Tag Archives: highway 40

Thursday 26th September 2019 – HERE I AM …

… sitting on a bed in another one of these places where you don’t rent the room for the night, you buy the motel.

Last night I was dead to the world and slept right the way through the night until the alarm went off without disturbing myself once. There was the tail-end of a dream going round and round my head so I managed to dictate that – such as it was – before it disappeared completely. Nothing exciting though, unfortunately.

Having done a few things, I went upstairs to the kitchen and tried to make a coffee. Eventually, I managed to figure out the machine so that was good.

Sandra came to join me later and we had breakfast and a good chat. Then I had a shower and packed Strider ready to leave. We swapped the cars over and I headed off into the torrential rainstorm.

I was right about the turn of the cards – my wish hadn’t come true. But then I never really expected that it would. But the combination of Ottawa and the events of the past six weeks together with a music track appearing on my playlist and a “memory” about my farm all collided together at a vulnerable moment and I ended up in a deep, deep depression that has followed me around all day and won’t go away.

The weather didn’t help of course, and neither did the roadworks. It took an age to negotiate myself out of Ottawa and I must have passed the same guy on the same street corner three times until I had come to terms with the roadworks.

On the highway the rain was dreadful and the first of a long, long set of roadworks put the evil eye on just about everything. I was soaked going to the bathroom, soaked fuelling up Strider and then in Montreal amidst the major road reconstructions there I ended up being unable to join the lane that I wanted due to standing traffic. I was pushed sideways to the west and instead of going up Highway 40 and over the ferry at Sorel, I ended up on Highway 15 and over the new Champlain Bridge.

So here I was and here I stayed.

I stopped off for a coffee at Tim Horton’s at St Hyacinthe, home of many a tractor pull, and then continued through the storm.

At Quebec I misread a sign (Riviere du Loup for Trois Rivieres) and ended up going over the Laporte bridge by mistake. I had to turn round and fight the rush-hour traffic to pick up my route again.

So here I am in Montmagny and here I’m staying for the night. The Motel Centre-Ville. I’ll have a good night, a shower in the morning and then continue on my way.

So if anyone wants to contact me, don’t be shy. I have another three weeks here at least.

And who knows? This wish might even come true. You never know.

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Wednesday 8th October 2014 – HAD IT NOT BEEN …

… for the driving rain that started to pelt down at about 05:00 this morning, this would have been another one of the best nights’ sleeps that I have ever had, for I was well gone. Another one of these totally painless nights.

motorway service area highway 40 repentigny berthierville quebec canada september 2014Regular readers of this rubbish will certainly recognise this spec, that’s for sure. This is the motorway service area between Repentigny and Berthierville, the one that’s on an island in between the two carriageways and I’ve slept here on a couple of occasions in the past.

So wide awake at something like 06:30, I sorted out a great pile of paperwork and that took me up to about 08:30. Then I headed for a coffee and an internet connection to upload everything to the web.

Once all of that had been dealt with, I went off to my storage unit and carried on with part II of the tidying in there. Rather cramped it might be, but there’s enough space for three or four more large storage boxes, if I am so inclined, although it is my intention to reduce rather than increase the quantity of stuff in there.

I also spoke to a couple of salesmen. One of them is selling these factory-built wooden houses and the other one is selling tents that pop up on the back of a pick-up, both of which could be extremely useful in the future as far as I am concerned.

From here, it was off to the car wash where I had the very … errr … interesting spectacle of watching two of the workers fight each other. Quite animated they were too, and it gave me something to do while I waited for the Dodge. And for just $30, they made it look as if it had just come out of the showroom. I’ve always been impressed with their service.

However, the tape that I had been using to hold the insulation onto the windows left all of its traces behind. That meant a trip to Home Depot and the purchase of a cheap paint scraper. Just $1:95 and half an hour’s elbow grease and you couldn’t see any of that either.

At the airport, handing the Dodge in was quite painless, as was (just for a change) passing through the border inspection. And it was here that our problems really began. The strong gale-force winds had slowed down the aeroplane on its inward journey and even by take-off time for us, it still hadn’t arrived.

It eventually turned up and we all rushed aboard, but someone was then taken ill and had to be evacuated and their luggage removed from the ‘plane. That looks like my connection at Brussels going up the chute and we’ll see how we sort it all out from here.

