Today, a break with tradition...
We got up early..
Well I guess early is a relative concept, anyway we managed to hit the road out of Rhode Island by 10am.. the plan was to drive 100 miles before we were allowed to have breakfast, so when Tamsin reached for the bag of barbecue snacks at 78 miles you can guess my reaction.. suffice to say she made it to the 100m mark without snacking.
We thought we`d have no trouble finding the food place of our choice (Today was to be Dennys day..) but we were let down.. mile after mile of dense green forest flew by.. my adherence to the speed limit became more and more tenuous as we got hungrier and hungrier ...at about the 200 mile mark (And at about 105mph...) we found a local break fast place, it wasn`t Dennys but it did the trick.. and so on to Canada..
The drive through Vermont was fast and pretty, and no toll booths! so we made good time, we reached the Canadian border by 3:30pm and started to head up to Montreal.
I knew that some of Canada was French speaking but I wasn`t prepared for what was to follow.. It was like going to France! we stopped to change some money into Canadian at a bank and had to conduct the transaction using hand waving, drawing on the counter and a bribe of 200 Gaulois cigarettes.. (Slight exaggeration...) quick phone calls to Roch and Janis later and Ottawa was prepared for our arrival, we headed into the heart of Montreal so we could take the left turn that would point us in the correct direction..
Have you ever been to Montreal? Nope? Don`t go.. what a dump! No radio, no man ners, and no roadsigns, ..those that they do have are in French.. Rue this, Rue that.. Rue the bloody day I set wheel in the place I do.. ..sheesh, we lost 90 minutes in that garlic riddled, Jerry Lewis loving, frogs leg sucking shrine to the French and their weasly ways..
..ahem... Composure re-gained I set the cruise control at about 150kmph and we hurtled towards Ottawa.
We eventually landed in Downtown Ottawa at about 8pm, 30 mins later and we were in our Hotel, had located the modem socket and arranged where to meet Roch and Janis..
Roch turned up on time and brought Mrs. Roch with him, once again real life looked nothing like photos I`d seen.. not a bad thing, it just never ceases to amaze me how even with pictorial evidence I manage to imagineer up completely ludicrous ideas of how on-line friends look/behave..
We hung around the hotel for a while but Janis hadn`t shown so we went to a Mexican place nearby and left a note explaining where we were.. unfortunately and unbeknown to us Janis was on a fruitless search of all the Hotels with names similar to the one I`d given her but didn`t manage to find us.. DOH! (We`re meeting her tomorrow now..) Roch & Mrs Roch were fine company and we spent a pleasant evening gossiping about... well.. you lot basically.. following the meal The Rochsters took us on a whis tle-stop guided tour of Ottawas architecture by night... it`s a nice looking city I have to say.. even though when we got back to the Hotel Janis had left an email describing how whilst in a call box trying to find us a man defecated on the pavement not 4 feet from her.. Oh well, I guess we couldn`t have all the fun to ourselves...
So endeth day 7, nite nite.
Back to intro..
Onward ..tomorrow is another day!