cornwall, Ontario at St-Hubert Rotisserie. It's a chicken and rib restaurant chain that is mostly located in Quebec, with very few left in Ontario. Nine years ago my husband (John) wanted to take me to the last one in the Scarborough, Ontario area, as it was his favorite, but when we pulled into the parking lot we saw it was closed and all boarded up.

John ordered his favorite, ribs and chicken and I ordered his second favorite, a hot chicken sandwich. He said it wasn't as good as he remembered, but I thought the food was good. The sauce wasn't the same, and the roll was just a grilled hamburg bun.

I thought it was cool with all the pea's on top of the sandwich, but I'm not a pea lover and they got to be a little too much. You get your choice of cole slaw, creamy or vinegar. The creamy was very good.

We are starting to see a lot of French speaking people as we are getting closer to the Quebec border.

We then ran into some torrential rain on Hwy 401 and decided to take the next exit. Many people were pulling over on the 401, but thats not really a safe thing to do with the crazy drivers around here. Luckily the next exit was our exit to Country Road 34 on our way to Hawkesbury, Ontario. a nice little town on the Ottawa River. Had to pull over again because of the rain and visibility and found the perfect place, Glengarry Fine Cheese an Artisan Cheesemaking shop. It was our lucky day, they were making cheese.





I purchased some of their aged Lankaaster cheese and Lankaaster Onion. The Lankaaster was named after the Dutch word kaas meaning cheese and a tribute to the town of Lancaster where Glengarry is located. It is a gouda cheese, but not like any I have ever tasted. If thats what an aged gouda tastes like, then I love it. I'm a cheddar lover, and to me it was like a good buttery cheddar.

We started seeing our first signs that said "Danger - Moose Crossing" and we were still in Ontario. I was hopeful that we would see a moose on our trip.

Checked into the Hawkesbury Best Western L'Heritage at 3:44 pm. We booked this hotel because it was still in Ontario, without us having to venture into French speaking only land, and it had a restaurant and lounge so we wouldn't have to drive any more. Well just our luck the restaurant was closed.


It was a 2 room King Suite and I liked the idea that the bathroom had a door to each room. We didn't want to drive to a restaurant and decided to just relax and fill up on all the snacks I brought along. We were disappointed that the hotel failed to tell us the restaurant was closed and they still advertise this on their website and brochures.

I had booked all our rooms in advance with all having a same day cancellation policy in case our plans changed. We are also smokers and there are very few hotel chains that cater to smokers. We were glad to get a smoking room, but it was in the worst location in the hotel, near an entrance and stairwell that was noisy all night. Paper thin walls and the breakfast buffet was pretty pathetic. There were 25 cars in the parking lot that night, so you think they would have had enough stuff. I went for a second cup of coffee and there was none left.

DAY 1 - 5 hours driving time.

Day 2 - Hawkesbury, Ontario to Edmondston, New Brunswick - July 14, 2010

Checked out of the Best Western L'Heritage at 9:15am and drove into town to find some breakfast. We had a full days drive ahead of us through Quebec and we didn't want to have to make any unnecessary stops. We found the L'Escale Restaurant which looked nice. You can tell the French influence spills over into Ontario once you get close to the Quebec border.

I had the $6.99 breakfast which consisted of scrambled eggs,bacon, ham and sausage, (which was the best ham and sausage I have had in a long time) home fries, pancakes, toast, and all kinds of fresh fruit. The plate was loaded and I couldn't even come close to finishing it. John had the blueberry waffles and the waitress asked if he wanted cream for on it. It's an english cream and I wished he would have at least tried it, cause it sounded different. His plate was overun with blueberries and he had maple syrup on the side. He couldn't finish his either.

We didn't sit outside because we didn't want to be bothered with the bugs. That is a window behind me in the photo, but unfortunatly the doors were open and there was quite a few flies inside. Needless to say, it was good food at a great price.
There was a group of about twelve little old French women who came in for breakfast. Had we known this, we would have sat outside, as you couldn't even hear yourself think. The restaurant had a beutiful view of the Ottawa River.

Filled the car up with gas and were on our way at 10:38. We kind of doddled so we wouldn't go through Montreal at rush hour, but we were not so fortunate.
We crossed over a bridge on the Ottawa river and were heading for the crazy traffic of Montreal. We were stuck in traffic for almost two hours.

Then we had to cross the St. Lawrence seaway to get accross to the eastern side of Quebec, and that would be through a tunnel to La Fontaine. We had heard on the news the night before that there was a freighter that went aground and they were trying to contain a spillage and the seaway was closed. The tunnel was scary, only because it looked like it was falling apart and had chunks of concrete falling off the sides. We were finally out of the traffic at 12:24, almost two hours later for a stretch that should have normally taken 15 minutes.

Once on the other side of the St. Lawrence the terrain took a whole different look. Strange looking mountains in the middle of nowhere. Actually the further north we got, Maine was not too far away.

The photo below is a view of Quebec City on the western side of the St. Lawrence taken from the eastern side.


We saw this license plate from the Northwest Territories, which is shaped liked a polar bear. They were far from home!

Further north the St. Lawrence really opens up. It was beautiful! (below photo)

Crossed over the border into New Brunswick. Our cell phones automatically jumped ahead one hour for the atlantic time. Arrived at the Quality Inn in Edmundston, NB at 5:30 pm which was now 6:30 with the time difference.

The restaurant, Victoria Steakhouse was excellent. The best steak we ever had. We had an Angus Old Montreal Filet and could subsitute a caesar salad for the vegetables, which we both did. John opted for fries and I had the baked potato. As I was finally in a Maritime province, I had to finally try some seafood and ordered some fried scallops with my meal and they too were great. We were offered ployes insted of bread but took the bread since we didn't know what ployes were. We were told they were some kind of crepe like thing. Two drinks each and our bill came to $64. which is really good considering the prices we usually pay in the Toronto area.

Again since the province of New Brunswick borders on Quebec, there was a lot of French influence, but at least they have to speak English to you. And again they were noisy in the restaurant and in the hallways in the morning.