A Year Gone By

I can't believe a whole year has passed by since we last posted a blog entry.  Everything was still new to us, so we should have had material to write about.  Perhaps, no matter where you go, one slips into a realm of mediocrity and routine and then feels that they have nothing to write home about.  Although, I think it has more to do with the fact that we were slated to return to the West months ago, and for whatever reason...we're still here.

In this past year, we've tried to experience life as islanders to the fullest.  We haven't taken in any celidhs, nor have we traveled far away from the island as much as we thought we would have, but the soft sand beaches were never far away, and we felt a need to enjoy the local oceanic landscapes as much as we could.  We have covered the island from tip to tip, to tip (PEI is shaped a little weird)...and put all the kilometers on the F150 which should make all the oil & gas barons out West happy.  There is so much to see though, one would have to live a lifetime out here to see it all.

We've attempted to become part of our community by buying local food, firewood, and other wares that may be handcrafted using techniques that have been passed down through generations.  Over the last year we've quite enjoyed being part of a local organic veggie program, which has provided us with a bounty of wonderful produce and free range and grass or grain fed meats. 

We have met many of our neighbors, some immigrated many years ago, and some have never called anywhere else home.  Most of the people we have talked to have an interesting story of traveling from some part of the world to this island gem.  A few had even went through our experience of having just come here temporarily, but ended up moving here permanently.  I can't say for sure if that is our outlook, but the temptation is certainly there. 



We've all had birthdays here now.  Our cheeky gal is 17 months at the time of writing this.  She is such a blessing in our family.  Liam just turned four and has actually had two birthdays out here now!  He's happy to play in the yard, or ride his bike in the basement...and can always be found doting on his sister.  They are both headed into ages where they will enjoy each others company and actually like playing with one another.  Shan is lonely for home...and in some ways we all are.  We just came back from a visit to the West and it was truly hard to leave family and friends behind again.  The big cities, however, we could easily leave that behind.  We have made many friends here, but it's tough to make family out here! :D

All said, life on the island takes you back in time.  A past era that was simplified, perhaps more along the lines of how we were intended to live.  No booms, no busts...just a living and what seems to be a pleasant one.  We are staying another winter, convinced that we can endure it by the size of the firewood pile outside.  Where we go from here, it is anyone's guess.

Wind, Rain, Surf & Sand.

I only planned on writing the blog for the duration of our trip, but we thought that it would be an effective tool for keeping everyone updated on the goings on here.  As I watch my Oilers at 1:00 AM (this is going to take some getting used to), I will try and summarize our first two weeks here.

For the most part, it's been a fairly gloomy couple of weeks.  We've experienced sideways rain on more than one occasion, and the grass that I shouldn't have needed to cut will in fact need to be cut if we get any more rain!  However, there has also been a few beautiful days (both Saturday's) where the sun shines and we have been able to get out and experience a bit of the island.  I haven't made any attempts to venture out golfing or fishing, but our family did head out to PEI National Park near Cavendish early this week and we walked the oceanside boardwalk today in Summerside.  PEI National Park has one of the nicest beaches I've ever been on.  We flipped off our shoes, rolled up our jeans (wearing shorts is a stretch on PEI, and people look at you funny if you do) and made our way onto the sand.  I was the first to dip my toes in the ocean, and Liam wasn't far behind.  Cold, yes it was cold...but you got used to it.  I don't know if I would go swimming there though, I might have a heart attack dipping my whole body in.  The locals seem to know where the good beaches are though, and where the warm water is.

Speaking of locals, we've met a few neighbors and acquaintances/friends of our landlords.  We introduced ourselves to the gentlemen who's going to come and get the two cows that are busily eating the acreage grasses.  He owns an organic farm about 1/2 km down the highway and puts produce in a little hut he built for people to come and buy, completely on the honor system (something you rarely see these days).  We've a farmer named Gerard who owns all the pretty land that surrounds us.  He's dutch by heritage and moved here 23 years ago from Holland.  Gerard hooked us up with another gentlemen, Sam, that supplies seasoned (dried) firewood.  Sam was the first, true islander that we met.  He rounded up the wood that will hopefully keep us warm this winter and keep the propane bills down.

