Log and Photo Album 
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Week 4
| July 9 | Il pleut et il pleut et il pleut. We stayed at the camp and I did laundry and Michael vacuumed and cleaned the bath. We are kinda bummed. | |
| July 10 |  Well, it rained all night,
storming violently part of the night with lightening very close about.
The day looked dreary and dull but we bit the proverbial bullet, grabbed
the umbrella, and headed out for the shuttle bus to take us into
Montreal for the day. We
had made contingency plans in case of nice weather/rain and we were
convinced that whatever the weather we were going to have a good day of
it.  After
orienting ourselves a bit upon our arrival, we decided that the
heavy-appearing clouds would hold off the rain while we walked the two
blocks to the subway station so that we could visit the Basilica of
Notre Dame. The walk was easy, the subway was even easier, and we
loved the basilica! We got in on a short tour led by a girl whose
English was so cutely enhanced by her Frenchness that we decided that
that, alone, made the trip worthwhile. The basilica was decorated over a
period of 40 years and is just absolutely beautiful. Gold leaf and
intricate carvings everywhere.
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The ride back to the camp was easy since someone else was doing the driving through the bumper-to-bumper rush-hour traffic. After resting our aching feet for a bit, Michael fixed us a delicious supper of pork chops and new white potatoes on the grill. AND, it is STILL not raining! :) Since it is Wednesday, we are enjoying ice cream as we listen to French radio. What do you MEAN, it isn't Wednesday?
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| July 11 | Woke
up to sunshine here in St. Phillipe at the KOA and went up to the office
to upload. Here is Michael talking with Debbie at the campground office.
Before we left the campground, we got a couple more photos of us
enjoying the bright sunshine.
We drove down 132 sud from Montreal and went through some tiny towns before we got to the USA border. We stopped in one, Beauharbois, to have lunch in their little parc and we had ice cream after. Beautiful day! I took some pictures of the town. We so enjoyed these quaint little towns. Click on the middle photo here for sure. Notice the sign in front of the house. Also, notice the BLUE of the sky! I stole that same blue and used it for my background for the middle collage of photos. :) |
We headed on down the road
from Beauharbois, driving down the little 2-lane till we got to the
border at Fort Covington, NY. The border guard was friendly but not
overly so. He asked us a LOT of questions about where we were from and
what in the world we were doing in Fort Covington. Since most tourists
go the big road they don't go through Fort Covington. We made it to
Massena NY at about 2pm and found a great shopping mall where we found
some great bargains on some clothes for me, all really good stuff at Bought a bag of popcorn which I insisted on sharing with the gulls who loved me for this. Then we went to our camp for the night at Massena International Campground. Nice place, but not nice enough for the high rating that Trailer Life gave it, but we were able to get level on the site without trying. The guy in the office said that we could use "the only line we have to check email really fast". This is why they advertise "modem hookup". I'd call that false advertising. I'll ask Trailer Life what they think. |
| July 12 | When we awoke today we knew
we were up for a big day of driving. (We have to pay for the loafing
that we have done.) Michael captured these rare photos of me helping to
unhook the utilities at our camp in Massena NY.
Today was sunny and pretty. A great day for driving and we did a lot of that, about 275 miles or so, we figure. Along the way we stopped for lunch at Central Square NY at a little pizza place called Quinto's NY Pizza where they served hot and delicious pizza by the slice. Their parking lot was just right to back into a nice big niche. After we left the St. Lawrence Valley, we passed over beautiful hills and valleys, lots of little lakes. |
We encountered a lot of road construction and more traffic today than we have in the days before this. Just east of Corning, we passed by a Soaring Museum, where they do glider flights. We saw many gliders floating silently over the hills above us against a backdrop of a perfect blue sky. Tonight we are staying just north of
Corning NY in the "full hookup" area of an otherwise
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| July 13 |  Today
we got up early and went into Corning to the Corning Museum of Glass. We
had been there before and so we sort of knew what to expect... NOT. They
had done so much to change the place and added on and it is just amazing
the changes! We will need to return in order to see more of the total
coolness that abounds there! We got there at 9 am and went directly to
the Steuben Glassworks section  where
we were able to see some nice pieces on display and then we saw a
glassblower make a pitcher, telling the whole time what he was doing. I
wish that I'd gotten a photo of this demo; it was really neat. Then we
went to the glass sculpture gallery where there were some fascinating
pieces of glass on display. Some huge stuff! The shops were magnificent
with some really extensive and beautiful displays.
Then he told us about another of his
inventions, the glass armonica, and he had one there to show us! Michael
had seen a documentary about the glass armonica and so was quite
interested in this. It is an instrument based on the same principle as
running a wet finger around the rim of a glass to make a tone. Made of
all lead glass bowls that are made to precision specifications, these
were quite popular in the 1700's till people started to think that it
was demonic. |
We had to leave Corning all too soon, since our time is becoming short and we have some highway to cover before we get home. We stopped in Bath, NY at a Pizza Hut for lunch. (Yes, I know that we had pizza for lunch yesterday, but can a person really have too much pizza?) It was some of the best pizza that we have ever found on a Pizza Hut buffet. Back on the road and on to Mercer PA where we are tonight. The weather all day today has been delightful! Beautiful blue skies lightly decorated with fluffy white clouds, 78 degrees F. Lots of construction on the highway and parts were just so rough that we thought that the motorhome would crumble to pieces. After lunch, I napped on the couch while Michael drove us as far as the gasoline stop in Jamestown NY. I took the dogs out there and while Penny was peeing in some roadside dust, a guy came out of the junkyard office right next door and shouted, "Ma'am, you can't walk your dogs here! I've got a pitbull who will jump over that fence and kill 'em!" No kidding. Perfect weather when we got to our camp to do a little Molson and toss a ball around. Here are a couple of photos as proof. <g> Now it is cooling down and almost dark, that time of day when the mosquitoes come out to let us know who is really in charge.
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| July 14 | Drove and drove today. We started out on interstate for just a bit on 80, then went south just after Akron Ohio on highway 585 then 3 then 36 and 4 to Springfield before we got onto the interstate again. | Tonight we are in Dayton Ohio at the Tall Timbers KOA where we spent our first night out, four weeks ago today. <Sigh> Not ready for it to end. |
| July 15 | We are home and busy doing
the re-entry routine. We had breakfast at Cracker Barrel not too far
west of Dayton and loved it. We got home at just about 12 noon to a
stack of mail at least 15 inches tall, a 12 inch stack of newspapers,
and grass up to our knees. We are full of happy memories of our vacation
and are <sigh> eager to get back into our routines.
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Thank you for coming along with us on our trip! We have really enjoyed the emails and comments. We invite more and look forward to doing this again on our next journey! Always me, Janee 7/15/00
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Photos & Log