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Monday 2nd September 2013 – AT FIRST, I WROTE …

… “Monday 2nd December” for the title of today’s posting. Not an error, as you might think, but a Freudian slip because it is winter here today. Black skies, lashing down of rain, hurricane force winds (trees uprooted and all that kind of thing in Montreal) – so much so that it wasn’t until 16:30 or thereabouts that I took to the road, all heaters in the Dodge blazing away.

hydro electric plant riviere ste anne de la peradeIt wasn’t like that at first though. Dawn came early to my little spec on the bluff above the Riviere Ste Anne and it looked as if it might be a lovely day – and I know that the dawn came early because I sa it, having somehow managed to park in the middle of a moquito nest and having been bitten to pieces during the night. I didn’t even cook a meal for fear of disturbing them.

Anyway, as the morning drew on, the day clouded over and as I was fuelling uo the Dodge, the heavens opened and that was that. I found a convenient motorway service area and parked up. With a coffee and an internet connection, I attacked a pile of paperwork and read a book.

By about 16:30 the weather improved a little in the sense that it stopped raining and we just had occasional showers. I hit the road and went off to the village of Deschambault.

This was an important stage on the Chemin du Roy and although the village has altered considerably over the last 275 years, it is said that much of the traces of the original 1734 road are still said to be there if you know where to look.

traces chemin du roy church deschambault quebecJudging by the alignment of the church and the presbytery, and the site of the old fort that Champlain had built against the Iroquois (you can see part of the wall as the boundary wall of the cemetery) I reckon that this might be a good-enough bet.

It continues along the headland from here to the new road, but about 400 metres behind me is a sudden stop. Coastal erosion, particularly along the clay cliffs, was always a serious problem and one of the main reasons for some serious alignment of the road.

Another place on the route is a town called Portneuf, about 10kms further along. Someone shored up a river bank and this led to dramatic changes in the action of the river and created a fine port for the goélettes, the little ships that plied up and down the St Lawrence, of which you can see long-since abandoned here. Gradually, the port was expanded until there is now a quay that stretches more than one kilometre into the St Lawrence, and even the biggest ships can tie up here, although not that they ever do these days.

atlantic erie canadian shipping lines portneuf st lawrenceThe quay is actually situated right at the apex of one of the sharpest meanders in the whole of the river and there are some delightful optical illusions with a long-range telephoto lens as you capture photos of ships such as the Canadian Shipping Line’s Atlantic Erie fighting the current and the meander and having to make a hard-over turn to port to round the headland without colliding with the quay.

And look at the waves – you can see what I mean about the howling wind and the storm that we were having.

Dusk came pretty quickly after this, which was no surprise, and so finding myself back on Highway 40 I retraced my steps to the Motorway Service Area to batten down the hatches for tonight. I’m not going to be doing anything else.

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Saturday 31st August 2013 – I’M NOT SURE WHAT HAPPENED …

… last night but I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds at about 18:30 and that was the last thing that I remember until about 07:00 the following morning.

Well, not quite. I had another exciting dream again, which shows you just how comfortable I am inside this Dodge at night. I had exchanged Caliburn for Terry’e van and another car (as if I am ever likely to exchange Caliburn for anything, but never mind). On my way back to work after Friday lunchtime, I parked the van in a narrow alley near to work, a place with high brick walls all around. I decided that I didn’t want to stay here because I’d be stuck in the traffic for leaving, but I couldn’t move the van from its position. Driving out is not the szme angle as reversing in, of course.

overnight parking service area highway 40 lavaltrie quebec canadaAnyway, a nearby truck starting up his motor shattered my reverie otherwise I would still be there now, so calm and peaceful was my little neck of the woods at this transport café that is, would you believe, actually on the central reservation of the motorway.

And after a visit to the cleanest beichstuhl that I have ever seen in a transport café and breakfast of coffee and bagels with strawberry jam and maple syrup I sat down and brought up to date all of my notes and photos in a marathon session

vestiges chemin du roy quebec canadaOnce I’d organised that, I spent half an hour reading a book – making the most of a quiet morning, and then set off in search of the vestiges of the Chemin du Roy. There are loads of remains of this road, which has been constantly rebuilt over the 300 years of its existence, due to floods, erosion, avalanches, earthquakes, attacks by Iroquois, bridge collapses, fires and the like, some of these vestiges being signposted and some not so and open to speculation.