Last Saturday was our first day at the Charlottetown church.  The congregation is quite a bit smaller than we are used to, which will force us to get out of our pew-warming mentality.  In such a small church, everyone has to help out in order for it to run, and we are looking forward to helping to serve the church and community any way we can. In fact, after meeting some wonderful people, I think I might already have become the new web guru for the church and possibly the Maritime conference.  Shan wishes that she was a good piano player, or had no fears of standing up front and singing.  When you have music behind you as a skill, it's easy to be integrated in a church setting because those are jobs that churches like to have and the people like to do.

The kids have had a good couple of weeks since arriving.  You can see that being settled in a home and not living a transient life really does wonders for the behavior of your toddler.  Liam is more relaxed and more "in control" than our trip out here.  Shan and I were both hoping that the trip and extended stay in Medicine Hat wouldn't have any long lasting affects, and it's seems that is the case.  Alaina is always relaxed, but she's begun to teethe and is chomping on everything.  It will be fun to see them both grow up a little in this environment.  You have to remember, we are on an acreage, 10 minutes out of a small town, and 15 or so minutes out of Summerside, a larger small town of 30,000+.  All this after previously living in a city that equals the population of the entire island here, and further back, a larger, bustling city of over a million people.  You can already see the country life creating little memory pathways in their mind.

Forecast is wind, wind, and more wind!

We have finally arrived!  Almost a month to the day from leaving Kelowna, 13 days on the road, 5400+ km's, and approximately 50 viewings of the movie Cars, we crossed Confederation Bridge at 5:00 PM ADT.  Our trailer containing all of our "stuff" did not make the journey across the bridge due to high winds on the bridge, and all tractor-trailers, RV's, towing, and "high-sided" vehicles had to pull over and wait.  The bridge staff directing people to pull over noted that the wind gusts on the bridge were clocked at 100 kph.  I'm guessing that is a mild breeze in PEI standards.  We tried to wait a while to see if would re-open, but after an hour and a half passing by, and two kids going squirrley (we did promise them this would be the last day of travel), we headed back to Sackville, NB for some lunch.  While driving through Sackville (not even an hour after we left the bridge), we heard on the radio that the bridge was open and traffic in both directions was flowing smoothly!  So, after lunch we headed back to the bridge only to find out that it was still closed!  Apparantly, different broadcast stations were relaying conflicting info and bridge traffic was still closed and had never resumed.  There we were, future landlord's expecting us, kids going squirrley, Shan's eye's a rolling (she loves the wind), we dropped our trailer off at a diner parking lot and high-tailed across the bridge to PEI.  Wow, was it gusty.  The steering wheel was at a good 20-30 degree tilt the entire way across, and I'm sure if we had the trailer it would have pulled it and the truck (along with us) into icy Atlantic.

We indeed made it across and met our new landlords, and they are fantastic people.  The farmhouse is very nice, newly renovated, spacious, clean, and well organized.  The house sits on six acres of land on the top of rolling hills,with 360 degree views of surrounding farmland.  When we pulled up the driveway, there were some cows in pasture nearby which Liam loved!  The cows won't be here long, they are going to a "different" place soon.

Our first night involved picking the rooms that we were all going to sleep in.  Liam and Alaina are going to share a room, and I'm hoping that Shan and I will be able to share a room once again.  Liam enjoyed getting acquainted with his room and is probably just glad that we aren't traveling anymore.  Alaina just "goo-goos" and "ga-gaas", and is at the stage where she will do whatever we say.  What a good little girl.  Barely made a fuss the entire trip.  We had a pretty good night's sleep in the strange beds, and woke up early by our standards.  We had no food, so priority one was finding a Tim Horton's.  Being Sunday, we kind of figured that not a lot of stores would be open early on Sunday...after all, everyone here is probably in church until noon!  We hit the Tim's, and with the weather forecast on our side, he paid our first dues ($42.50) and hopped back on the bridge to go get our trailer before the wind picked up once again.  You see, everyone is welcome to PEI, but they get you when you try to leave!  The trailer was back on the vehicle we did the bridge thing yet one more time and headed off towards the Superstore in Summerside for some supplies.  We arrived back home in the afternoon and unloaded the trailer and gobbled down a nice home-cooked meal (a first in a long time for us).  There are a lot of boxes around now, and I know we'll have to do it all again in 8 months, but I think in the end, the trip will be well worth it.  Worth what you ask?  Worth the experience, the sights seen along the way, and getting to meet new people here and across the country.

