Notes from the road – Part VI.

It’s our last full day in Canada. We have another breakfast at Chez Cora. I recommend the Jambon Panini with mountains of fresh fruit.

We successful traverse the streets of Montréal and return the rental car. We ride Montréal’s subway, Métro for the first time. We journey to the Beaudry station and emerge in The Village, Montréal’s gay neighborhood. We know the secret handshake and are quickly ushered in. I’d tell you more, but it is top secret. (I’m kidding. There is no secret handshake. Anyone, even the most flamboyant breeder can enter The Village.) It’s mostly a commercial string of bars, restaurants and enterprises of ill-repute on Rue-Ste.-Cathérine Est (East St. Cathy’s Street) surrounded by some pretty swanky apartments/condos on the side streets. (Come on people, it’s the gay neighborhood, of course there are bars and restaurants and enterprises of ill-repute and swanky domiciles. I’m being semi-redundant here.)

Incongruously, there are two large Catholic churches in the neighborhood. As soon as I saw the second church, Église St.-Pierre-Apôtre (Church of St. Peter, the Apostle), I turned to Richard and said, “How many Catholic churches does a gay neighborhood need? I think this is overkill!”

He, of course, explains to me the storied history of the neighborhood as a working class, Catholic community that blah, blah, blah. And yadda, yadda, yadda.

We entered the Église St.-Pierre-Apôtre. Please, I have to ask that you all promise not to get on the horn immediately and contact the pope, but there was a very thinly disguised rainbow flag above the altar. This is not your mother’s Catholic church.


Rue-Ste.-Cathérine Est. Our neighborhood’s more festive than your neighborhood! Na-na-na!

Even the subway station has the colors!

I couldn’t read it in real life, and in pictures it just makes me dizzy.

The Université du Québec à Montréal replaced a church. I loved the way they saved the entry.

Notes from the road – Part V

Il pleut. Il pleut et il pleut et il pleut et il pleut.

For those of you not as fluent in French as I am, the above translates (figuratively) to, “It is raining so fricking hard that there are ducks standing in line to purchase umbrellas.

The nice valet parking attendant snatched the $5(CAD) bill out of my hand, handed me the car keys and watched Richard and I slog out in the rain to our vehicle. In the few seconds, it took us to toss our bags into the trunk and climb into the front seats, we were drenched. We wrung the excess moisture out of our clothes as I deftly navigated the car through the streets of Ville de Québec.

Thirty-five short minutes later, we were at Ste. Anne de Beaupré. Although a scene of miracles, it is a somewhat lesser pilgrimage site than Lourdes. Richard's mother had always wanted to go to Ste. Anne de Beaupré, but had never made it there. So, in honor of Bernadette Sloan Parker we made the pilgrimage.

Ste. Anne de Beaupré’s location, while not stunningly beautiful, was quite pleasant in its own waterlogged way. The Fleuve St. Laurent was nearby and it had lovely gardens and lawns. The torrential rains pouring off the roof of the basilique were, umm, quite invigorating as they splashed on our heads.

Richard thanked me for attending mass with him to honor his mother. I’m not quite as respectful as he gives me credit. My other option was sitting at a picnic table, unprotected from the deluge.

Leaving Ste. Anne de Beaupré, we passed the Chutes de Montmorency. We had planned to stop, but quite frankly if you’ve seen one damn waterfall in a pouring rain, you’ve seen them all.

We decided to take the scenic route back to Montréal hugging the Flueve St. Laurent, largely because I took a wrong turn and that was the road we were on. We passed through many quaint, rain soaked towns before we rejoined the freeway just past Trois-Rivière. By the by, if you’re looking for a picturesque small city, do not take the route we took through Trois-Rivière. Bleak is the best description.

We got back on the freeway just in time to experience… you guessed it… road construction. Nothing gives you an adrenalin rush quite like navigating Canadian road construction in heavy traffic during a rain storm.

We were quite happy to finally get to our hotel.
Stunningly, there are few pictures from day 5. The is the basilica at Ste. Anne de Beaupré.

