Montreal

Montreal has something for everyone.

<-- something old

something new from the 80's -->

We wind along the river from Ottawa. Lunch is god knows where. Some old lady is enthralled by Ollie, and speaking no English, we have no idea, but it sounds good. She is very happy to have a hold of him.

We stay at a nice but tiny hotel a short walk from the Metro with the blue trains with regular truck tyres on them. There's a particular burning smell you can just sense that's perculiar to these trains. Old town is beautiful, but am not sure about the modern architecture. This town is a mash of all kinds of things, very interesting and a lot of fun.


< -- stadium from the 76 summer Olympics

weird modern apartments -->

Ottawa

< -- parliament

library of parliamentary -->

Ottawa is the capital of Canada and Parliament Hill has a big old Westminster style building on it, with loads of green leather seats for the important people. The library inside is a wonder, circular, elaborately wooden, and with the light streaming in as if it were some of site old cult.

Don't try to get your computer repaired here unless you have unlimited time.

in the pedestrian mall nearby -->

The Lakes

< -- all the rivers were raging. See Ollie holding still for one time only.

All the lakes were over full -->

We aimed for some beautiful lakes, and there are about a million of them up here. It is weird seeing ones that are overflowing when every one at home is 50% full or less. The run off from the snow is flooding everywhere. We end up at some truck stop motel near Cloyne after having dinner in Erinsville and talking with the local music talent.

The following day we go to Perth (ha, ha), Smiths Falls, Carleton, then Ottawa. Every town has raging rivers running through the middle lined with beautiful old stone buildings. What a lovely area.

Hamilton

<-- one of the oldest homes built by slaves. They left the US as they could be returned as property to their owners.

Me, Anna, Marie, Ollie and Steven -->

As soon as you cross the border, everything is greener on the other side. Beautiful leafless trees, and a different accent. We drop in on North Buxton, a town established by escaped slaves. They fled the US to find freedom in Canada.



Marie's godmother lives here, and the family is extremely hospitable. Just as soon as you think you've escaped the schlivo/rakia, they're trying to pile another one in.

Toronto is a nice city. There's 7 lanes each way on the highway east, and more cars than I've seen in one place before.

Is he posing for this? -- >

<-- Steven, Angie, Cathy, John, Steven.

Detroit

<-- Ford passed the 20 million mark a while back. At the River Rouge factory tour.

Landed in Detroit amoung the piles of snow. Nice change from the heat. In the morning it was about 5 deg, and snowing sideways with a nasty wind. Outside the hotel is the biggest carpark in the world surrounding the shopping centre. There are no footpaths, and we must look strange trying to walk along the road. We have no cold weather clothes with us, so we head into the shopping centre to get some.

Downtown looks like it must have been bustling in the roaring forties, but since no-one is buying American cars, its a ghost town. Most of the places on Michigan Ave are boarded up.

Monday is the Ford factory tour on the Rouge River near Dearborn. Ollie got very excited watching all the F-150's being made (about 60 per hour). The plant has solar panels, and some porous ashphalt. Being environmentally friendly is funny for a factory making gas guzzlers.

New Orleans

<-- in the First Adventures section of the Louisiana Children's Museum, full of goodies.

Serious stranger danger -->

New Orleans is beautiful, and loads of fun. You get take away cups for your beer or daquiri, so you can walk it down the street. Live music is blaring from everywhere. Get advice before you walk out of the tourist areas as going one block the wrong way can put you into a bad area with the crackheads, as we discovered.


<-- One of the first preservation movements saved New Orleans from being improved.

New Iberia

<-- Ollie and the Tabasco Factory. Kids should not swim in the river of tabasco sauce.

Main Street, New Iberia -->

We kept driving through the wetlands to New Iberia, LA. Another nice historic town, and the home of Tabasco sauce. All bottles come from the one factory on Avery Island. They make 700,000 bottles per day, and export to 110 countries.


