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.

Day 11 - St. John, NB to Edmundston, New Brunswick - July 23, 2010

We had talked this over yesterday and decided to change our reservations for tonight. We had previously planned to stay in Riviera du Loup, Quebec, which would then give us a six hour drive straight through QC the following day to Ontario. But we thought whats an hour more added to that trip, and it would shorten our drive today and we could then stay in Edmundston, New Brunswick at the Quality Inn with the Victoria Steakhouse Restaurant we loved so much.
We checked out of the Country Inn and Suites in St. John and gassed up the crapalier at 11:10 a.m. Arrived in Edmundston, NB at 3 p.m.

We checked into room #107 right next door to the room we had last week, and it was completely backwards. This one did have a microwave and fridge, which the other one did not. Got the crappy tire rate of $111.99 per night.

Our first misson was to get some lunch, and since it was Happy Hour we decided to try the sports bar at the hotel, PJ's Bar & Grille. It was a nice day, so we sat out on the patio so we could smoke. That is something you can not do in Nova Scotia, smoke at outdoor patios. I can't believe it would bother people outside. I think people who wear obnoxious cheap perfume by the bottle full should be banned. LOL

Since we were looking forward to the delicious steaks at the Victoria Steakhouse in the evening, we decided on a light snack. John had poutine and I had hot wings. Neither were anything to brag about. We were watching some of the chefs setting up the BBQ on the pation, but the waitress failed to tell us they were cooking up some more happy hour specials. We both would have prefered a burger or sausage on the BBQ. Our waitress having a bit of an attitude, and not very timely with our service and failing to recommend or even tell us about the BBQ specials, didn't receive much of a tip from us. Again we are close to the border to Quebec, and most of the hotel staff and owners are French. I must give them this, the hotel had every ammenity possible and was very well run

We made a reservation for dinner at Victorias, but decided on room service. At least we could smoke and have our own drinks in the room. The waitress at Victorias was a different story, she was excellent! I walked down to the restaurant to place our order, she took our order and delivered it. Big tip for her:-) We had our favorite Angus Old Montreal filets. EXCELLENT, same as the last week. Curiosity got us, so we order the ployes, instead of bread, just to see what they were. Stupid me, I forgot to take a photo. But they were a dark colored crepe made with buckwheat, and kind of spongy served with butter or maple syrup. John liked them. Dinner came to $52. total.

Each hotel room has its own reserved parking space, and it was nice to have entry to our room from the parking lot, without having to haul all our luggage the long way around. We had a door to the outside and a door to the inside of the hotel. PERFECT! If we ever make it back to the maritimes, we will definately stay here again!

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.