August 5th, 2024
GAS: Quebec: $1.62 litre = $4.62 USD gallon Ontario: $1.40 CAD litre = $3.85 USD per gallon
We left the hotel around 8 am after exercising (there was no hotel breakfast available not even coffee!) so when we stopped to fill up the gas tank once last time, Fran was able to get hot water from the convenience store at no charge. Today we crossed the border back into Canada across the Saint Lawrence River.
The crossing was another easy one even though there was no NEXUS line but with only one car in front of us, we made it to our friends’ house, Christine and Mark, in Saint-Adolphe Quebec (north of Montreal) by 11 am with one bathroom stop and one stop for Timmy’s.
Here we stayed for two nights. The weather was much cooler (barely hit 18 C / 67 F and it was a bit cloudy) with a touch of fall in the air despite being early August. Apparently, it had been quite hot the previous 3 days. We are now in the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal. There are plenty of lakes here and it’s a cottage country for Montrealer’s.
We watched a lot of Olympics with them, had some nice walks with their dog, Harley, took a sauna in their new electric sauna built under the addition to the house, Doug had a good run and we generally enjoyed the company of our fellow PanAm overlandering friends (we met in Mexico in 2015). We always enjoy spending time with them.
The sauna entrance:
Tuesday, they took us golfing to a public course near Mont Tremblant. Mark borrowed two sets of clubs from a neighbour and off we went after a mid-morning breakfast. We have not golfed in 25 years and have never been big fans but Christine and Mark have just taken it up for fun and that’s how we played. It was only nine holes, we lost a few balls, found a few more, hit a few into the sand and water traps, walked a lot, (we rented carts for our borrowed golf bags as C & M have their own) and had a fun time.
It took us nearly three hours but the sun kept us warm and we had lots of laughs. We drove into the village to get a beer as there was no clubhouse at the course, but it was so packed in Tremblant (even on a Tuesday!) that we gave up trying to find parking and Mark took the scenic route back.
Wednesday morning it was much cooler and after a walk and breakfast we hit the road around 10 am. Until we meet again, Thanks Mark & Christine!
Today we’re headed into the capital city of Canada, Ottawa, to have a short visit with Fran’s godson, Alex’s family. He and Emily had their second child in September of last year and we had yet to meet Isabella. Their son, Dallas, was at daycare that day and both Alex and Emily are on family parental leave and so were both home in the middle of the day.
Isabella had just woken up so after her lunch she warmed up to Fran in her large playpen. It was a nice visit.
Our last stop on this big road trip before returning to Josh’s, is a two night visit with Fran’s sister and her husband in Kingston. Cynthia retired last year, and Serge a few years back so they were home and currently not travelling.
The weather continued to be a on the cool side of typical summer weather and by Wednesday night the rains from the remnants of Hurricane Debby hit and it was wet most of Thursday on and off. We did go out to Timmy’s for a late morning brekkie before it started and then Fran and Cynthia got in another walk in during the late afternoon during a break followed by a soak in their hot tub. It never got warm enough to use their pool during our stay.
Here we watched a lot of Olympics again which was very entertaining. They have cable so they had taped it on the DVR and we could fast forward through to the events we wanted to watch.
We left Kingston in the pouring rain on Friday morning around 8:15 and after a couple of stops, we decided to check out our former house in Pickering enroute. We owned this duplex and lived in it from January 1991 to June 1995 – we sold it in 1997 after we had some bad renters in it. The trees are much taller and the surrounding area is very much busier and more dense, but the house looked pretty much the same (paint trim was different) but we could tell they had installed new windows and a covered patio out back.
We made it to Josh’s by 1:30. It had stopped raining more than half way through the drive but was not all that warm.
We got the car completely unpacked and then set up the new air mattress we’d purchased in May that had not arrived on time. This one seems more comfortable and firm. Around 4:45 Josh got home and the grandkids arrived from their Mom’s.
We spent the weekend doing some things with them, watching Olympics and at their request are neither “reporting” on these activities nor posting photos.
The weekend weather was a mixed bag of comfortable temperatures and on and off rain.
Monday, it was clearer and warming up once again. The grandkids left before Josh went to work and we began getting things done to put the car back in storage, organize all our belongings for Australia and generally catching up online.
For Father’s Day Josh had given Doug ‘a trip to the movies’ so Monday night when he got home from work, we all went in Bolton; they saw “Dead Pool 3” and Fran went to see “It ends with us”. We all enjoyed our movies and popcorn in the comfy seats at Landmark Theatres. On Tuesday we both went for Pedi’s and Fran got a haircut. The weather warmed up over the course of the week but by the weekend it was wet again.
Fran took the car over to the local car wash to get a good cleaning including the underside:
Thursday was definitely warmer and but not too humid. It was Happy Birthday Doug and when Josh got home from work, we took him out for dinner at our favourite local Italian place. We always order the same thing and it never fails to please.
Friday, it was not quite as warm but still continuing to be sunny and the humidity increased such that on Saturday it started to rain on and off in the afternoon and then quite hard in the evening – there was even flooding in the Greater Toronto Area – mostly around Mississauga. Turned out Saturday’s rainfall set a record!
The grandkids arrived on Friday as usual and we had a weekend with several games/activities with them once again.
Doug did his best long run in a really long time on Saturday morning and was quite happy with the 15 miler!
Sunday was another wet day but we had dry spells and managed to get some outdoor time in. We had our last dinner with the grandkids and they left Monday morning as usual.
We spent our last full day in Canada repacking as Fran learned on Friday that instead of typical one free 23 kg / 50lb bag each, it was actually one 30 kg / 70lb bag each so we decided to optimize on that and only have to pay for one second checked bag instead of two. This made our duffle bags rather heavy but saved us $100!
We did our final loads of laundry and got the banking issue sorted out that we had and we’re ready to go! We had one last evening with Joshua before leaving to return the Civic to our storage place in Buffalo on Tuesday the 20th.
Mileage from crossing the border back into Canada to Josh’s: 892 km / 554 mi
Facts about this 12ish week road trip:
Total Mileage: 24,496 km / 15,221mi back to Joshua’s place
Number of hotel nights: 49
Nights with friends/family: 38
Total number of states on this road trip: seventeen – that’s about a third of the country! (MI, IL, WI, MN, ND, MT, WA, ID, OR, NV, UT, WY, SD, MN, WI, IL, IN, OH, PA, NY – with 3 repeats)
Total number of provinces/territories: six (ON, AB, NWT, YK, BC, QB including 1 duplicate)
Number of tires: just the four with started with (!); if you recall we never ended up using our spare nor the full size tire on a rim we bought in Okotoks and returned to Canadian Tire in Whitehorse
Damage incurred: a few holes in the muffler, loss of window moulding (which would have happened anyway as it was quite old), a couple of minor windshield chips; the CIVIC symbol came loose on the trunk but we were able to reaffix it.
NOTE: This post will be our last on the trip “Our Journey in 2024”. Here’s a map showing all the places we’ve been to the past eight months:
We started in Casablanca, Morocco in early January, went to the Middle East, Sri Lanka and the Maldives for two months, returned to Morocco by early March, then north into Europe including the UK, before flying back to Canada in mid-May for this our big adventure to the Arctic.
Here is the link to the photo gallery for this post.
Now the Calders are on to their next big “Escape” – AUSTRALIA! Bear with us for the next post until we get sorted and settled.
