Good Friends, Falls, and Karaoke

So this is how you know who your good friends are - you call them up the night before and say you may or may not be arriving in a city that is 3 hours away from where they live the very next day.  They drop everything, despite having just flown in from Hawaii the day before and having to work the next day, and plan to meet you wherever you might be.  And they even have food and beer waiting for you when you show up 3 hours late.  SARAH AND MATT, you guys are AWESOME!!!

We got out of Ottawa as quick as we could after that fiasco (see our last post) and arranged to meet Sarah and Matt at Niagara Falls.  It was time for some fun!  We found a campground near the falls and got caught up over a few beers.  Then it was off to the falls to see them lit up at night.

Not a great pic but you get the idea

Matt, Sarah, Jocelyn, and Ricardo

Beautiful, but how long can you spend staring at rainbow-colored falls?  We wandered past the neon-lit tourist trap shops and restaurants, following the sounds of druken singing until we reached a cool outdoor karaoke bar.  There was a small crowd of brave souls toughing out the cold.  Oh, man, here we go...

We watched for a while, discussing the possibility of taking a turn on the mic, but no one brave enough to actually do it...UNTIL...Ricardo went to the bathroom and Sarah and I snuck his name in.  You all know he was secretly dying to get up there anyway.  Well, that started it off, and after Ricardo and Matt sang "Sweet Caroline", they of course put our names in and Sarah and I did our rendition of the classic, "Theme song to Fresh Prince of Bel Air".  By the end of the night, the four of us were on stage rocking some Mumford &Sons and even performing encores requested by our dancing fans in the audience.  Look out American Idol, haha.

The next day after a big greasy breakfast we headed back to the falls to see them in daylight.  We took the Maid of the Mist boat tour.  After griping about the cost ($20 each) we decided to just go for it.  When in Rome, right?  It turned out to be lots of fun.  It was so windy that with the blue plastic ponchos whipping around everywhere it was difficult to get good camera shots. As the boat approached the falls, the boat starting rocking every which way, and we were getting drenched with water. Here's some pics from before I put the camera away:

After the boat ride, it was time to say goodbye to Niagara Falls, and Sarah and Matt.  Seeing them really lifted our spirits after having our car broken into.  We will be seeing them again on the west coast for some more epic adventures as we make our way into Mexico - can't wait!!

Things Go Awry in Ottawa

Eager to get back on the road after waiting around in Montreal for the new trailer floor to be installed (see last post), we decided to do a quick day-stop in Ottawa and then move on.  On the way we did a nice ferry crossing across the St. Lawrence.



On the ferry



View from the ferry

We drove to downtown Ottawa for some lunch and sightseeing.  We parked in a parking garage and headed to Byward Market.  We had a nice lunch at a Scottish place.

Ottawa

Byward Market

Then strolled around a bit, pleasantly surprised that despite the guidebook's lackluster description of Ottawa, it really was quite pretty.  We visited the Museum of Civilization but had to rush through because they were about to close!



We returned to the parking garage and stared in disbelief as we saw a window in the backseat door of the car had been smashed.  Looking inside, I realized that my laptop case, which had been in the backseat, was missing.  Luckily, nothing else seemed to be gone, but as I thought about what was in the laptop case, my stomach began to turn.  Not only my laptop, but all our documents (passports, international drivers licenses, car titles, EVERYTHING!) and $200 emergency cash!  What are we going to do now, I thought, we can't even leave Canada until we get the documents straightened out.  And now ANOTHER call to the insurance?  It had only been a week since our trailer floor claim.

We talked to the garage "security guard", called the police, and called the insurance.  We went in to the police station to file the official report (which took forever and the police were none to helpful - in fact they were questioning us like we were the criminals).  By the time we returned to the camper it was late and we were both in a foul mood, so we went right to bed, thinking that we were in for another long day(s) of waiting tomorrow at the embassy to get new passports.

At 12:30, my phone rang. Who would be calling me now, I thought, as I groggily answered.  I was suddenly wide-awake as I realized the man on the other end was telling me that he had found my documents.  I jumped out of bed to write down the address he was telling me.  Apparantly, our thief had a heart!  He had dumped the laptop case with our documents inside on the roof of the National Arts Center, and a night security guard had found them as he was making his rounds.  The documents would be safely waiting for us at the security desk to pick up in the morning!

