Saturday, July 17th

Beth and Mom left Rhode Island early Saturday morning in the trusty green Crown Victoria, and soon arrived at my apartment in Malden to pick me up. As usual, I was almost ready but not quite ready. Our destination for today was Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Our trip would take us through Vermont and the Lake Champlain area on the Vermont/New York border. During the drive to Burlington, VT the conversation included such topics as Beth's dream of joining the Coast Guard, Mom's personal philosophies (Water dries and Shit happens), and how "Bingoed With Cruller" would be a good name for a band. We also played trivia, always a fun way to pass the time. We arrived in Burlington in the early afternoon.

We ate lunch at the Breakwater Cafe.

Mom enjoys her chicken caesar wrap.

Time for some photo ops.

After lunch, it was time to hop on the ferry that would take us across Lake Champlain.

The cars are lined up waiting for the ferry to arrive.

Me: "Why are you taking a picture of me already, nothing has happened yet!"

Mom: "It's never too soon to take pictures! Look at me, I'm already having a blast!"

OK, we're on our way.

The view looking back toward Burlington.

The view looking south.

Look everybody, it's Jerry Seinfeld! See us discreetly take a picture of him by pretending to take a picture of Mom.

We approach the opposite shore, Port Kent, NY.

After we got on the road again, we stopped at a convenience store for snackages. We got a bunch of stuff like soda and ice cream for a few dollars. We also learned that Simple Plan would be performing at a local fair, but unfortunately we would miss it because we would be exploring the wonderful nation of Canadia.

We arrived at the Saint Bernard de Lacolle checkpoint. We didn't have any trouble going through Customs. The Customs agent asked us easy questions like where we were from, where we were going, were we carrying more than $10,000 in cash, etc.

The first thing we noticed about Canada was that everything was in FRENCH! What's up with that? Silly us forgot to bring a French-English dictionary. The second thing we noticed was that the speed limit was 100! Woo hoo! But before Mom could floor it, I pointed out that it was 100 kilometers per hour, not miles. 100 kilometers per hour is equal to approximately 62.5 miles per hour, which is actually slower than the 65mph limit in New York. Grrr.

To get to our destination of Ottawa, we actually had to go through Montreal, which would be the second stop on our trip the following night. Mom braved a crazy looking bridge with one lane on each side, and we made it to Ottawa with little difficulty. It was somewhat of a challenge parking in the small underground parking garage with the Crown Victoria, but Mom is an excellent driver and handled it with ease. We snuck up to our room lest the hotel people find out we were actually 3 people staying in a room reserved for 2.

For our first meal in Canada, we got creative and ordered a pizza. We had it delivered to our hotel room which was nice. One thing we noticed about pepperoni pizza in Canada is they put the pepperoni under the cheese instead of on top. That took some getting used to, but it was still good!

Beth poses in our hotel room in Ottawa.