After our last day biking Le Petit Train du Nord, we decided to stay the night in Ottawa, rather than drive the five hours or so back to TO all in one go. We had not booked a hotel in the capital, because we weren’t sure what our plans would be. Who stays in Ottawa […]
The final leg of the bike journey on Le Petit Train du Nord was 42kms from Val David to St. Jerome and it was for the most part all downhill. We did coast past cyclists who were going the other way – uphill. They were struggling. Now I know why the tour bus takes you
I gather that you get to have a “des Monts” after your name, in the Laurentians, if you are a town that is really at the top of a mountain. Well, Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts certainly is and anyone who has cycled to it along Le Petit Train du Nord painfully knows how really high it is!! We’ve
OK, It wasn’t built overnight. It had been there all the time, only I hadn’t seen it. That is, I hadn’t looked at an elevation map. This was an old train track, why would I have to be concerned about elevation? Why, because I’m not a puffer belly – OK, I puffed a lot on
The cycling trail from Labelle to St. Jovite was more of what we had remembered from ten years ago. It was gently rolling and very flat in many places. It wasn’t as easy as yesterday’s paved trail, but I would trade crushed stone for pelting rain any day!! Although there was a lot of heavy
The lodging for the first night of our trip down Le P’tit Train du Nord was Auberge Chez Ignace, which was not only a refuge from the storm, but also a welcome oasis of warmth, charm and wonderful food. Here too, we finally had an opportunity to meet the other six people, who were travelling
I had one of those “OMG, what have I done?” moments last Friday. I was in the middle of the bush in Northern Quebec, totally isolated, covered in mosquitos, biking uphill, in the pouring rain. My husband, whom I had dragged along, was having chest pains and all I could think of was, “How did
….or maybe it’s gridlock of a whole different variety 🙂 I read in the paper yesterday where one of the bridges over the Seine in Paris lost a portion of its grid work because of all the padlocks that couples have affixed to it, as a sign of their eternal devotion to one another. Given
The first movie I watched on our new flat screen “Smart TV” (were all the other ones dumb?) – was “Finding Vivian Maier.” I have been fascinated by her photography since 2011, the first time I read an article about the auctioning of all her undeveloped film. In fact I wrote a post on it
Today, June 6, is DDay. The day the allies landed on the beaches of Normandy and began the liberation of France, which ultimately ended WWII. Usually DDay commands the front page of both daily newspapers. It didn’t today, eclipsed by the tragedy in Moncton – another war on a different front. Yes, there were a
