Aug 1, 2006 - It Was The Best of Times, It Was The Worst of Times

Bonjour from Masson-Angers Quebec, only 20 km from Ottawa! We are slowly remembering more and more French as the days go by. Yesterday I helped a 10 year old swim and he taught me French (my accent stinks, and he told me so!). We have encountered some very nice people but we are still an oddity at every campground. In Saint Beatrix we were probably the only out of province campers to ever camp there. We spent the weekend in Joliette at a campground on the river, then Dave tested his heart again driving the back roads of rural Quebec. For...

Jun 29, 2006 - St. Anne de Bellevue, QUE to Ottawa

6/24/06 Carillon Lock, QUE Left early a.m. for anchor on the lower part of the river about 30 miles. Went thru St. Anne lock then beautiful river run to Carillon Lock, which is an amazing lock for pleasure boaters mostly. You tie up to a dock, lockmaster arranges all the boats, rafts you up 4 wide, & in the lock you go as a group, 4 deep & 4 wide. Up 60’ you go as a group. You feel like a sardine. Total time for everything takes us nearly 3 hrs as you have to then wait for the downstream boats. As we left the lock, we noticed a wall to tie...

Jun 24, 2006 - Ottawa

Monday morning June 19th we drove to downtown Ottawa and got our first sight of the Parliament buildings.....very impressive. We took a Greyline tour and were shown the location of all the museums, the different embassies, the Prime Minister residence and Rideau Hall. It was a good chance for us to get our bearings and decide what we wanted go back and visit. Afterwards, we visited the Bank of Canada building (to check out your money) and went through their museum which had every coin and bill ever used in the world....quite interesting. We...

Jun 19, 2006 - Lake Aspey, ON to Ottawa, ON

Lake Aspey (Espanola, ON to Ottawa) Started as a cloudy day as we left, but got brighter as we got closer to Ottawa. When we arrived at the Ottawa Municipal Campground and started to park and get set up, we got caught in an absolute downpour with lightning and thunder. But we dried out later. We found out later that at least three of our RV neighbors had satellites connected to the internet. Since two of them were not encrypted, we were able to catch up on e-mail, but the signal wasn't strong enough to update the website. A picture of the...

May 27, 2006 - Home at last!

It was about 3 a.m. when we decided we might try and get some sleep. After all it's been some 35 hours that we've been on the road with just a few catnaps here and there. Jeff is sawing logs very soon after his head hits the pillow but my own comfy bed still isn't lulling me to sleep (keep in mind that our bodies really think it is about 5 in the afternoon). Oh well, maybe tomorrow night. By 10 a.m. we figure we might as well get up and make use of some of the goodies that Tossy had stocked in the fridge. Wow, a real cup of coffee with real...

May 19, 2006 - Still in Ottawa...

So, we leave in 5 days, not that you'd know it from looking around our apartment. Oh well. Most of what we need to do is done, though there are some outstanding errands like buying Aussie money and fun things like that. We're both super excited about the trip and the wedding (Marianne's sister is getting married near Melbourne on June 3rd). Rob's pretty excited to track down a few nice didges and we're both more than a little curious about these fabled kangaroos. We'lll keep you posted on our progress! R&M

May 15, 2006 - Ottawa, Ontario

May 15 - Ottawa Over the last few weeks I have noticed an air leak sound emanating from the rear axle. Last Thursday we stopped in at Harper Diesel in Oshawa on our way to Highland Grove. They determined that a leveling valve for the rear suspension was leaking. We managed to source a part in Gananoque at Thousand Island RV, so we stopped there on our way to Ottawa to have it replaced. Maintenance is definitely a challenge with these motorhomes, when you are traveling. I have found that truck centers are easier to get into on short notice...

Apr 21, 2006 - Who knew leaving the country was so complicated?

Janelle and I have been planning on volunteering in a different country since the beginning of our second year of Nursing. We were sitting in class one day and the next thing I knew we were both rushing home to search the internet for opportunities! Our first attempt was to volunteer in an AIDS clinic in Ghana (Africa). We had our hearts set, but when we realized it would cost us approx 5000$ each for 6 wks we decided to keep looking! Janelle knew of a friend who had gone to Central America, so we contacted him and he sent us the contacts...

Mar 17, 2006 - Nepean - One week to Departure

The planning is done. The tickets are here (thanks Baby Jane, Anna and Ian!). The packing has started. And, it seems like there are only a million details left to take care of! Mary has finished up things at her office! I have to pack mine up because of an upcoming office move so I will have to go back in one more time! But for all intents and purposes WE ARE ON HOLIDAY!!!!!!! Although the weather here is slowly moving towards spring, a time of year we really enjoy, we are both really looking forward to this experience of a lifetime! That...

Mar 14, 2006 - 1 Day to go!

Hi Everyone! Well one more day to go! I have just finished packing up my room and packing my bags. I am very excited! My family and friends had a going away party for me on Saturday night. I had a lot of fun. It was a really nice send off. There was puking and damage to Missy and Dave's house - a sign of a good party! I have attached some photos of the party as well as one of Jen and Tammy - in the snow that I am leaving behind! I can't wait to meet my host family and all the kids at the children's home. I feel very privalidged to be...

Feb 22, 2006 - Quick stop over

Written by Sarah We woke up at 5:30am. Of course everyone was so excited. I think some of us did not sleep either because we were too excited or because of Dad's snoring. We took the shuttle and went to the airport, dropped off our luggage. Of course dad got mad at the Air Canada personnel since she would not help but made things more complicated. We got to the plane and waited 45 minutes while they were de-icing the plane. An announcement cam eon tot ell us the plane will be grounded. So we got off the plane. We waited another hour while...

Oct 27, 2005 - Montréal

Wir trennten uns von Québec und fuhren nach einem feinen Frühstück Richtung Montréal weiter. Nach etwa 250 langweiligen Kilometern auf dem Trans Canada Highway schauten wir uns zuerst das alte Montréal an, assen ein Crêpe und besuchten dann noch den modernen Teil. Montréal Downtown ist mit einem weitläufigen, unterirdischen System verbunden in welchem Shops, Kinos und vieles mehr zu finden ist. Dieses wurde primär für die harten Winter konzipiert. Montréal hat uns bei unserem zweiten Besuch weniger gefallen, vor allem auch wegen Québec,...