Road Trippin 2008: __ersatz

__ersatz_

Road Trippin 2008

May 26, 2008 21:09

Could have been a night like any other
One of use has to drive

Busch Gardens... Virginia Beach... Chicago... nope: it's Quebec.

Took a while, but we decided. Then at Jes's Wii party we booked
the hotel: Hotel Manoir Victoria, on Cote du Palais, in Old Quebec
City, Canada. We wanted Chateau Frontenac -- who doesn't?-- but
that shit was booked solid. Casey said "it's the only place to
stay!!!" but alas, it wasn't in the cards. You're tired of words.

And now you're confused, so you should have let me finish. We
decided to stop in South Burlington Vermont, first, because Bobby
said it was awesome and it was on the way. And guess what's nearby?
Hell yeah, Ben & Jerry's factory. Side Note: We looked for hotels in
SoBurl, and found a hilarious one called The Ho-Hum Motel, which
was obviously for hourly rates and murder. We decided to wait til we got there.

So keep in mind how we got there: Jes's dad said we could borrow
his minivan [w00t] for the roadtrip, so we met at Jes's house at
7am and then Starbucks (of course) and then crank up the iPod.
Because Jes's cds were all scratched to hell. Few hours later:

We should mention that Christopher let us borrow his GPS, so we
put in the address we got from our research, and by "research" i
of course mean "the internet," and that's why the first place we
visited was actually the Ben & Jerry's Corporate Offices. Yeah.

Everything's fine. Because we are young. We are Looking to the Future.

There are more pictures from there, but Jes took them on her
camera, so talk to her. But none from the tour-- that's Top
Secret. The Security Cow said so. Free sample: Mint Chocolate Chunk.

Are you confused yet? Stay with me now. So then we left,
and then the car was stuck in 1st gear, and everything was
horrible and the worst, and we had been so happy, blah blah,
and then a sequence of fortunate coincidences brought us to a
transmission guy in Williston (Barry's! near SoBurl) who said
we should stay the night and he'd hopefully fix us up in the
morning...

and guess what walking-distance hotel he recommended we stay at?

It helped us remember to not take any of this too seriously.
Plus: Barry (not really his name) told us where to go "down town"
for dinner/walking etc... and that turned out to be awesome.

Do you know what that is? That's right: it's Lake Champlain.
It was awesome out, so we parked the sort-of-working minivan
and walked down to the water to hopefully get a look at Champ.

We tried not to think about the car trouble. We Looked to the Future.

And then of course we had to eat and drink.

This is where i had an awesome hamburger with grilled pineapple.

It was hella good. Jes had a salad. Dave had a burrito perhaps?
It was Mexican something. Everything was good. And now you are
thinking, hmm, I don't care what they ate, get on with it Richard.
And to that i say get the hell out of my LiveJournal mofugga

There was a crazy clown man riding a bike in neon campaigning
for Ralph Nader. Yeah, I think it's just that kind of town.

Sun was setting over the lake so we hurried back down to the water,
just in case we were missing something irreplaceably awesome.

and we were glad we did. Cool, right?

I'm pretty sure those special moments are where postcards are born.

Yeah I have no idea. They were on top of a building, and they were awesome.

Also: they were terrifying.

Then down by the waterfront we decided to try some more photos.
Our lighting skills awe obviously awesome, and when i say "awesome"
i mean shut up the sky looks so cool.

See cuz when you try to fix something then another thing gets bad
and the sky is obviously the more interesting part of this arrangement, yesno?

i knew you'd see it my way. These next few, we balanced the camera
on some rocks, and then also some nice girl came over and took one
or two for us. i forget. but sky + lake champlain = pretty awesome.

caught the lighthouse checkin us out too

So then that night we parked back at the Ho-Hum and walked to the
Pour House (yep) for some drinks... and everyone was frenzied over
the hockey game, i think the Canadiens were playing, but we were
more into the Photohunt knockoff we were slaying on the bartop.

Next morning: we took the car to Barry's, and they started checking
it out, walked back towards the Ho-Hum and stopped at the "Parkway
Diner" (cue Billy Joel- i was looking for Brenda & Eddie but i guess
they slept in that morning).

Dave didn't feel good (or well) so he went back to shower/sleep
while Jes and i housed some pancakes and crosswords

dude looks so much like Ralph from behind, yesno Helen?

