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Tennis Camp in Massachusetts
 
Sunset Over Lake Champlain
 
Burlington, Vermont
 
Lake Champlain Ferry to New York
 
Oh Canada!
 
Home Base in Historic Vieux-Montréal
 
La Basilique Notre Dame
 
La Place Jacques-Cartier
 
Evening in Vieux-Montréal
 
Excursion to Mont Royal
 
Detour to Le Parc Olympique
 
Exploring the Vieux-Port
 
La Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours
 
Farewell Québec

These lame signs greeted you when you disembarked from the ferry. When I was planning my trip to the northeast, I had found a few interesting places that I wanted to visit in NY if time allowed. Well, as is typically the case, I had pretty much overbooked my trip, and there was no extra time.
 

One of the places I wanted to check out was Ausable Chasm. It is supposed to have some amazing geological sights. But like I said, time was a precious commodity. I didn't get to actually go into the park, but the road that led to the interstate crossed over part of the Ausable Chasm property. From the lookout bridge, I snapped these pix.

After about an hour's drive north from Port Kent, I finally reached the US/Canada border. As you get closer to the border, many of the highway signs are worded in both English and French. Here is a sign you won't see that often!
Getting through customs was surprisingly easy. Once I crossed the border, I pulled over and exchanged some currency to Canadian dollars. It was the first opportunity for me to ask someone, "Parlez-vous anglais?" The almost immediate change to everything being in French was somewhat bizarre. As soon as you enter Québec, very few things are in English until you get to Montréal. The Québécois are very proud of their linguistic differences.
Driving into Montréal was definitely a trick. The directions were all in French - nord, sud, ouest, est. Nord and sud were pretty easy to figure out. But I kept getting confused by ouest and est. My mind kept attaching a "w" to est which got me totally confused usually right up until the exit or turn I had to take. So here you have an American with New Jersey plates driving like an idiot in Montréal, and I'm sure the locals were none too pleased with my presence. Not that I gave much of a damn! The pic below was of the city as I was coming in on one of the bridges. (Taking pictures probably didn't help my driving either.)

When I got into the city, I missed my exit and had to drive around and try to get my bearings. I had bought a city map before leaving Texas, and it really came in handy! I ended up pulling over in some residential district, and somehow found the street names and got back on track.

This pic is of the Québec license plate. "Je me souviens" means "I remember", which is supposed to have some kind of nationalistic meaning to the Québec people. I'm not sure what they are remembering, but they need to remember that they are lucky the British didn't whoop the French and kick them out of Canada back in the 18th century!

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Lake Champlain Ferry to NY Home Base in Vieux-Montréal
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