I’m quite enjoying spotting suggestive-looking earthworks and depressions, and trying to link them up into a consistent route and one day I’m sure that I’ll have the route traced out as much as is possible.
Lunch stop was at Trois Rivières, one of my favourite cities in Canada although far from the nicest of course. I was here at the same time as the Labour Day weekend celebrations and there was a lot going on, circuses, street performers, a local market, and the whole place was heaving with people and was quite exciting.

police transport T3 mobile electric scooter trois rivières quebec canadaNot as exciting though as looking at the local police on their new modes of transport. These are called T3 Mobiles, electric powered, with disc brakes and can travel at seppds of up to 30kph – and much better than a pushbike as I was reliably informed because, as you might have guessed, I went up to the coppers and asked them about them. No point in being here and not satisfying your curiosity.

I had a wander around the town in the afternoon and visited a few more bits that I had missed. I’ll have to pad out my Trois Rivieres pages even more now, and that will keep me out of mischief for a while.

As it grew dark I headed for the highway to a transport café that I had seen and I shall dig myself in here for the night. Hopefully not for the morning though – I’ve lots to do.

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Friday 30th August 2013 – I’VE HIT THE ROAD, JACQUES

dodge grand caravan avis hire car FGV9092Up early again though and brought all my photos up to date (I wish I could say the same about the notes, though) and having made a couple of trips to the car, it’s now loaded up and Strawberry Moose and I are now comfortably installed inside.

Once we finally managed to leave the car park (which wasn’t easy) we headed off across the city and rhe traffic to go to look at the rapids of Lachine. This GPS that I bought all those years ago is really doing the stuff and I am impressed with that as I am with my galvanised steel dustbin

rotten dodge saturn verdun montrealFirst stop was however to find some food for lunch for the next few days and so I headed for a convenient supermarket. But never mind the food for a moment, take a look at this car.

It’s a Dodge Saturn, and let me ask you, when did you last see a car as rotten as this on a British road? I have to think long and hard and maybe 30 years ago you might have seen one like this. I don’t even remember any of my tawis being this bad.

The area that we are in, by the way, is clearly an impoverished area of the city judging by just about everything. it’s called Verdun, and the name seems to have been inspired by a group of soldiers returning to Canada after World War I and having witnessed the French city of Verdun after a FRanco-German artillery duel there.

chutes rpids lachine montreal canadaThe rapids at Lachine, for all their hype, aren’t all that much to write home about and in a sense are disappointing. But they were certainly much more disappointing to Jacques Cartier who was hoping to find the promised North-West Passage to “La Chine” and the Indies through the St Lawrence and instead came to a shuddering halt at the rapids.

Still it was a nice morning and the walk through the park was very pleasant in the sun so that was something.

After lunch I drove back through the city and along the road that passes by the docks and out to Repentigny where I rejoined my previous quest for the search for the remains of the Chemin du Roy – the old highway of the 17th Century that was built to connect Montreal and Quebec. I managed to do a little work but was interruped by a thunderstorm and driving rain. With that I scuttled to shelter, a motorway service area on the Highway at the back of Lavaltrie, and I’ll be staying here for the night. No point in moving on in this weather.

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Wednesday 30th May 2012 – MY LAST DAY …

… in Canada for the moment. I won’t be back for a while.

And after a good night’s sleep in my expensive motel, I’m ready for anything

On the motorway back into Montreal, I notice a huge Home Depot at exit 94. I’ll make a note of that because the ones in the city itself are a little “restricted”. But for now, the huge Walmart, Canadian Tire and Home Depot across the river from Quebec are currently in the lead.

At my little storage unit at Jarry I unload the Dodge and stack everything away for the next time. I’m leaving my heavy winter coat here because I’m hoping to be back in the autumn.

The guy in charge of the unit tells me of a car wash place in the rue Jean Talon and sure enough, it comes up trumps. There are three Eastern Europeans there and they washed, vacuumed and valeted the Dodge to within an inch of its life for just $23. It now looks like something that has just come out of the showroom. I don’t think that I have ever rented a car that has looked as nice as this even when it’s been new. This car is spotless now.

And down the road I found a falafel restaurant that served up a plate of chips and a falafel wrap with a can of pop for all of $7:00.

I need to fuel myself up as well, never mind the car, for the return journey because I quite often have dietary issues on the plane as you know.

air france skyteam aeroport pierre trudeau airport dorval montreal canadaHere’s my plane for the journey back home.

We’ve had the usual stress issues at the airport again, but on a more positive note, this time we had free internet and a pile of electric plugs to help pass the time and that’s a change from the stinking reception that I have had in Dorval in the past.

