Last day in Alberta

Sunday morning in Cochrane, Alberta as I write this, and this afternoon we will be flying back to Ottawa to arrive back at Igor where he is waiting at the mechanical shop parking lot.

Unfortunately, he is not quite ready for us!

More views of the Canadian Rocky Mountains

Yes, we were out hiking again yesterday. Besides seeing my sister, this was the main reason for coming. And of course the cheap airfare deal from Ottawa to Calgary return helped as well! We paid only $188 CAD ($139 USD) return per person for the flights.

And that included free beer and wine! Hard to go wrong at that price.

Almost a slot canyon hike... and a cave!

My sister Alison is a zumba instructor, and teaches a class on Thursday before noon. Ruth went with her to the class, so we didn't set off on a hike until after lunch.

Of course there are a ton of different hikes in the mountains near Cochrane, the only drawback is the minimum 45 minute drive to get to them. And of course there are many more (some very spectacular) within a two hour drive.

Gorgeous day hike above Barrier Lake

Wednesday was an absolutely beautiful day here in central Alberta, although they were calling for some strong winds in the mountains. We had been planning a ridge hike, but with the strong winds we changed our plans and instead hiked up the Prairie View Lookoff Trail to Yates Mountain and up to the Barrier Lake Fire Lookout.

We arrived at the trailhead at 10:00am

If I had to do it all over again, I would become a helicopter pilot!

We had decided to put off the more strenuous hikes for a day and so my sister Alison had planned us an easy walking route around the town of Cochrane.

Cochrane is one of the fastest growing towns in Canada with a current population of around 37,000. For perspective, twenty years ago it was only 14,000.

Arrived in Calgary

We dropped off Igor at a mechanic shop yesterday after lunch. He runs well, but idles a little rough on start up. Also, there is an odd chugging sound in between some gear shifts (and it's intermittent, to make diagnosis all the more difficult) but two different mechanics have said they think it's a misfire.

I had a quick look at the spark plugs, and they honestly look like they've never been changed. 

Another great weekend away with the boys.

With near perfect weather in the books, I completed yet another weekend away with my guy friends. I think we figured out that was the 13th annual. I missed a few gatherings in the early years because Ruth and I were traveling, but I decided several years ago that I would not miss another one. Just too much fun with these guys, we all value our long friendship and the older we get, the faster that time seems to go by.

Two more of them are retiring next year, so we've pretty much decided that our next annual guys weekend away will be an international trip. Some of the discussion revolved around Mexico, so we'll see what happens.

A major change of plans.

At the end of our last update, we had overnighted at the Quebec/Ontario border just east of Hawkesbury. We crossed at Hawkesbury, headed to Ingleside to pick up our son's car, and then to Ottawa where we had a 2:00pm meeting with Gretchen and her three cats.

While I am at my annual guy's weekend away, Ruth will be housesitting for Gretchen.

Quebec City is very photogenic!

It's taken us two weeks to do this drive between Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley, and the city of Ottawa... and we still felt rushed. There is so much to see along the way, and one of those places is the historic city of Quebec City.

We had been to Quebec City before, but it was way back in 2008. At the time, we had our dog Whiskey with us and we had parked our motorhome Sherman across the river in Levis, and taken the ferry across to explore the city.

Arrived in Quebec City

The campground was quiet. There's a reason we normally choose the September/October time frame to return to Canada. The kids are back in school, the weather is perfect, and the bug season is generally over.

We did our laundry on Monday morning before leaving the campground, but we were still on the road by 10:15am or so, headed southwest along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River towards Quebec City.

Lots of nice scenery along this route, and the trees are starting to show some color.

Igor's first paid camping spot

We were in need of showers and laundry. Yes, Igor does have a shower, but it's a bit cramped. It works if you have to, but it's not ideal. So if there is somewhere else that is convenient, we prefer that.

And in the town of Tadoussac, there was a listing for showers ($1 for five minutes) and a laundry at a municipal park near the marina. Sounds good to us!

Last minute ferry ride!

We were up and on the road at 6:00am Saturday morning!

Why up so early? Well, we knew that we wanted to take the ferry from Matane that goes across to the north shore of the St. Lawrence River. We've done the south shore drive several times, but have never been on the north shore.

17 km (10.5 mile) hike in Gaspesie National Park

We drove about 30 kms (18 miles) north to get to the visitors center at Gaspesie National Park. 

Just an FYI... Quebec's "national" parks are actually provincial parks. They are NOT run by Parks Canada, and Canada's national parks passes do not work here. 

Waterfalls, and a view, and another great overnight spot!

 We got up at 6:00am, and went for a hike!

We had been parked overnight at the back entrance trailhead for the Mount Carleton hike above the town of Carleton Sur Mer. That's a fairly long hike, and I had some computer work to do yesterday morning, but we figured we had time for the shorter hike to Grand Sault Falls.

Views over Campbellton, then back into the province of Quebec

We said goodbye to Denis and Marjolaine just before 10:00am Wednesday morning. Really enjoyed our stay with them! Thanks, and hope to see you again someday!

It was looking like a really nice day, and we had a plan to climb Campbellton's Sugarloaf Mountain before heading across the border into Quebec.