What I like about PEI already, and probably more so about the place currently living, is the tranquility.  It really is peaceful here.  If you need to go anywhere, everything you need (except for a Costco which will cost us $42.50 every time) is inside of twenty minutes!  The locals are friendly, and the pace of life slowed down at the northern end of that bridge.  We're hoping to continue on with some stories of adventure while experiencing the seasons out here, I know winter will be interesting.  Thanks to everyone for following us across Canada.  I'm hoping you could live a little bit through us should you have ever dreamed of traveling across the country with two small children!

The Last Day?

It's the final day of our journey, or at least it was supposed to be.  We left Quebec last night and drove the three hours to Edmundston, New Brunswick where we stayed the night.  There was not much to see driving in the dark, but it was all according to plan after spending the day touring Quebec.

After waking up and having our usual continental breaky, which I think Liam is going to expect every morning in the future, we were off on the roads again, headed straight for the Confederation Bridge that links PEI to the mainland.  We had planned one longer stop in Fredericton to help ease the burden of the long drive.  The drive to Fredericton was very nice as the leaves are a little further along in their advancement towards Fall.  Even certain trees that looked like "evergreens" were turning a shade of yellow, which made me think that they are a form of Tamarack...and obviously not a true evergreen.

Our stop in Fredericton was about two hours long and we went to 'Science East', a science museum filled with neat little experiments for kids.  It was a little old for Liam, but I certainly enjoyed it...a little on the expensive side though at $16 for two adults.  Liam did seem to like flipping switches and pulling levers, and most of the other hands-on type experiments.  I guess the Museum used to be an old town prison where many prisoners were held, tortured, and otherwise executed.  The basement "dungeon" as they called it was historically restored, and was not meant for two year olds...even I had a bit of the "heebee jeebees" when I was down there seeing if it was okay for Liam to head down there.  We had meant to have lunch at Brewbakers, a well known restaurant in the heart of downtown, but never made it there due to downtown parking.  It's not easy finding double-length stalls, much less street parking for our "Rig".  I actually almost got us stuck once again trying to turn around in...what I thought was a street, but in fact was a cul-de-sac.  Shan just rolled her eyes and got out once again to help me with backing up.

On our way out of Fredericton, a wicked rain storm drifted over us and pelted us with large drops of rain, thankfully no hail.  The storm clouds looked ominous and if I could drive and hold a camera, I would have taken a picture.  Shan doesn't like to take pictures of menial things like clouds.  That storm followed us all the way to Moncton where it hit us again with a sideways downpour that I haven't seen in a long time.

So, here we are stopped for the night in Moncton.  The variables just didn't add up with us making it to PEI tonight.  We started off late from the hotel this morning after a late night of driving the previous night, our stop in Fredericton was longer than anticipated, Liam had skipped his nap and was almost entering "squirrley mode", and the sun was setting just as we entered Moncton.  Also, there were signs all along the highway warning of giant moose that may wander onto the highway at night.  If the moose on the sign were drawn to scale, we'd be looking out for 30 ft tall moose, and that's something I don't want to contend with. Tonight we diverted from our usual Days Inn stay to a Super 8 stay...our first on our trip.  The hotel is nice, and it had a pool...which for the last time on this trip...Liam loved and didn't want to leave.  At the very least, it's a bed for the night for which we are thankful for.  Our family can now be well rested for the 1 1/2 hours remaining on our long journey, and appear to be "happy" upon arrival.

With that, I'll once again say "au revior" from the most bilingual town in Canada (even more than Ottawa?), Moncton, NB.  Moncton is also known to have the most Tim Horton's per capita in Canada as well.  We must have passed at least ten of them just on the highway, and from our prior visit to Moncton, we know of a location that has two locations kiddy-corner from one another.  Amazing.

Good night, God bless, and Happy Sabbath.

Quebec Part Deux

Did I mention that Quebec city is beautiful?  Picture this day (minus the two kids in tow if you must), taking a horse-drawn carriage through the narrow streets of the old Quebec, meandering through tight corridors where actual window shopping exists (the windows were actually open and had wares in them for display), traversing the walls of La Citadelle, stopping for authentic french crepes, and sipping hot chocolates on a patio.  Who would have thought this could be done with two kids, but the day went great and was by far our best day on the trip.


