July 10, 2004 - First day - We left Madison Saturday at 5:00 PM after picking up Jean from work. We headed up to Green Bay. On the way we stopped in Fond Du Lac at Schreiner's restaurant and had dinner. That was a great supper club with good home town cooking. We stayed at the Country Inn in Green Bay. They had a nice pool for swimming. Drove 132 miles.
July 11, 2004 - Second day - We drove north and went through Peshtigo, Marinette, and Menominee. We stopped in Peshtigo and saw the dam and Peshtigo river. We also stopped in Menominee and saw the downtown. Menominee has a great little coffee and lunch place on the main drag we always stop in when we're in the area, it's called the Serving Spoon Café. We also stopped in Manistique Michigan and had a break from driving. We crossed over at Sault Ste Marie and headed down the Canadian Hyw 17 to Chutes Ontario Provincial Park near Massey Ontario on the River aux Sables. We stayed here for the night. Chutes had a lot of Mosquitoes, but luckily we were prepared. The area was heavily logged one hundred years ago but is fully forested now. The falls or "Chutes" as they're known in French were nice to view. Drove 443 miles that day.
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| The Light house at Manistique Michigan UP | Camping at Chutes Provincial Park | The Chute |
July 12, 2004 - Third day - We drove through Sudbury Ontario. Sudbury seems to be built upon a land that has many exposed outcropping of bedrock. Throughout the entire city and in people's yards you can see bare rock and boulders. This is land that must have seen continual advances and retreats of glaciers scraping the land raw. From North Bay the land starts to change. We stopped in Mattawa Ontario, on the Ottawa River. The land reminds me a lot of Northern Wisconsin. It has many tall white pines and thick woods with some birch, maples, and aspen. The area also has many large hills. We drove to a private camp ground past Cobden, named Yonder Hill camp ground. Few Mosquitoes here. Two things that are different in Canada are (1) the money is different, they have done away with the dollar bill and have one dollar coins instead and they also have a two dollar coin. (2) All of the gas stations that we stopped at were full service stations, rather than self service stations. You have to tell the attendant how much gas you want. Drove 339 miles.
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| Down town Sudbury | From Mattawa, Ottawa River | Camping at Yonder Hill |
July 13, 2004 - Fourth day - We drove to Ottawa, which was within a hour's drive from where we stayed that night. The visit to Ottawa was the trip's "sleeper", meaning that we really didn't expect the magnifigance of the city. It was truly beautiful. With it's government buildings, many grand monuments, and bustling Rue Sparks Street, it as truly a sight to behold. We went on a tour of the Canadian Parliament building. This grand building contains the House of Commons and the Senate of the legislative branch of the Canadian government. On the walls of the Senate there are a set of painted murals of World War I. This is to remind the Senators the tragedy of war and the consequences of committing to such an act. I think our government needs a reminder like this. We had a great time in Ottawa, despite two minor snafus. One I left my car keys with the security check point in Parliament, and did realize it until several hours later. Luckily they were still taking tours through security and I was able to identify my set of keys. The other problem was when we came back to our car we saw that we had a parking ticket. Even though we had enough change in the meter the parking lane has switched to a commuting lane at 3:30 PM and someone was right there to give us a $75 ticket at 3:36. We decided that we did not need to pay the ticket, because (a) we are not Canadian citizens and (b) the worst that could happen, as the ticket points out, was that they could revoke our Ontario Driving license. After spending a good part of the day, we drove on to Montreal to spend the night. We drove to a high rise Holiday Inn on Rue Sherbrooke, in downtown Montreal. The hotel attendants parked our car and sent someone down to carry our bags up to our room. Mileage for the day was 207.
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| Rue Sparks Street | Parliament | Grotesque features adorn Parliament | Rosalind near the Statue of Queen Victoria |
July 14, 2004 - Fifth day - Montreal is a very large city. Driving into Montreal and Quebec was very different. Up until this point most road signs were in French and English, but getting into Quebec the signs were all in French. The drivers are also very crazy in Montreal. After parking our car we explored the old city and many of the attractions. Montreal is the most lively city downtown. The sidewalks are bustling and lively. There are many great Cafés, restaurants, and art galleries in the old part of the city. We also saw the Notre Dame Cathedral which had the facade of the Notre Dame in Paris but the interior is modeled off an entirely different church in Paris. It was probably the most richly decorated church I've ever seen. Montreal is also a very hip city, with many young people and street upon street with cool places to hang out. Many of the houses in the city are 3-4 story apartment and condos with flat and colorful roof tops. There is often no space between them. There is also some what of a graffiti problem in the city and it isn't clean in places. We also drove up to Mount Royal, which is a large hill made into a park that over looks the city. We left Montreal at about 6-7 PM and headed on to Quebec city. We got into Quebec city around 10-11 PM. We found that many of the hotels were booked, so it took us a while to find a place to stay. I always love this part of long road trips. We finally found a place called the Carnival motel. We stayed in their "Chalet", which was a small separate shed shaped building that went part way into the ground. They had just cleaned the carpet, but I slept on the ground since there was only one bed. We drove 195 miles this day.