This is a cute little park in the town of Champlain. We needed to pee and it wasn’t raining very hard.

Notes from the road - Part IV

Pictures from our full day in Ville de Quebec

The iconic hotel Chateau Frontenac.

If you ask Richard, “Chutes de neige” should never be translated into English. It refers to the steep pitched roof above the sign and the fact that in winter snow will bombast off the roof, causing danger to loiterers below.

Richard wouldn’t let me bring home my new toy cannon.

A street scene from Basse-Ville or lower town, along the river.

Notes from the road - Part IIIb

Arrival in Ville de Québec.


The historic old city of Québec is perched on a promontory high above the Fleuve St. Laurent (St. Lawrence River). Our hotel was not perched on said bluff. Our hotel was at the foot of the bluff. We arrived at about 4PM. I cajoled Richard into making the trek to see the old town. We got a map from the hotel’s front desk. (Do not believe Richard when he claims that we were issued crampons and a safety rope. There was no rappelling involved.) The fifteen minute walk took a hair bit more than a quarter hour. We were panting. We were sweating. A concerned passerby checked us for a pulse. But we made it!

A typical street in Old Québec.

True to their French heritage, Québecois are into their gardens.

This is a building that is very important and I have forgotten the name of.

Notes from the Road – Part IV or III or OMG I am already lost in this trip.

Okay, I’ve regrouped. This is day 3, so this should be Part III. I want everyone to go back to the last entry and where it says “Part III (or Part IIb)” in the title, take a Sharpie and cross out the “Part III” portion on your screen (if you’re grammatically fastidious, you may want to take out the parenthesis, too). Now go up to the title of this post and black out the “Part IV or” and the “or OMG I am already lost in this trip”. That will take care of any confusion.

Day III was the day I rented my first international car.

Generally speaking, I don’t refer to rental car agencies in kind terms. I admit I had a good experience in Salt Lake City, but I thought it was a total aberration.

I had walked alone from the hotel to the Atwater-Métro branch of Globe Car Rental. One would think that on foot, with an exact address, I wouldn’t toddle past the agency. But I did. Three times. I was beginning to believe I had been taken. They had my credit card number (another sorry story) and were now enjoying an all-expenses paid vacation in some country that had no extradition treaty with Canada.

Estimating the address, I walked into what I thought was a multiplex movie theater. And there, next to the popcorn machine was Globe Car Rental. (Actually, it was a shopping center. It all made sense when you opened the door.)

I entered with an attitude. I spoke French with my most authoritarian accent, “J’ai un reservation pour une voiture. Je m’appelle Robert Cornelison.”

They responded with “oooh la ètre de whâtever.”

I glazed over.

“You’re more comfortable in English, aren’t you?” was the next thing I heard.

You have to have been there. I will discuss the hospitality of Montréalers later, but I had two new best friends. They did everything but drive us to Ville de Québec. If you ever need a car in Montréal, you have my recommendation!

Notes from the Road – Part III (or Part IIb)

More pictures from Montréal.


Montréal has this neat thing called the Biosphere. Richard and I were going to go in it, but after we got there, we heard that they had scientific thingy-ma-jigs displayed there. Well, that is just so un-American. You understand we couldn’t do it. The Biosphere, part of the 1967 Expo, is on the Île-Ste-Hélène, so we had to take a ferry to get to it. (I heard that quip, ‘færies on a ferry’. That is just so funny, I forgot to laugh.) Anyway… where was I heading with this before I was so rudely interrupted?

Well, that is one thought line lost for eternity.


Montréal is a big city, with a big city skyline. It bears no resemblance to Hood River.



This is the Place Jacques Cartier in Vieux Montréal (Old Town, if you must). We arrived there late afternoon and just kind of hung out with the other tourists for a couple of hours then had a great dinner at one of the many restaurants that lined the square. It was one of my favorite times in Montréal.

Notes from the Road - Part II

PHOTOS FROM MONTRÉAL.

It was the center of a busy street. I liked it.


This was really beautiful. Remind me to tell you about my success rate for taking pictures inside of cathedrals or basiliques or churches or kerken or anything like that.


