The long and winding road

this year we couldnt afford to go to france (got 4Gs?), so we decided to try taking the kids out tent-camping in the white mountains of new hampshire for a few days, and then on to quebec city canada for another 3 days. A new england road trip! How fun!

Well, first and foremost, ruby is horribly, terribly, incurably carsick. She vomits within 5 minutes of almost any car trip, and i hate putting her through it, my sweet little button.. but we found these “magic bracelets” (pressure points armbands) so we thought we had solved the problem and optimistically set off on our fantastic voyage. and it worked for a while.. but once we got on those gorgeous winding rolling back roads it was all over. The first 2 hours on the freeway was smooth sailing, and nap time.. but once we exited the main freeway, she puked continuously until we reached our campsite 4 miles off the main road. We stopped several times for her, but there was not much we could do but hold her hair & bucket for her.



Whew! That was over... ready to enjoy the beautiful national forests! The campsite was awesome. It had a little babbling creek running along the length of it, a fire pit and a picnic table and (we brought the) hammock. We were a really short hike from Russell Pond that had many little fresh water tributaries running into it (one of which ran past our campsite), and a nice little sandy beach & swimming access..



a little canoe post, and even a big rope swing where the teenagers were having a blast jumping into the water. Ahh the woods! We spent two and a half days in utter bliss and perfect weather. We even had a little chipmunk that lived under a big tree stump on the other side of our creek. He came over and visited us every day, kind of fussing at us. He was so adorable! The kids fell in LOVE with our new little friend, and named him “chippy the chipmunk”.



On the third night we saw rain clouds a-brewing, and were planning on leaving the next morning anyway, so I went ahead and packed up camp, leaving just the tent to sleep in.. but when we returned to the campsite from getting the kids dressed in their pajamas (at the bath house) we were tucking them in for the night when we noticed our tent was taking in water at the seams! All the bedding was getting wet! So we quickly threw it all in the car, and headed off into the sunset ~ for a hotel!

Since the kids were asleep, we decided to drive on up to the canadian border, where we found a place to sleep (where we didnt sleep very well actually..)... got up the next morning had a rather chokable continental breakfast.. and discovered – the indoor POOL. Yes, and being 9am we had it all to ourselves. They even had some big styrofoam swim-noodles and the kids were sort-of dog-paddling around with help. Lucas was particularly pleased he could stand up on his tippy toes in the 3-ft water, and keep his face dry.

And we took off for quebec thinking we'd have most of their naptime to drive. WRONG! They slept for half-an-hour, and when we pulled in to the first canadian visitor information center to get a map ruby woke up and started vomiting again when we got back on the road. All the way to quebec city. Needless to say we were SO GLAD to get there, and park that car out of sight for 3 full days! I tend to dislike cars, and all the attendant hassle and expense of driving in the first place.. but add a puking child into the mix and my hatred for all things “car” becomes intensified!



But once we were in quebec city! Glorious quebec city, oh my! It was sooooo charming. And beautiful. And so FRENCH! We stayed at a little B&B (Couette-et-cafe, “le Jardin de Saint Anne”) inside the walled city. Mercifully, there was a coin-op laundry 2 block from our hotel because EVERY item of rubys clothing was barfed on by now..We loved our location, the room, the friendly staff, and the breakfasts, too. We enjoyed walking around being tourists again, and we even found a little stuffed toy chipmunk for lucas as a souvenir of our vacation.



Being in a city, I love it when theres a palpaple sense of art. You see it everywhere, the fountains, the flowers, the architecture, the wide sidewalks. Theres a real feeling that this place was created over a long period of time with a pleasant human experience in mind. Its built to human proportions, for human enjoyment and use. We even saw a beautiful water fountain with potable water in it, the perfect size and height for you to drop your water bottle under it for a refill.. this city wants me to stay hydrated hand healthy!



We found a nice little sidewalk cafe with excellent espresso, where we were having our mid-morning coffees and picking up a fresh baked baguette (bread) for the picnic lunches - hey, we gotta conserve money wherever we can! And how better than with a baguette and some fresh meats and cheeses from the deli? We added a tomato & a bottle of fizzy water leftover from the camping trip, et voila!

We were eating our suppers at the local restaurants. And there was only one really worth mentioning. It was called “Carthage” on Cote du Palais (off of Rue St-Jean). Delicious Tunisian fare for absurdly inexpensive prices, served at authentic and very ornate short tables and seats with a huge smile (the proprietor was genuinely happy, and you could just tell he loved what he did) [too bad they were out of couscous -ph]



in preparation of our return trip, we bought some real drugs for Ruby's carsickness at the pharmacy and packed up our picnic lunch to eat at the playground on our way out of town.. so the kids could take their nap on the first leg of the trip. But when we got to the playground, first on the list of things to do was to repair a flat tire! Zut-alors! (to my anglo-audience, this is something akin to “ well, shoot!”)

but at least we had our picnic ready, and a picnic table about 15 feet from our parking space, and it wasnt raining YET.. (we had had perfect weather up until the day we were leaving again, when dark clouds were looming large). And the kids were enjoying themselves at the playground. We managed to take the still wet bedding and tent and give them a brief airing-out on top of the cannons all around the park while ph dutifully changed the tire. Of course, this was sunday afternoon, and every tire-fixing place nearby was closed. So we spent the nap time driving around on our donut tire looking for the ONLY place in quebec city open on a sunday who could fix our tire. We found it, and the guy only had to replace the little valve for $24, lucas loved the part where we were waiting, watching our mechanic from the garage doors. Our tire was in otherwise perfect condition.. and thank goodness we were all fixed before for the big drive ahead, because it was rainy and winding little roads most of the way home through Maine.

The kids slept a little bit, and Rubys medicine worked for about 4 hours until she started vomiting again. So as soon as we saw a restaurant, we stopped for dinner and stayed another hour or so.. basically waiting until the kids were ready to sleep for the night so we could drive home.

We had a marvelous time, despite the bumps along the road. I really didnt miss the ordinary grind, computer, TV or news. We only brought pleasure reading, and it was like a fresh breeze running through my ears.