Even though we were up early, the sleep at the Chateau Frontenac was one of the best ones we had.  The beds and pillows there were like clouds that you could rest your head upon and drift quickly asleep.  Shan was up around 6:30 AM (a first on this trip, we've been typically getting up at 9:00) and thinking about a dip in the pool. She tried to go back to sleep, but found herself dreaming about the pool, so she ended up going alone to the pool and hot-tub.  Shan deserved the time alone, and I needed the additional Z's before heading to the pool myself.  We had promised Liam to take him in the pool in the morning, and he loved it there and didn't want to leave (as usual).  After getting ready, we headed down to the Le Café de la Terrasse for breakfast buffet.  The food was fantastic, as expected, and certainly made up for the horror de cuisine the previous night.  Our attempts to book another night at the grand hotel would have cost us $700, as they only had suites left.  We graciously bid farewell as the price was SIGNIFICANTLY more than our expedia-aided purchase, and we could never spend that much on hotel sleeping...no matter where the location was.

After checking out, we headed straight for the horse-drawn carriages that could be rented.  It was a 40 minute ride, and a first for all of us.  Our driver's name was Denny, his sidekick terrier Winston, and his horse was named Queen.  It was a great chance to see old Quebec without doing all the walking.  Old buildings from another time lined the streets, and could be purchased for mere millions.  Statues of Quebec's hero's and heroine's dotted the landscape...Champlain, and Joan of Ark were the figures likely mentioned on all the tours.

Coming from the hour long tour by horse, we thought it would be time to move our vehicle from its prime parking location.  We pulled our "caravan de cargo" from its safe haven in front of the hotel and found some parking down the hill, adjacent to old Quebec.  I'm thinking that those valet's were tired of seeing that sweet rig there, and tired of trying to navigate around it.  Down below in old Quebec, this is where we started to walk around the old cobblestone streets, and you could just imagine going back in time, me in my top hat and suit or smoking jacket, and Shan wearing a thirty layer dress.  We toured the lower portion of old Quebec where the window shops were, and then hopped on an electric mini-bus that took us back up to the top of old Quebec, more specifically the Citadel (or La Citadelle au francois).  The Citadelle was somewhat of a disappointment.  Not only did we have a two-year old going squirrely (he was tired and fell asleep on the carriage ride), but the Citadelle is an active military base, so the only way you could see most of it was by guided tour.  Shan and I both knew that the tour was out of the question.  I have to wonder though, are the French guarding their city against a naval attack?  I'm not sure if those canons up on the walls could muster anything against today's military might.  All joking aside, the history and purpose of the installation was neat to see, even if was only walking on the tops of the outside ring.

Our "tummies were empty" as Liam likes to say, so we stopped at a authentic crêperie for...what else...crêpes!  I like breakfast crêpes, but who knew that you could put almost anything in a crêpe and charge over $10 for it!  The French knew...that's who!  Shan had a crêpe filled with asparagus and sauce, and I had a veggie-pizza crêpe.  My dish tasted ok (I still couldn't get over the thought of sweet breakfast crêpes) and Shan's...had a lot of asparagus.  My mom's breakfast crêpes with homemade jam were still better in my opinion, and they were free!

Our last stop was a quick walk around the boardwalk of the Chateau Frontenac, one last time for picture taking opportunities.  I think we snapped to good photos of the surroundings.  Liam wasn't interested in any picture taking at this time, so we started to hoof it down the steep streets toward our vehicle.  In the ten minutes that it took to walk down, Liam had fallen asleep on the rough sidewalks and streets and almost slept for another two hours beyond Quebec city on our way out!  Let's just say, he did not have an early night at our hotel in Edmundston that night.  


Our commute out of Quebec was horrid as they only have two large bridges for traffic.  I got the feeling that most people worked on one side of the river and lived on the other side in Levis (not the jean maker, there is a special character on the e).  I also think that having only two bridges is part of the plan of the French to defend their city even further!  Once out of the city, and out of rush hour traffic, the flow smoothed out and we were well on our way to New Brunswick.  Of course, we had to stop for one last "dooble dooble" as I kept telling Shan that's how it would be pronounced in french.