Exhilerated that this might not be the long, painful process we were dreading, we drove to the National Arts Center first thing the next morning, and indeed, the case was there, along with all the documents that had been taken.  Of course, the cash and the laptop were gone, but honestly, those things can be easily replaced and were the least of our worries. We would chalk it up to a "learning experience" (though an expensive one.  But hey, didn't we just get a free floor for the trailer?). When we had moved everything out of the trailer for them to work on it, I had dumped the documents and cash in my laptop bad for "safekeeping", and we were in too much of a hurry to move on from Montreal to reorganize things. And, we had been keeping to much stuff in the back seat of the car anyway.  Live and learn. 

Check out the handywork

Vowing never to leave important items in a city parking garage again, we left Ottawa in our dust... 

Montreal!

And off we go to Montreal! Beautiful roads, scenery and everything else we saw along the way...until you get to about 10 miles from the city. Montreal is a construction zone like they told us later. Just a few minutes before we reached the city, we hit a pot hole the size of Rhode Island, which we managed to avoid with the Xterra, but the trailer wasn't so lucky. We couldn't stop and check because it was a highway and traffic was heavy, so we continued to a Walmart we had already on Mr. Garmin.
Once we got there, we parked and went into Cubby to check for damage. Well, let me just say that the whole floor on the right side  had risen about 2 inches and the counter with the sink and the stove was above the lower part of the window. So what do we do now? We called a local RV repair shop and the guy tells us it's an insurance claim, because it was an accident. To make things short, we called our insurance and they assigned us the wrong person 3 times, so we had to wait until the next day (Friday) when they finally told us they don't have any adjuster in Canada. They called a local insurance guy who came and assesed the damage and said it was indeed coused by a pot hole. So we had the green light to take it to a shop. Once we found one online and called, the guy said he could come take a look at it on Saturday and nothing could be done until Monday anyway. He then came to look at it and said we needed a new floor because the one he had was rotten anyway besides being broken, so we took it to his shop, left it there, and went to a hotel, compliments of our insurance company.


On Monday our adjuster told us that the price to fix it was too high so they would declare it a total loss and give me a check for the value of Cubby! We didn't want to do that so we asked if we could buy it back. They said that that was possible and they would deduct the salvage value of it and send us the difference. That worked out in our favour because they ended up sending us $500 more than what we paid for the repairs. Not too bad after all!
We ended up spending 8 days in Montreal, so we really got to know the city! They had a festival going on that weekend with a "Pirate" theme, so we saw old French pirate ships, French pirate bands (they were extremely good by the way) and we went to every museum and cathedral we could find. We loved our time in Montreal but spending 8 nights there was pushing it a little bit!



View of two monkies at the biodome

The biggest Catholic chuch in the continent until the 1850`s

Great view of the city of Montreal

We thank our friend Andrew so much for helping us fixing Cubby for a very fair price and for doing in in 4 days, when it would usually take at least 2 weeks. The whole gang was great and got us out of there in no time!

This was our old floor!! New floor pic to come.

So off we went on our trip to Patagonia. Next stop, Ottawa! Some interesting stories to tell about that one also so don't miss it! Our trip is still pretty much just starting and it has been really exciting to say the least!

We have added a roof storage thingy and we are set!

O Canada!

After reading the lists of "what not to bring" into Canada, we were a little worried because we had several illegal items in the camper - yes, we had three POTATOES left, which are apparently huge NO-NOs when crossing into Canada.  We decided to brave it anyway, and crossed the border into Canada with barely a glance in our direction.  The border officer didn't even want to stamp our passports, but Ricardo insisted, just so we would have some proof of the first border crossing of our trip.


Border crossing into Canada

Our first destination in Canada was Quebec City.  We walked around the city admiring the sights and celebrated Ricardo's birthday with a lunch at a nice restaurant and a beer at (where else?) St. Patrick's Pub.

Ricardo's Birthday Lunch

Don't know those people in the picture!