Then everything was fine with the car :) ONWARD!

*****************************

Quebec!

We arrived, (eventually) found our hotel (on Cote du Palais!) and then
we met Andy and started to suspect that Everything Was Going To Be Fine.
Normalest parking attendant ever. Also: he will continue with his job.

So the first night we ate at D'Orsay. Cedric serving. Very weird teeth.
We wanted the beer sampler; he resisted. I was angry. Bottom line: we
ended up finding The Best Beer of Life. And Cedric, i'm sorry for not trusting.

You will notice the very specific glassware. This is no accident.

"Maudite" ('damned') and "Blanche de Chambly" ('something else') from
Unibroue, in quebec province, but not Quebec City. SRSLY check em out.

We walked around some more. Look closely at the store name and you
will see why i am smiling as a goon. Also: CHATEAU FRONTENAC!!

Climbing up towards what turned out to be Le (La?) Citadelle, you can
start to appreciate why they refer to the "Upper town" and "Lower town"

Drunken photographer

We look so on top of the world yes/yes?

And there above it all we Looked To The Future

You also will notice all the snow- they had their last big snowfall
about 2 weeks before we got there, and there were still drifts everywhere.
Wasn't terribly cold though, just at times. During the day it wasn't even
jacket weather. But we had jackets. Sometimes.

Iconic, yes?

That night: Ste. Alexandre's Pub. Our Favorite Place of Ever. We met
Maxime, had more Maudite, loved Trois Pistoles, and tried mirror pics.

And that was almost certainly the night i fell asleep on the window ledge,
and Jes was unconcerned that i seemed to have disappeared, and then i
diagonaled Dave. I remember very little of this. C'est la Vie!

Next morning: Andy totally tested us with the McDonald's bait... but we
didn't fall for it. It was then that he knew how awesome we really were.

Are.

HEALTHY BREAKFAST

Crepe something omelet something, with oregano on the oranges? was good, idk.

then: beautiful day, lots more walking around. Actually, we printed out
'walking tours' and started looking for stuff. Good times.

That one's pretty, yeah?

Then into some shops. We took this pic for Lorraineeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I bought a drawing of the last pic/scene. Fun times. GLASSBLOWING

The glassblowing dude had the worst attitude in all of Quebec. Whole province.

MURAL'DDD

for dana!

Also: hella beautiful train station

Lunch: the place we started at eventually bounced us, because the chef
had to "take his son to the hospital" (?). The waitress told us "it's over."
We hope she meant lunch service, and not the chef's son. On to Cafe du Cap.

The waitress had horror-film quality orthodonture. But damn, her crepes.

While there we wrote our postcards, including the ones to the mechanics
who helped us out more than they needed to. we felt pretty cool about that.

Also, you noticed the exposed stonework. Every-freakin-where. Jes was in heaven.

But not actually, she was with us. On Earth.

Leaving Quebec- Chute Montmorency!

Taller than Niagara, but I think Niagara is famous for how wide it is, etc.

More on the staircase in a min, pay attention.

Tree growing through stonework? LIFE FINDS A WAY JURASSIC PARK

View down to the bottom along the falls, it's hard to tell what you're seeing
but there was a bunch of ice and chaos down there. In the winter this huge
tower of ice and snow forms from the mist/water off the falls, and people
do iceclimbing and sledding and all kinds of awesome seeming things.

LIGHTINGMASTERS

So then we use flashes, but how fake do we look??? So phoneyseeming!

So superimposedish! I'm supposed to be better at this. Someday.

Right Dave?

Was pretty awesome. So postcardey.

Oh right so the stairs. Yeah we walked down them! To the base of the falls,
but we were getting very wet from all the mist, so of course I have no pictures
from down there. 487 steps down! Then 487 back up! And in between i sank
crotch-deep into a snow pile!

***********************************

LAKE GEORGE VILLAGE!

And that sign just about sums up our Lake George experience.
Also: reread it if you didn't get the accidentally perfect joke they made.

One of the major things we did in Lake George was the House of Frankenstein
Wax Museum; very important to Dave, very fun for all of us. He used to go
there as a kid with his family. The girl working the desk was exactly the
cliche you are picturing: goth clothes/makeup, Jack Skellington bag certainly
purchased at Hot Topic, and reading... wait for it... How to Survive a Horror Movie.

But no pictures of that, because you have already seen all the video.