An old man on a park bench: you have to be careful of them. They seem to be endemic to the parks of Montréal.


The true symbol of Canada! (Well, for some pathetic people.)

Notes from the Road – Part I

Or perhaps I should say, “Notes from a tiny aluminum craft hurtling through the sky, propelled by a song, a prayer and a law of physics that is only understood by a handful of geeks who attended a prestigious institute of higher education.” Note: Tyee High School is not now, nor has it ever been a prestigious institute of higher education.

We all know that nothing good starts with an alarm clock bleating out an obscene noise at 2:30AM. Throw in an entourage of snarky airport employees, a dearth of edible food and a man who’s love of the airlines is second only to root canals and hearing tales of pestilence and plague, and you have all the makings of a good time.

Our flight out of PDX left right on time. Richard and I know it left on time. We saw it leave. It was a very pretty plane. There were happy, smiling people waving out the windows to family and friends. They were successfully on their way to Toronto, Ontario, with connecting flights to all of eastern Canada. Richard and I were at the gate next door waiting for a flight to San Francisco.

Now, I know you are all thinking to yourself, “Why are Mac and Richard heading away from Montréal and Ville de Québec instead of toward Montréal and Ville de Québec?” I was asking myself that very same question. Well, there is a funny story behind the flight to SFO.

I’m lying. There is no funny story behind Richard and I flying to San Francisco.

We arrived at Portland International Airport at 5:32AM for a 7:05AM flight. But that was too late. It seems that our airlines-du-jour has a hard rule that you must have your boarding pass in your hand 1 hour (60 minutes) prior to the scheduled departure. At 6:05AM precisely, Richard, myself and approximately 10 other passengers who were planning to head to the great white north, were ordered out of the main line and herded to a separate queue by an agent with the basic disposition of a bitter, wounded hyena (not the laughing variety.) We all assumed we were in the express lane to Toronto. We were wrong, so wrong. We were in the “You ain’t going nowhere without our express permission line.”

There was one person who had total control of our destination. She sat at a behemoth computer behind the counter at the head of the column. She was as kind and as personable as a Brillo Pad. Although San Francisco seems a somewhat circuitous route to Montréal, considering the power wielded and the compassion shown by Attila the Ticketing Agent (this is a nickname, not her real name), Richard and I felt fortunate. The couple with two small children who stood behind us sassed Attila the Ticketing Agent. Last we heard they were boarding a Greyhound Bus. I overheard something about a layover in Houston.

We flew to San Francisco. After a brief (brief in geological terms, not the common vernacular) encounter with an agent and her supervisor at SFO, Richard and I had a boarding passes in hand for a flight to Montréal. It is amazing how fast two and a half hours pass when you're having fun.


We arrived at Pierre Trudeau Aéroport only three hours after our planned arrival. We were tired, but we were in the province of Québec. All was good.

Ville de Quebec

As close to Europe as you can get without leaving North America!

We are here!

The day of travel to Montreal was horrific, but we are here.

Montreal is great!

We’re off!

Montréal and Ville de Québec, here we come.

There is a reason to only go on one vacation a year. Getting ready is too much work!

August 11, 2011

I'm sure you all have your festivities planned to celebrate the 27th anniversary of the debut of the Four Younger Siblings and Their Much Older Sister! Going to be a major party!

Oh, and "Happy Birthday, Annie!"

The perils of living with someone who is musically talented.

On the way home from work today, I heard one of those great old songs from my youth: one of those great old songs that I really don’t remember, other than in bits and pieces. So when I came in the house singing it came out something like;

“Ya da da da da da da, ‘live for today’, ya da da da da da da, ‘live for today, don’t worry about tomorrow anyway.”

Richard was looking at me funny. I made some comment to the effect of “Obviously, I heard that song on the way home from work.”

His face went from blank to incredulous.

“You don’t know what song I was singing, do you?” I said, with obvious hurt in my tone.

“I had no idea if you were singing, or in horrible pain”, was his reply.

I hate people with talent.