Quebec is a beautiful city.  We had great weather and enjoyed the sights. For the first time for both of us, though, we found ourselves in a place where we were completely unable to communicate in the language and had to rely on finding people who could speak English with us.  Note to self: learn at least SOME basic phrases in French before returning!


Quebec's walls - It's the only walled city in US and Canada!



View from Ile d'Orleans

Promenade



"Vieux Quebec" - Old Quebec



Street view

Wendake - Huron village

Chute-Montmorency

Western Hemisphere Fitness Regimen Part 1 – Green Mountains (VT) and White Mountains (NH)

 After leaving Pennsylvania, we camped our first night in Green Mountain National Forest.  We decided the next day to do a little hiking.  When we asked at the campground for good trails for a day hike in the area, they told us to check out Lye Brook Falls trail.  We told them we were planning to head to the White Mountains in NH the next day, they were skeptical that we could finish the hike in time to make the drive.  How hard could it be, we said.  Only 4.6 miles.

Officially the first campsite of the trip

About halfway up to the falls, we heard an air-raid siren coming from the town.  “Maybe it’s a tornado warning,” we joked.  As we got farther, we saw black clouds approaching.  But have we ever turned back at the sight of a little storm?? Never!

Happy Hikers

We arrived at the falls in less than half the time it was supposed to take.  It was beautiful!  As we admired the falls, we received a tornado warning on the phone.  Time to get out of there!

Lye Brook Falls

 

On our way back down, it started pouring like there was no tomorrow.  Not only did our workout session for the day include hiking – it also included swimming, haha.  Still, we did the whole trail in under two hours, including a break at the top, and no tornado sightings.  We dried off and treated ourselves to a celebratory beer in the camper, and headed off to New Hampshire. 

On the road with our mascot, the cub.  Thanks, Lauren and Robert!

We found nice overnight accomodations in a WalMart parking lot in Littleton, NH, close to Franconia Notch State Park, our next day’s destination.  As we were popping out the camper bed a friendly WalMart customer driving through the parking lot stopped to advise us that there was a huge thunderstorm approaching the area, including more tornado warnings.  We closed the bed back up and holed up in the trailer for a bit to watch the storms, hoping our trip would not be over after just starting!  We could feel the camper shaking as the winds increased.   The storm passed relatively quickly though, and we soon popped out the bed and went to sleep.

The next day we decided to brave the 9 mile Franconia Ridge Loop in Franconia State Park.  It is billed as “one of the most dramatic and challenging hikes in New England”.  Well that sounds right up our alley.   This hike is less than twice the distance we did yesterday, and we did that one in under two hours.  This time we wanted more of a day hike than a walk in the park.  This should be a piece of cake, right?

That hiking pole saved my life

We were in for a surprise.  The elevation change was 4000ft in the first couple miles.  “This must be the stairway to hell,” panted Ricardo.  Despite the difficulty, it was a gorgeous hike, with waterfalls, mountaintop views, and an amazing walk along the mountain ridge.

 

A little steep

 

Ricardo celebrating on the rock

We made it to the top!

What goes up must come down, however.  The way back down seemed like it might last forever!  We groaned and whined about sore legs and knee pain as we slid down slippery wet rocks and trudged down the steep mountain … we certainly didn’t set any speed records on this one!  When finally we made it to the bottom, we looked up and marveled at the fact that a few hours ago we had been at the very top!

 

Don't fall

 

That's the parking area at the bottom

The Franconia Ridge Loop hike, though it was just a day hike, is one of the most challenging we’ve ever done and certainly one of the most beautiful.  And made us realize that we need to get in shape!! The exercise tour will continue – we’ve got some big parks to cover! J

New Post Coming Soon!

Our next post, on the Green Mountains of Vermont and White Mountains of New Hampshire, is on its way!  In fact, it is already written but can't post until I have a more reliable internet connection.  Gotta be quick for now!  Here is a preview...

 

 

Hiking in the clouds

 

Lititz!

 We could not leave for our "incredible journey" without stopping in good old Lititz, PA first to see Jocelyn's family.  Although we only spent a couple days, it was nice (as always) to spend time with them and just relax for a bit before starting our journey.  See some photos below: