Day 3 - Brockville to London

Wonderful breakfast from Lynne Majel at the Green Door: fresh fruit cup, yogurt, fresh biscuits/muffins, THEN French Toast and strawberries! (We didn’t need lunch!)

Overcast start with top down, 18C, slightly humid. Started on Hwy 2, which winds through suburbs, farms and ranches. At Kingston there was construction, so we moved to the 401. This was boring, but moved well until Oshawa, then the traffic got much thicker but still well-behaved; up went the top. I guess we didn’t time our passage well, as there we were, driving the 401 through Toronto on a Friday afternoon!. Traffic slowed to stop-and-go and the temperature rose to 28C. It seemed that there was 4 solid hours of traffic.

Eventually reached London & stopped at the first hotel - Holiday Inn!

Day Two: Bangor to Brockville - a Really Long Day

Very pleasant top down start: clear skies, 18C. We took I 95 to Newport, then got on US 2 for the westward journey through Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. The road was mostly very good, with many sections freshly re-surfaced; in fact just before the Vermont/New Hampshire border, they were finishing widening and paving. Had a lovely (healthy!) lunch at the Moonbeam Café in Gorham, NH; it’s very much a tourist town and they were getting ready for the Memorial Day weekend.

The White Mtns were gorgeous as we drove by - we never seem to have enough time to stop, unfortunately.

We joined the I 89 at Montpelier to the top of Lake Champlain, then slow-going on US 11 and 37 to cross the border at Cornwall; passed the impressive windmill “farm” between Mooers and Chataeugay, NY. Put the top up mid-afternoon, as we were getting too much sun.

The final leg on the 401 from Cornwall to Brockville was mind-numbing. The B&B in Brockville made up for the extended journey, though! The Green Door is a completely renovated ex-Pentecostal church (cir. 1928) with 4 or 5 charming, themed rooms. Ours, the Majestic, was a tribute to 30’s era movies.

The Green Door, Brockville

May 26, 2010 Day 1: Halifax to Bangor

Well, our plan to leave on Tuesday didn't quite work out. So Wednesday!
Weather was overcast, ~17C. No real surprises in the route to Bangor: we did the highway with top down from Halifax to chilly Cobiquid pass; then there were a few showers from Amherst to Moncton. Just past Calais the clouds broke up, sun came out and it warmed up noticeably, so top came down again. Stayed at Holiday Inn - again, no surprises.

The Trip

This blog is to be a journal of a cross-continent trip - from Halifax, NS to Victoria, BC - in our 2007 "Stormy Blue" Mazda MX-5.
The route is not going to be a direct one - although it will start that way - because we've done the Trans-Canada trip several times before. This trip will travel west from Halifax, through New England and back into Canada at Cornwall. Then south along the St. Lawrence, crossing back into the States at Sarnia. We'll continue south to Chicago, then southwest to Denver, through some canyons (!), to Flagstaff and Meteor Crater. Finally (and maybe the best part) up the California coast along the Pacific Coast Highway, through San Fransisco, then Oregon and Washington state to Victoria.
Watch this space for updates!