We have a long drive back to Ottawa, and we want to do it in one day this time, so we get up at 6:00 and clear out of the Inn, packed, checked and double checked by 7:15. Therefore we have no breakfast there that morning, because they don't start it until 8:00. But the ever present chef is already there. Smart ass that I am, I ask him if he has a twin. (Predictably, no!)
We end up getting a breakfast about 90 minutes later at McDo's right by the Sagamore bridge. McGriddle sandwiches (or as we call them: squishy burgers) hashbrowns and coffee. Normally we eat a McDo's maybe once or twice a year, but still I am amazed that the service is much faster and friendlier in the US than in Ottawa. Clearly it is not impossible.
We proceed through Boston, and since it is Sunday the roads are very quiet. It looks like a city that is definitely worth exploring at some point in the future. This time we take I89 from Concord so that we can go through Burlington VT on the way back. When we lived in Montreal we went there usually once per summer, but we have not been there since 1997.
Black and white cows are grazing in peaceful pastures by the road. So Vermont! Contrary to our trip down, we do see some beginning fall colour. Here and there is suddenly a bright red spot on the mountainside. We make very good time so we calculate that we can actually wait to have lunch in Burlington. We stop at a K-Mart in Lebanon VT to pick up some throat lozenges, because I am starting to feel it already. We pick up some half decent coffee there as well.
We get to Burlington at about 13:15. It has not changed much, just been updated really. We browse in a Barnes and Noble bookstore, and have lunch in a pub on the Church Street Marketpace.
There is some event going that weekend, and there are all sorts of bandstands and performers. We stop to watch a street performer jump through a fire ring. It's all about the build up and his routine, not about the jump. He gets a volunteer from the audience, and first pretends that he will set this person on fire. It turns out he is using water instead of a flammable liquid, and when the person fails to catch fire, he takes us all to task for not attempting to intervene. He does finally jump through the burning hoop, but he keeps talking first until the flames are very small. But he does put on an entertaining show.
After Burlington we take the road through the Champlain Islands, and cross back into Canada at Noyan, in order to avoid the Sunday lineups at the big Lacolle crossing. They have not seen this from people from Ottawa, and so we explain that we used to live in Montreal. We continue our way across Candiac and St-Catherines where we have a real life traffic jam for no detectable reason, and cross the river via the Mercier bridge. We make it home by 8 pm.
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