The Trip Down Home

The Trip Down Home: Driving Day 1 (TO to Drummondville QC)

Well, we (of course) got a later start than we would have liked, and traffic was very s l o w coming out of TO, so after 2 hours we needed a pit stop, and we stopped at The Big Apple.
Now, I have driven past that thing a lot and always wanted to stop. It was kinda cool! Nice little (clean) rest stop, with food. (Nothing too special: burgers/hot dogs & of course pies!) It has a pie baking factory that you can look into, a mini putt, bumper cars, nature trail (with a bee's nest obstacle!) & Petting zoo; the kids loved it, it was certainly a refreshing change from the usual road-side stops along the 401. There are supposedly wild bunnies on the grounds, but we didn't see any, maybe the rain scared them away.


The driving with the kids was better than we hoped, not too many "are we there yet's" but a few "I'm bored's" and a couple of "out now Mommy's." We discovered that it is in someways easier to entertain a 2 year old than a 5 year old on a car trip, although Maggie at least understood why she was trapped in the car. I can't tell you how many times we listened to the Barenaked Ladies kids cd "Snacktime" ("again Mommy!")but thank the maker! It's is sooo much better than Fisher Price or Barney. I'm not sure we would have made it through with our sanity intact!

It rained off and on the whole way to Drummondville, the worst was Montreal, It was raining hard, and the canals, I mean highways, were full of water, we felt really bad for the motorcyclists, as we splashed them going by. Daddy was an excellent chauffeur for us - Mommy was glad she wasn't driving!

The kids really enjoyed their stay in a hotel, and watching The Simpson's and Diego in french, was a novel experience.


The Trip Down Home: Driving Day 2 (Drummondville to Dalhousie Junction NB)

More of the same weather: overcast and rainy, although we managed to miss any major downpours on all of our pit stops so far....

We finally were within sight of the St. Lawrence in the afternoon, ahh, the east coast, getting close to home. The drive along the St. Lawrence and the western end of the Gaspé Peninsula is beautiful, views of rolling hills and mountains, and glimpses of the beautiful, wide river. Not to mention all the lobster places we passed (one day we will stop at Capitaine Homard!)

We were doing well, decided for the last pit stop of the day to stop at the Micky D's in Mont Jolie, for something fast and easy. Then Maggie managed to trip and fall at the entrance and banged her face and cut her eye as well. Poor thing was pretty upset, and kinda scared. and my French is pretty rusty, so the girl at the counter looked at me a little funny when I asked for a "verre de glace" (glass of ice) I'm sure she was wondering why the crazy english lady came into Mc D's only for ice. In the end Maggie was ok, just got a bit of a shiner, and lesson learned - should have gone to Dixie Lee!

We crossed the Bridge to New Brunswick at Campbellton (my home town) in the evening, right after we had to pull over so I could remove a Cheerio from Ian's nose (don't ask). We got to my sister's place (outside of town) in Dalhousie Junction, just in time for the kids to say hi to Nana (she was waiting for us to arrive). The kids were very excited to be here, and we had a hard time getting them to go to bed! The boys slept in the "camp" (the little rustic cabin at my sister's place) and the girls slept in the house.

So now the adventure of the drive is over, and the adventure of the vacation begins! Let's just hope it stops raining!