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 12 - Edmundston, New Brunswick to Cornwall, Ontario - July 24, 2010

We checked out of the Quality Inn in Edmundston, NB at 9:38 a.m. and on the road again. Once we crossed over the border into Quebec, with the time change it became 8:46 a.m. We stopped for gas in Riviere du Loup. This was going to be strange, as I hoped I didn't have to talk to anyone in my poor French. John was pumping gas so I decided to go look around and use the bathroom. Didn't see any woman's pictures on the door, and there were men in line, so I luckily assumed it was unisex. Escaped out of there without having to speak to anyone and buying some very cheap Coors Lite to take home and the best curds I ever had! They were moist and squeeky. Luckily the young girl at the cash register was bi-lingual.

We were back on Highway 20, or the Trans-Canada Highway heading to Montreal.

The strange mountains appear again in the landscape.


The next two photos are of something beautiful that I noticed 11 days ago on our way to Nova Scotia and I didn't want to miss it. It was some neat waterfall with a pedestrian suspension bridge in front of it. Once home I looked it up and found it is the Chutes de la Chaudiere park.


We arrived at the Cornwall, Ontario Comfort Inn at 3:38 p.m. Glad to be out of Quebec, well at least Montreal. That was the worst part of the entire trip. At the start of the trip it was a traffic jam for two hours, and on the return trip there was no traffic jam, but I had wished there was because of the way people drive there. We were going the speed limit and looking for our turn off, others were going either below the speed limit or way over it and cutting you off left and right! One such speeder cut us off and was yelling at us in French! I guess the finger I gave him back is a universal language. LOL

This was by far the nicest laid out room of our trip and the first real Jacuzzi room for our last night of this glorious trip. Again I reserved the room with our Canadian Tire Roadside assistance plan and got a $199. room for only $160.

This was the bridal suite, and it was two full size rooms(adjoining rooms) made into one, with glass doors in between to separate the living area, from the bedroom/Jacuzzi area.


Each side even had its own full bathroom, which was fantastic! His & Hers bathrooms:-) The only problem I had was that the housekeeping service must have forgotten to clean the floors in the bathrooms as both of them were filled with HAIR. YUK. I wasn't in the mood to complain and have to deal with housekeeping coming to the room, so I cleaned it up myself, but did tell them about it the next morning. Odd that I barely got an apology, and never did receive the follow up survey from the hotel chain like I usually do. The tub, toilet and sinks were clean, it was just the floors, which is usually the last thing they do when cleaning.

The other room had its own phone, TV, dining table, sink, microwave and fridge.

Ended the evening with St. Hubert delivery for dinner.

Day 13 - Cornwall, Ontario to home - How sad! - July 25, 2010

Well the trip has come to a full circle. The first day lunch at St. Hubert Rotisserie in Cornwall, Ontario and the last night delivery from St. Hubert Rotisserie in Cornwall to our hotel room. John did find the delivery food better, but he still insists that its not the taste he remembers:-(
As much as I found it a bit different, I sill like my Swiss Chalet.

And what is a vacation (or holiday as they call it in Canada) without some momentos of the trip. The large lighthouse lamp we had already, but at the Train Station in Tatamagouche I got a shot glass mug, a pretty white owl and the yellow peep, that actually peeps, for an Easter decoration. The small lighthouse and the lobster trap were from Digby, and the Christmas Church was purchased in Tatamagouche.

Oh and I can't forget below, Johns souvineer. The woodpecker that pecks his way down the pole when you move him to the top. Boys and their toys:-)

When we planned this trip, we thought it would be a once in a lifetime trip, that we would never go there again. Now after visiting Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, we most certainly want to go back, well especially to Nova Scotia. There was still so much we didn't get to see. In fact we love it so much, we could even live there.

Google maps worked out great. I tried to get a trip pack from Crappy Tire Roadside assistance plan, and it verified the fact on why we call them Crappy Tire. The first one they sent me arrived in all French. The second one, they could not route the way we had planned to go. In fact they had pages with routes that eneded up nowhere. But it did save me a lot on hotel rates at Choice Hotels. I would say I saved over $100, on the best rates you can get on the internet from the Crappy Tire Plan.

The little $300. Crapalier did a good job for us. It knew when we were home, and as soon as we took our exit on the 401, she started sputtering. Nothing a new set of plugs and wires would fix!

Things we would do different for next time would be to drive through New York, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine and avoid Quebec entirely. Half of the fun of a vacation is the planning and anticipation. I loved the planning, but I didn't have too much anticipation, next time I will, in fact I'm already anticipating a next trip to the Maritimes! Until next time!!!!!!