To backtrack a bit, I should mention our wild adventure in Montreal here.  We never did end up stopping in the city, well I should say parking.  Montreal is an absolute nightmare to drive in.  As a westerner, it's your first major city coming up from bilingual Ottawa on the 417, and all of a sudden at the Quebec border all the road signs are in french only.  Now, I know a little french, mostly the counting part learned from Sesame Street...and I could deduce some of the road signs, but let this be a word of warning to other visitors who are not comfortable driving in such a foreign land!  So, you have an hour of practice with some road signs, and there's fun and games with your wife trying to come up with a translation...all of a sudden, you are thrown into Montreal!  Quebecers or Quebecois...not sure what is right here...are ALL crazy drivers!  They go mach whenever they can, they drive right on your bumper (mostly because if you have a spare foot ahead of you, someone will try and squeeze in there), and they are not courteous at all.  Someone in Ottawa told us to avoid the 40 going through Montreal...that there was "construction".  Well, she did not tell us the entire highway was under repair!  If I had to guess, we followed the 40 for about 20 km and it took us an hour to get through...it was bumper to bumper, six lanes wide if you include the on-ramps which you can use as sub-highways by getting off and on again!  Absolute madness.  I used to think that if you could drive in Calgary, you could drive anywhere!  Well, I've now changed my tune to "If you can survive in Montreal, you can drive anywhere!"  We've should have stayed on the 20, which appeared to be a more scenic route.  Also, I'm sure there are nice things to see in Montreal...we certainly did not see them in our little trek, but hope to be back to visit there again someday.

Quebec City

Bonjour!  Oh my, what a beautiful city Quebec is.  We are currently in Quebec, Quebec...I wonder if there is an Alberta, Alberta?  We arrived here after dark as usual after spending the night in Ottawa.  Now, Ottawa is a clean, beautiful, big city, but Quebec is breathtaking with it's centuries old, European architecture.  We are currently staying at the Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac, the most stunning hotel I've ever seen.  It sits on the shores of the St. Lawrence river and inside the gates and walls of the Citadel that guarded the city in historical times.  Even driving through the city in the dark, we could see the high-pitched rooves and exterior stone on the majority of the homes we passed.  After entering the gates, you see horse-drawn carriages, and couples walking hand in hand down the narrow streets and sidewalks of the inner courtyards.

Now picture this, in this old town...you now see a giant Ford F-150 (probably the only one in Quebec) towing a large, white cargo trailer...just cruising the narrow streets to find the hotel.  What a sight we must of been.  We actually missed the turn into the hotel because it's not a typical road...you have to go through a narrow archway to get to the front, which is not easy for this 25 foot caravan of cargo.  We, or more correctly "I" decided to try and turn around in a mostly empty parking lot.  I thought there was an old adage stating "If you can get in, you should be able to get out".  Well, it held true, but not after a 50-point attempt at getting our truck and trailer stuck between two old walls.  I know a gentlemen looking out his apartment window must have had a good chuckle seeing that one.  After finally getting turned around, we went back up the hill (Oh, that's what first gear is for on the truck, I honestly thought the back door of our trailer would bust open by the weight of everything pushing on it...it was that steep of a climb) and found a street close to the front of the hotel (we picked the wrong archway again).  We got our luggage, and the Bellhop must have saw us coming a mile away...yokels from B.C., modern day Beverly Hillbillies with all their stuff in tow.  He was actually so kind that he let us park right in front of the hotel...it otherwise would have been a descent back down the hill where we were and a 10 minute walk back up the hill for me!!  Let's just say I gave him a good tip for finding me the best parking spot in town for any hotel guest...it was well worth it in my mind.

We're now all cuddled up in our amazingly comfortable beds, everyone asleep except for the writer.  Our plans are to get up early and explore the old town, at least as much as we can within the gates of the Citadel.  We are going to try and get an extra day here because there is so much to see.  Hopefully I can get some pictures in and skirt the $15 internet fee to get this post up!

From all of us, au revoir

Ottawa, the Capital of Canada

I believe the last entry left off describing our arrival in Ottawa and our stay at the Travelodge.  Well, the accommodations and the pool at the hotel was a big hit, but the food wasn't.  We had two meals, a dinner and a buffet-style breakfast, and both left us with that queasy feeling in our stomachs.  We thought we give the breakfast a try and perhaps allow the hotel to redeem themselves from the dinner that took over an hour to cook (it was a burger and chicken parmesan).  What a mistake!  The pancakes tasted a day old, even Liam wouldn't eat them, and he loves pancakes!  The eggs tasted bland, and the fried potatoes were all shriveled up and really overcooked.  To the TL's defense, we did arrive near the end of the buffet and there didn't seem to be too many people that had eaten, so there wasn't likely any turnover of the food.  Anyway, hotel = B+, food = F.

