O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all of us command.
Calixa Lavallée 1880
In 2019, months before Covid invaded the USA, Judy obtained a passport, hoping to visit an imaginary town in Canada. During car trips to the East Coast we enjoyed audible tapes by Louise Penny. Her “cozy murder mysteries” centered on the imaginary village of Three Pines, Quebec.
Every year in this sleepy village someone was murdered, and only Montreal’s Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, head of the homicide department of the Sûreté du Québec could solve. Every year Armand and his detectives would set up head quarters in the fire station. They ate and drank at the bistro , slept in the B&B. Armand enjoyed the village so much he and his wife, Reine-Marie, bought a house overlooking the village square. The mystery is “character driven” and so a core group of village residents help solve every crime. Ten hour road trips skimmed by. Louise Penny portrayed this imaginary town and its inhabitants so vividly, we almost ran out of gas as one of the mysteries came to a close.
By March of 20220 New Rochelle, NY. locked downed. Canada quickly followed suite. Judy had her passport but nowhere to go. Do not pass “Go,” and do not collect” $200″. With every vaccination completed we visited the grandkids in DC and Norfolk. The “Three Pines” series concluded the same season six vaccinations instructed our cells to make the S protein found on the surface of the COVID-19 virus. Fully vaccinated, Judy pulled out her passport this fall and helped arrange one last road trip…. to Three Pines , better known as Knowlton, Quebec (pic below).
While medical students Judy and I enjoyed road trips in a rusting Karmann Ghia with no air-conditioning. With the windows down, Snooper, an eighty pound Labrador mix sat in the back seat drooling on my right arm and Judy’s left arm. Believe it or not, we camped, used out houses and had a great time. Fast forward forty-five years and the camping and outhouses are only seen from our rear view mirror. But this Canadian road trip came into focus before fall’s event horizon.
There would be no dog drooling on us from the back seat of the SUV. Lilly passed away Christmas 2022 (pic below) and we are awaiting a shelter lab to need a new home. So it goes.
We drove to Cumberland Maryland so I could “day ride” the GAP trail (Great Allegheny Passage).
We continued the water motif by visiting the “Delaware Water Gap” and then the “Walkway over the Hudson” (pics below).
After visiting college friends in Connecticut and med school friends in New York we drove to the Canadian Border (pic below).
With an hour delay at the Canadian border Waze routed us off I-87. We drove, across Lake Champlain and and crossed into Quebec at the empty Les-jardins de Re-Gaia/Ferme. After, “Bonjours,” the border guard waved us through. Isolated rain storms and narrow roads accompanied us to Knowlton and Lac Brome, the home of Louise Penny. Gratefully , we arrived at Hotel Lac-Brome before sunset (pic below).
August 30 we set out to explore Knowlton and the imaginary setting for “Three Pines.” During the revolutionary war , British loyalists would plant three pine trees in the town square if the village remained loyal to the “Crown.” A visible metaphor for displaced Tories, Royalists or King’s Men on their way to Canada’s safe haven.
Coffee at “L’Atelier de cafe”, hours of browsing thru the bookstore (Brome Lake Books), souvenirs from Barnes General Store, and edibles from the bakery (La Pantry de Knowlton) packed the morning. We sat sat on park benches overlooking a park. We lunched at the imaginary bistro (Auberge Knowlton) where the chief detective solved so many crimes. The town was in full bloom.
That afternoon I biked the Sentier Lac- Brome bike path from Knowlton to Waterloo and back. Art work was spaced along the ride. Canadian route 1 bike path intersected near Waterloo. The weather channel predicted thunderstorms for the late afternoon and so I raced back to the hotel. By sunset the weather had cleared and the super, blue Moon shined in the West at sunset. (pics below).
Sutton, a ski town 20 miles away also inspired Louise Penny in her protrayal of Canadian small, town life . Brome Lake Books provided a map of sites to visit in Sutton. The town’s bakery, general store, and cafe faced Main Street. Neither fall colors nor snow had arrived, but the town enjoyed a thriving tourist trade. We browsed the shops. I bought socks at the local bike store (Cycles Campus Sutton). Judy felt Quebec was the easiest way to enjoy France without flying.
After lunch we toured Abbey de Saint-Benoit-du-Lac. In one mystery a novitiate murders the Abbot. Before leaving, we bought Blue Cheese and apple cider champagne. With only forty monks, the Abbey struggled to produce enough product to support the Institution (pics below). We did leave the Blue cheese in the hotel refrigerator the following morning. The champagne remained in the car overnight. So it goes.
Late that afternoon we drove to Hotel Universal Montreal and strolled thru Montreal Botanical Garden under a cloudless sky. The following morning we visited the Biodome and strolled through four ecosystems. Initially built as the velodrome for the 1976 Olympic Games, the Biodome reopened in 1992 as the indoor nature exhibit. (pic below).
We hobbled across the cobblestones of Montreal’s old town (pic above) to the Notre Dame Basilica and enjoyed lunch at Restaurant Gandhi. The city is so international we both felt like Kentucky hicks. Luckily , no one noticed us.
We drove half way to Buffalo that afternoon and slept at a hotel near Kingston. We were on the road by seven am the following morning and at Niagara’s Horseshoe Falls by eleven. Photo ops followed. Gnomeboy needs no introduction.
After pictures Judy and I felt like two “barn sour” pack mules. We were “heading home” and immigration agents better get out of our way. With our adventure picture perfect, we drove the 652 mile safely back home by the following noon.
With Judy’s Great Canadian Adventure now complete, she would be homebound until Christmas…..always searching for a new ” cozy murder mystery.”
If that’s not nice I don’t know what is.