You know travelling with an 8 month old can be tough. We fed him some stone fruit, and at the Shadows-on-the-Teche mansion tour, he let fly quite a bit of avocado poo on the visitors centre carpet. No kidding, it was bright emerald green, and I had no idea until my shorts were coated, and there was an extra shadow on the carpet at the Shadows, no matter how much scrubbing we did.

<-- Shadows-on-the-Teche, New Iberia, LA. Beautiful plantation home, and an interesting tour. Most of the furniture is original. It is one of 25 odd National Trust buildings.

the Teche (snake) Bayou (river) -->

The swamps of Louisiana

<-- grassy wetlands. This photo is useless

crazy bridge over a wetlands canal -->

<-- processing black gold- texas tea near Port Arthur. Heaps of oil and gas all along the Gulf coast.



Today was a driving day, so we don't have to do so much in the next couple of days. Between Ollie going mental, lunch was pho bo, we had a ferry ride from Galveston, a drive around the ghost town of Port Arthur and a drive through the beautiful wet lands. These have long grass, several canals and lakes. Port Arthur is a bit of a ghost town because it's right next to a big chemical plant.

Brenham

<-- historical Brenham has a 100 year old ice cream factory

so we had to sample some-->

<-- in the historic Heaven Cafe at 4.45pm



Another nice historical main street. Everything else shuts at 3pm, and some at 5 on the dot.

Galveston

<-- the car ferry

gets the thumbs up -->

The road leading into Galveston is lined with green trees that arch overtop. In the centre, the historical district has beautiful Victorians with tall white columns. There are not many fences between properties.

The beach side is a disappointment. Beside the beach are Seawall Boulevard's 4 (+2 for parking) lanes of paving putting pay to any possibility of paradise. Plenty of parking and not many cars in the fast food places with the faded paint, a couple of dodgy hotels, and some empty lots. In the 60's there must have been a mayor who could get things done.

The car ferry is big fun.

Austin

<-- some of the beautiful old buildings remain

lunch with Gina -->

Big thanks to Gina for letting us stay in her new condo!!

Austin is on a river, with some nice trails. It is the capitol of Texas, yeeha.



< -- a turtle at Barton Springs


<-- one of the riverside paths the capitol building. Texas was a part of Mexico, Spain, the US, the confederate US and it's own republic for a bit. -->

Leaving

<-- pulling stuff out of the cupboards, and putting it down for packing

finding goodies to play with -->

<-- getting the things into boxes to go to Vinnies, or into a bag




We sold things, packed bags and took things up to the local Vinnies for about a week. We didn't finish everything we needed to, and got the maintenance man to give us a hand moving stuff on the last day. Our futon was claimed from the footpath as we got into a cab.

New bike seat

<-- we've been trying some new things.

Not sure if this is a hit yet -->

We only just got a new bike seat about 2 hours ago. It's 6.50pm right now, and still sunny, but Ollie's had dinner and is sleeping, so the ride is over for today.

We've been selling off everything in our place preparing for the move home. We still have to clean, pack, dump, sell, and get citizenship etc.

We've been doing some of the things we should have been doing from the start, like going to the aquarium. Ollie loved that. We also went on 2 walking tours, one on the whore houses of old, and one on the beautiful old houses near Alamo square. I think he liked those.


<-- we lucked out; Richard of 824 Grove was at home, and talked us through his restored house and his antiques.

lots of woodwork here. Using multi-coloured paints on homes was started up by the hippies in the sixties. -->

A day of feet tasting

<-- the only way to explore new things

sweeet -->

Our little chubby is tasting everything he can, like toys, feet, packs, swings and recently solid food. He seems to like everything.




<-- Ollie.

Look ma! 3 hands! -->

All smiles

<-- not sure why, but it is funny

very funny -->

You know Americans are always smiling. And here's our little yank. Have a nice dayyy.

More shots of the boy

<-- Ollie working hard

playing hard -->

There's a lot of stuff to do around here. Ollie is keeping busy as you can see.




<-- letting pa do all the work