We had big plans for Ottawa that realistically needed a week to complete.  We heard about the awful parking situation in downtown Ottawa, but shrugged it off thinking that surely we'd find a spot, after all, we had unhooked the trailer and should be able to park with ease.  Downtown Ottawa is a pure nightmare for parking.  I thought Calgary was bad, at least Calgary has about 50 more available parking lots, Ottawa I think had about 5 near the Parliament building and I couldn't seem to locate 4 of them.  That's where Vince parking came in.  He (the attendant, his name may have been Vince) gladly saw us pull in and probably notice the glowing B.C. plates on the truck.  He (we'll call him Vince) gladly charged us $25 for parking 3 1/2 hours because we were "oversized".  Now, our vehicle was bigger than any of the cars that were in the lot, but $25 for 3 hours?  Anyway, we bit the bullet because I didn't want to drive in downtown Ottawa any longer as the one-way streets were driving me nuts.  In comparison, Calgary's streets seem like 5 lane highways when compared to Ottawa's narrow two and three lane routes.

Our goal was to see the Parliament building, the Chateau Laurier, the Museum of Civilization, the Church of Notre-Dame, and if we could fit it in, the Aircraft Museum.  Well, we arrived downtown in mid-afternoon and only got to the Parliament building and the Chateau Laurier.  The Parliament was quite interesting, very picturesque, and there was an hint of importance and duty in the air.  Of course, you see your typical protester dressed up in a seal suit with a sign around his neck saying "Love me, don't club me"...but that gets swallowed up by the history and mystique of the setting.  One note, the Parliament isn't very wheelchair accessible...which is seen when trying to get a stroller up the thirty front steps.  We had to skirt around to the side and skirt around a limited amount of traffic to get the stroller up.  After going through security which is tighter than airport security (they made me take my belt off), we were off to the see the inner bowels of where all the important decisions are made .  We went to the near top of the Peace tower, walked through another type of war memorial, and sat in on Parliament's "Question Period".  My personal goal for Ottawa was simply to sit in on a session of Parliament, and even though my goal was only fulfilled for 5 minutes, it was awesome.  After going through more security and the confiscation of our cameras, coats, phones, etc...we all stepped in (remember, we have a 3 year old and a near 4 month old...this is no small feat) and enjoyed people yelling at one another for five minutes.  We saw all the usual suspects, Harper, Duceppe, Ignatiff...but I didn't see Layton, he might have been taking a union break.  The sentry at the door then gave us a tip that the session would be over in mere minutes and the exit would get very busy!  Liam was sitting so nicely and I would have loved to let him stay, but we shuffled him out of there without much notice (he actually liked it and wanted to stay).  After leaving the session, we walked around the grounds a bit more and off to the Chateau Laurier.  The Chateau Laurier is a Fairmont hotel, formerly a CP hotel and part of the chain of railway hotels that dot major cities across Canada.  Shan and I were married at the Palliser hotel in Calgary, so we always like to see the different chain of hotels when we visit the cities that house them.  The hotel was fairly grand, but I still thought some of the western hotels in the chain were nicer.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to our other destinations, but we did take the scenic drive through Ottawa down by the river.   We drove by 24 Sussex drive, the home of the Prime Minister, and some other fancy homes occupied by the Governor General, and probably the leader of the opposition.  Ottawa is truly a beautiful city, and if I had to choose a big city to live in (Ottawa has 900,000 people), I would choose Ottawa.  There are trees everywhere and the landscaping is immaculate.  The park setting we drove through was probably 20 km long and the city seemed very clean!  The down side to Ottawa is that it almost seems over the top.  I couldn't help notice where the taxpayer dollars were going almost every second I was there.  Twenty armed guards in a caravan of black cars for the PM, taxpayer dollars...twenty other new black cars of various make and model to drive dignitaries and members of Parliament around, taxpayer dollars...and finally the guy arguing with "Vince" the parking attendant over the fact he needed to expense his overly-expensive parking...more taxpayer dollars.

We have left Ottawa, headed for Montreal and Quebec City.  We are not sure about a stop in Montreal seeing as how we had left after noon again, and we definitely want to get to our booked room for the evening in Quebec City.