June 8 & 9 Maunrayaul

We left Quebec City yesterday for Maunrayaul, the weather was not good. It was raining basically the whole way here. And yes the roads were not good; lots of bumping and grinding. I kept the speed down to 95 most of the way down from the posted 100, the problem with this is the maniac truck drivers. I'm sure they were all trained at the Citroen speedway in Paareee! I also noticed most of the drivers are very short; they can barely see above their steering wheel (or maybe they've got their Lamborghini seats positioned on the Kamikazi setting!).
We arrived at our very first KOA in the South Montreal area called Candiac. They profess to having the closest RV park to Montreal (ok im taking the easy spelling as it is onerous to spell Maunrayaul :)) Of course the rain didn't help matters, when we pulled in there was not a dry spot to walk on. Oh well, it felt like home, although we're kinda ticked off you're having 25-30 degree sunny weather back home :). We make do. We normally see some of the surrounding area in the afternoon of each arrival, but with Montreal being 30 minutes away we decided to hunker down with our books. It was time for supper and I volunteered! Now Caroline's back is acting up in a negative way, she was reclining with her book and I felt I needed to wade in. So I don't know what you women complain about cause this was eezzy peezy! Got some worshies out, some left over filet mignon, fried them in the pan on a searing hot propane fired cooktop, then cut up the gouda cheese and smoked salmon very delicately (wanted to get this right) got the assortment of crackers neatly placed on the plate AND Voila!! Dinner is served my sweety. Ok a couple glasses of Chardonnay didn't hurt.
Well I admit, its not easy selecting what to make, how to make, AND prepare a meal every day. I mean I'm actually pretty good when it comes to the BBQ; steak, baked potato, veggies wrapped in foil; its simply timing. I give BIG credit to Caroline (and other women) who do this day in and day out.
Today we set out to the Montreal downtown core. When I talked about the bad roads coming in I really didn't know what Casey was really referring to. The roads in and around Montreal are simply the worst we've encountered on our trip. The new jersey turnpike had some bad stretches, but so many roads here are bad. I would literally concentrate only on the next 100 feet at a time, preparing to dodge each rut and crack that vibrates to the very core of my human skeleton. Our livers and bladders were being shocked and jostled as well! We started to look for a parking spot; Hah! wasn't going to happen along any curbs; we found a lot at $2.50 for every 20 minutes!! I put in for 2 hours and we kept looking at our watches during our walk of the old city. We managed to visit the Notre Dame cathedral, the archaeological museum and had lunch at a waterfront restaurant; we had a Montreal smoked meat sandwich which the area is known for. It was pretty good. With Caroline's back acting up we drove some more but soon headed back to our site as I had planned to visit one of our suppliers; DALS Lighting which provides a lot of our cabinet and counter lighting. Took me about 40 minutes to get there, met the President who took me for a tour. I was looking at my watch as I knew I would experience some of the traffic which I did. About an hour to get back.
We did have some sun during the middle of the day and was 23 degrees, but we got some thunder and rain later in the day. A not great day considering Caroline's back problems; we pray that it will get better.

 Kamikazi drivers! and pulling this kinda load too. I've never seen this before

 so I wasn't kidding when I said it had rained here pretty heavy

 oh and I made the dipping sauce from scratch! Mustard, mayo, honey, and some crab sauce. Yuuuuummy!

 my parking prowess. I think I pushed the limit on my warning buzzers. When you get the solid loud beep you know you're close

 Notre Dame Cathedral

 The red herring for Montreal. I asked the owner of my supplier about why the roads are so bad here. He said "well the excuse we get is that the winters are so harsh...." with a sarcastic grin on his face. We both agreed that the city was so far in debt from the 76 Olympics; it only recently had paid off the debt

that they simply cant afford to spend that much money on fixing roads!! Hopefully that will change

 we ate at a quaint little place just past the red awning