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| The Old city - lined with Cafés and Art Galleries | Notre Dame Cathedral | The Old fortification wall from the 1600's. | Some of the neat residence building that line Montreal's streets |
July 15, 2004 - Sixth day - Quebec city had the greatest old town I've ever seen in any city. With it's street upon street of cobble stone roads, stores and Cafés, this city was a great destination. It ended up raining all day, sometimes hard at times, but we got to see a lot, and there wasn't the droves of people. The old city is divided up with two parts. There is an upper part which over looks the St. Lawrence and a lower part that we rode a lift down a cliff to get down to. I bought a couple of souvenirs in Quebec. One alley in the upper city had artists and their prints lined up on both side. I bought a copper etchings print of the city with 3 panels and an old fashioned shirt. Quebec was our favorite part of the trip. After Quebec city we turned around to start the long trip home. We took hwy 20/401 past Montreal. We drove down to Charleston lake Provincial Park. We got in about 10 PM and had to pitch the tent in pitch darkness. Charleston lake was a beautiful pristine lake. It was good to hear bull frogs croaking in the background as we slept. In the morning I went down to the lake shore and saw the crystal clear water. This was a very special place. We drove 354 miles that day.
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| Looking down Rue St. Louis | Looking down a street in the lower part of the city | The old city gates | The Chateau Frontenac hotel |
July 16, 2004 - Seventh day - From Charleston Lake we decided to drive through Toronto. Once we parked inside Toronto we tried to find the old town or Antique district. We ended up walking along the harbor area for quite some ways. They are building a lot of modern high-rise apartments/condos in that area. We never found the old area, but we did see the University area after getting in the car again. Toronto is just another large city. Before the day got away from us we headed to Niagara Falls to see the falls from the Canadian side. This was a lot more fun and exciding. Niagara falls on the Canadian side is a little like a little Las Vegas. It had nice modern hotels, several Casinos, live music outdoors, and many people. There were many foreigners there from all over the world seeing the falls. It was a very well manicured and clean city. We ate at an Italian restaurant where the wait-staff wore shirts that said, "Elvis ate here... a lot". At night they had fireworks and changing colored lights trained on the falls. It was very beautiful actually. We stayed in St. Catharines a few miles west of Niagara Falls that night. Drove 361 miles.
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| Downtown Toronto | Niagara Falls from the Canadian Side | Niagara Falls from the Canadian Side | Rosalind at Niagara Falls |
July 17, 2004 - Eighth day - After swimming in the hotel pool. We explored St. Catharines for a little while. St. Catharines has many great older buildings and a nice central park. We stopped by an antique shop and bought a picture. Few people know this but St. Catharines and Naigara Falls are the heart for the Canadian wine making country. It boasts over 50 wineries in the area. We also stopped in London Ontario on this day. London was having an art fair in their main park. Jean bought a hand made sun hat. After London we crossed into the U.S.A. at Sarnia/Port Huron. Here they performed a random search on our car and they checked our ids. Luckily we passed the check point unscathed. We drove along Hwy 69 through Flint, Lansing, Battle Creek, and Kalamazoo Michigan. We crossed almost the entire length of lower Ontario and all of Michigan in one day. What struck me the most about Michigan was the lack of many human structures and towns along the highway. Even going through the larger towns they didn't have extensive sprawl. Going past a large city like Lansing you hardly would even know it, it was all green. We ended up staying at Benton Harbor on Lake Michigan. We drove 402 miles.
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| Jean and her new hat at the London Art Fair |
July 18, 2004 - Ninth day - The next morning we explored Benton Harbor. This town seemed like it was dying. It had many boarded up and run down buildings. It looked more like a bad part of a suburb of Chicago than a small town of it's own. We headed on to Chicago and went to the Chicago Field Museum. They had a special exhibit there, which was of the soil under our feet and the ecology in it. You shrunk and saw many of the animals the inhabit the soil up close and large. From Chicago we drove home. We drove 263 miles that day. We drove a total of 2,695 miles on the trip.
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| The largest known lobster on earth | The main entrance to the Field museum, Chicago. | On the steps of the Field museum, Chicago | The End |