And it gets better than that too. On the aeroplane one of the films was Some Like It Hot and then we had a whole pile of albums by Hendrix, Springsteen, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin and Neil Young.

I’ll fly by Air France again, even if I don’t ever get to sleep.

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Wednesday 25th April 2012 – YOU ARE PROBABLY …

jumbo jet KLM boeing 747 PH-BFK City of Karachi… wondering why there’s a picture of an old beat-up KLM jumbo jet on my blog this evening. The answer is, rather prosaically, that that’s how I arrived in Montreal.

Yes, it’s a change from the Air France aeroplane upon which I had planned to arrive, but thereby hangs a tail and if your luck is in, then it’s in, that’s all I can say.

I arrived in good time at the airport to be greeted with the news that the aeroplane is sold out (not a problem for me, of course) but that the one planned to do the flight has broken down and won’t be going.

The only one available to replace it has 40 seats fewer, so they need 40 volunteers prepared to go to Montreal by alternative means.
“We’ll give €300 to anyone who will travel by other means” announced the hostess and, believe me, I was the first in the queue and there were casualties.
“I would go via Hell itself, even Old Trafford, as long as I get to Montreal tonight” I proudly announced.
“There’s no need to go to those lengths. If you are quick there’s a flight departing for Amsterdam in 25 minutes and a ‘plane for Montreal that gets in about 40 minutes later than the one that you are booked on”.

Now I can be quick when there’s €300 involved, I mean, I’d bash up my own granny for a fiver. I hung around just long enough to get the mazooma and then I was off like a ferret up a trouser leg.

And there I was

And here I am.

I shan’t go into the boring details about the airport security because you’ve heard me say it all before. And if you really are interested, you can read all about it here.

But to ease the pain I kept on whispering to myself “three hundred euros – three hundred euros”. After all, it works out at about €500 per hour and I’ve never had a job that paid that well, not even selling my body on Boots Corner in Crewe.

At least, it would have been €500 per hour but the ‘plane was late taking off so I’ve no idea how much it ended up being. Still, never mind. Who’s complaining?

And on the flight there were several things of note

  1. I was sat next to a young girl who was half-Dutch and half-Tanzanian and I had the most enjoyable flight companion that I’ve ever had. In fact I was quite disappointed when she hopped into a taxi at the airport, having refused the lift that I offered her
  2. they actually found a vegan meal for me. I was worried about that – being on a restricted diet and having left my booking behind of course. And it was conjured up just as I was thinking that it was lucky that I brought a gingerbread loaf with me
  3. One of the films on offer on the flight was Wallace and Gromit in Curse of the Were-Rabbit. That’s another one of those films that I can watch time after time after time.
  4. Surfing through the radio stations available on the aeroplane I came across “Arrow Classic Rock”. That was a station that I could pick up live in Brussels when I lived there at Expo and it didn’t ‘arf bring back the good old days. Golden Earring all the way across the Atlantic – what more can anyone want?
  5. even more surprisingly, I was chatted up by … errr … one of the air stewards, who spent a great deal of time chatting to me as well and even gave me a pen with his compliments. However, at the end of the flight, in the best traditions of a News of the World reporter, I “made my excuses and left”. B*gg*r that for a game of soldiers

dodge grand caravan dorval pierre trudeau airport montreal canadaAnd after last year’s experiences with hire cars and all of that – well, they knew that I was coming this year didn’t they?

I’ve got my Dodge Grand Caravan – exactly as I ordered and exactly as I expected.

And it’s black – so it won’t show the dirt. And it has 17587 kilometres on the clock.

comfort inn laval montreal quebec canadaI usually stay at the “Howard Johnson” motel out at St Léonard at the side of Highway 40, but now that the renovations are complete, the prices are way out of my budget.

The cheapest motel that was available that was easily accessible and with private off-street parking was a Comfort Inn. It’s in Laval though, some miles away from the airport.

Nevertheless, I had a really good deal here, although the walk-in price is something else completely.

strawberry moose comfort inn laval montreal quebec canadaSo now that I’m installed in my comfortable room, and His Nibs is tucked up in bed, I’ve nipped out for food.

And I don’t have to go very far because there’s a restaurant next door. It doesn’t take them long to rustle up a pizza for me to eat (yes, I remembered my cheese).

The downside of this is that I didn’t get to go for a stroll around the neighbourhood as I usually do.

But then again, I think that I’ve done enough strolling today – I don’t know how many kilometres it was that I had to run in order to catch all of these blasted planes.

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