Wednesday, September 13, 2023

A peaceful start to our day this morning at a campsite on Lac Embarras in southeastern Quebec. Though remote, we felt perfectly at home in our RV last night and slept comfortably in nature.

Andi and I decided to get an early start on driving this morning & do school and work later this afternoon when we’d be closer to civilization. For whatever reason, Andi could never get our Starlink to connect for internet here.

This morning, we drove 2 1/2 hours south from our campsite at Lac Embarras to the mountain town of Mont Tremblant, Quebec. Every local we’ve talked to the past few days has warned us how busy Montreal is, so I was a little nervous driving closer to the city. Our drive today wasn’t bad though — nothing worse than typical suburban traffic. We arrived in Mont Tremblant around 11:00am and parked our RV and Jeep in the Metro grocery store parking lot.

Neither Andi or I knew anything about this Mont Tremblant, but a quick Google search showed us that there’s a lot to do in this area. This is the northern edge of the Laurentian Mountains northeast of Montreal, and offers an abundance of winter sports at a local ski resort. During the warmer months, there’s hiking trails galore and water activities on a lake as well at Mont Tremblant National Park. This town is our perfect size — about 10,000 people — just enough offerings to keep us occupied without being too overwhelming.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have a lot of time to spend in Mont Tremblant today as Andi had work calls scheduled from 1pm-5pm. We had enough time to grab a bite to eat and walk around the adorable downtown area to check it out.

For brunch, Andi picked a cafe called Côté Bouffe. Inside was a cozy cafe with pastries, breakfast, and lunch offerings. The menu was in French, but fortunately our waitress spoke a little English so we were able to communicate with her. Andi ordered two cinnamon buns, a donut, and a charcuterie platter to share. Tory and Aden also ordered boba drinks (Tory’s latest obsession).

As we ate, Andi and I retold stories of the first time we visited Paris in 2010. We didn’t have iPhones or GPS back then, so Andi and I walked around a small French town in the rain for seemingly forever as we looked for a certain restaurant recommended to us by our airbnb host. The restaurant menu was printed in French and we didn’t have Google Translate back then, so we basically pointed to random items on the menu for our entrees. Andi was presented with a delicious casserole of some sort, and I got a fish salad. Blech! We can laugh about the experience, and marvel at how much technology has changed. Just 15 years ago, we traveled without the help of iPhones or Google or Starlink satellite internet. How did we make it?!

Around 12:30pm, we paid for our charcuterie board, pastries, and boba drinks. I nearly choked when Andi told me the cheese board alone cost $45! Canadian city prices are definitely higher than we’re used to spending during our travels.

The four of us spent the next half-hour walking around downtown Mont Tremblant. I wished we could have stayed longer; it was an adorable place to spend the afternoon. We walked along the river before making our way back to our RV/Jeep parked at the grocery store.

From Mont Tremblant, we drove 30 minutes south to the town of Val-David. Tonight, Andi arranged for us to stay in the drive-way of a fellow RVing homeschooling family. He connected with them on a RV travel app called Boondockers Welcome. Through the app, locals invite traveling RVers to camp for free on their private property — no strings attached! Well, I suppose the exchange is meeting new people and sharing connectivity and conversation. This host had great reviews from fellow travelers, and since they also homeschool their 8 and 12-year old children, we though they sounded like a nice family to meet in the area.

We pulled up to their house around 1:00pm and introduced ourselves to the host and her daughter. Andi and I chatted with them for 20 minutes and then set up our RV in her driveway. The host allowed us to fill up our RV tank with fresh water and plug into their house power.

Afterwards, Andi hopped on the phone for his afternoon work calls and Tory, Aden, and I dug into our school work. It’s a little tricky sharing our small RV space when we all have work to do, so Andi took some of his calls while sitting in the Jeep and the kids and I worked at the table in the RV. After an hour or so, we switched and the kids and I sat outside the RV in lawn chairs to finish our studies while Andi worked inside the RV. In between school work, Aden and Tory spent time jumping on the trampoline with the 8-year-old girl who lives here named Emmanuel.

When our school and work calls were finished, the four of us took the Jeep into the town of Val-David to check it out. Our Boondockers Welcome host, Eve Marie, gave us a recommendation for dinner so we decided to start there. It was a beautiful September evening — 65 degrees and sunny — so we sat outside on the patio. The menu featured traditional Canadian dishes like poutine and wild game with locally-sourced ingredients.

Andi and I figured we’d better try poutine since we’re in Canada. We also ordered a mixed greens salad, wild boar sausage, and meals for the kids. The menu was written in French, so we did our best to translate it into English. We all laughed at some of the translations which didn’t quite sound as they should. Aden’s stir fry dish was called “skipping rope” on Google Translate, and Tory’s mac & cheese was called “centipede.” Fortunately the food didn’t taste anything like a rope or a bug. We very much enjoyed the unique flavors of all the dishes we ordered.

Traditional Canadian poutine — French fries topped brown gravy and cheese curds

Skipping rope — aka — sausage and vegetable stir fry with rice

Wild boar sausage, housemade sauerkraut, pickled red cabbage, and fries

The food was seriously delicious. We loved everything except the traditional poutine. In our opinion, the brown gravy would have been better served on the side for dipping vs. on top making the fries all soggy.

After dinner, we walked around downtown Val-David. This looks like a great place to live — there were lots of people riding bikes, adults playing volleyball, and a local soccer team practicing. A beautiful paved pathway meandered along the river.

During our walk, we stopped into the grocery store to buy coffee and pastries for tomorrow’s breakfast. Even the grocery store was cute! We wished we had such a selection in our small Wisconsin town. We always love walking though grocery stores during our travels to see what the locals eat. Here in Val-David, there was a selection of escargot in the freezer section and an entire cold case of pates. Traveling is Canada is interesting because it feels like the USA, but most of the brands are different. Of course in Quebec, the signage is written in French which is also different than what we’re used to.

It was getting dark now, so we walked back to the Jeep and then drove 10 minutes back to the RV. We passed a ski resort in town on our way. By the looks of things, this is a very outdoorsy place to live with skiing, hiking, climbing, cycling, and many other types of recreation. Best of all, everyone we met seemed friendly and welcoming.

Tomorrow, we’ll tackle the big beast — driving through Montreal — as we make our way to Quebec City.