Canadian-Traveler

May 28

Go east Cowboy
Another day on the road is starting. It is 7am, and it is still quiet on the road. Today, we will make it across the rest of Ontario and heading down the Ottawa valley until we are in our capital. From there we are south-bound towards the St.Lawrence River and the U.S.-border.

Our Route until today: about 3.700km

I must shoot off an another warning about the TC 17. If the road was bad yesterday, it is much worse today. We are rocking along and I am fearing for the contents in our cupboards. Especially bad it is around the village of Mattawa.

The TC 17 shifts name to Hwy 417 when reaching Ottawa. It curves around the city to the south and heads off towards Montreal and Quebec. We are taking off to Hwy 138 which brings us down to the City of Cornwall right on the St. Lawrence Seaway.  From there two long and very high bridges lead across the St. Lawrence towards U.S. customs. The first bridge (is it under Ontario administration??) has the worst pavement I have seen so far in this province. It is one patch besides the other.

Bridge from Cornwall across the big river

The St.Lawrence Seaway from the bridge

The U.S. customs officer is a friendly one and also has a look inside our Motorhome. Surprisingly he is not interested in the contents of our fridge, but rather wants to know the fuel mileage of our motorhome!!  Always a surprise and adventure to cross U.S. Customs!

Small-Town New York, USA

Then we are rolling into the State of New York. I remember the wonderful drive we had here two years earlier. The little towns and villages are teeming with small-town beauty, and this time of the year a lot of flowers in well-trimmed gardens. Today is Saturday and the towns we are crossing seem sleepy during the early afternoon hours.

A few properties have their spring garage sales going on but the weather forecast has predicted local thunderstorms, and indeed are dark clouds visible on the south-western sky.

Two years earlier we stopped at a truck-stop in the little town of Champlain. Today, we fill diesel at the same truck-stop again and park in the rear of the building. Tomorrow we will be leaving town by driving along Lac Champlain and finally crossing the lake into the State of Vermont. We are truly looking forward to that drive, as we have learned that Vermont and New Hampshire are beautiful states with many small  towns, and lovely valleys. We are having about 9 more hours to reach our Island, but will we reach it tomorrow?

Read on tomorrow: Will we reach home?