Gotta Go to Come Back

A couple of days away from the next leg of My Summer Vacation, it is well past time to put the first leg to bed. In going over these photos it is like most people I know feel after a trip...did that really just happen? Apparently so; I've got proof!

The very last look at the garden.
I was hoping for the poppy to fully open but not quite

Red day lilies went crazy though

Michael made corned beef hash for breakfast. I have photos of the entire process but I'll save them for a food day. I thought you just slung the stuff on the stove. Instead, it is a series of processes. Whatever happened, it was very good and I am pretty sure I've never said that about anything with the word hash in it that wasn't illegal.

Farewell for now, house, it was good to get to know you!

On the road to the airport, there were a few detours. 

I don't know what any of this means but I liked the sign.

Energy from water is a very very big thing around here.
This is one of the smaller dams.

This is a shipping channel with locks. I couldn't really get a photo of the lock
so I got a  photo of these two pleasure boats making pretty designs in the water instead.

This is on the way to the BIG dam, the Beauharnois Generating Station.
All of these towers connect this part of Canada's electric grid from the dam. 

Usually I try to get wires out of a photo.
Here, they are the whole point.

It is impossible to get a sense of how huge this is with drive by camera shooting.
The little watch house is on top of the dam. You can read all about it here.

It is pretty impressive, one of the largest hydropower facilities in the world.

A park across from the dam

This park across the street from the dam has made the Quebec flag out of grass and stone. From the top of the dam (I didn't go but everyone else in the car had), you can see the entire flag. I looked at it from Google Earth instead. 

This HUGE rusted hulk is free for the taking!

This ship was leaking fuel and oil, unable to continue its journey without paying massive fines and for major repairs. Instead, the company that owned the ship said, not happening and they just left the ship. It has been drained of any water fouling nasties, but the issue of moving it is most likely a very hot potato. I'm sure of the many options available, none are cheap, so it might just sit there forever.

Crossing over

Crossing under the canal. The road in this tunnel was disturbingly wet.

We got a bit turned around, and did not use the phone.
It was a happy mistake and we found the very cool little town of Melochville.

Such a cute shed/cottage - I couldn't be sure which

This boat looks scary to me. 

A sweet marina. This little town seemed boat bum friendly.
I want to go back!

The dance hall. Tonight, we dance!

Let me state the obvious. Mexican food!

Carroll laughed, saying even a small town let's you know you are in Quebec
with at least one church with huge steeples.

Another wonderful cottage with an artistic garden

Except for a Pan screen door, this one is pretty wonderful.

Just a little bit of red. The use of red in roofs is not unusual.
I imagine in winter it would be something nice and bright in all the snow.

A big barn I'd love to see inside

Micheal figured this home at close to a couple of hundred years old. It was not alone.

One of my favorite signs of the trip

Hello, New York, good bye Canada

There was a flag for every province

And of course, your last shopping opportunity in Canada.
Right now the exchange favored our dollar, good for us, not good for Canadians.

Seeing all the provincial flags together made me think a lot more about  how huge and diverse Canada is (yes, so is the US, though not nearly almost all cold places!) You can read more here if you like. 

There was a pretty long wait for customs. We flew through coming in.
It was a Sunday in mid-summer; we didn't overheat and didn't run out of gas.
Life is good!

We're back!

We were planning on going to this place Jonny and Carroll had been before but it was closed. It didn't look closed. But it was. Onward into Plattsburgh, the boringly named town with a lot of surprises.

The face of disappointment and...what's next??!

Plattsburgh must have a church on every corner. And I'm not kidding.

But it also had gothic creepy awesome places too.

 There were so many beautiful steeples that I got tired of them.

After a bit of looking around, we chose this place, Aleka's 

I can't recommend this place enough. Great outdoor seating (there was indoor too but the weather was nice and we were glad to be outside, out of the car). fast friendly helpful smiling servers. Food over the top on the 'this is really good!' scale. 

Of course, I didn't know any of that when I said, herding my cats, we're eating here! Usually I wait for group consensus but I saw two words, Greek and Wine. Hey, what's the choice here? None.

Michael was driving so he was not drinking anything alcoholic. Jonny and Carroll chose from a list of beers in tap longer than my arm. I obviously had wine.
Even their house red was good!

I was hypnotized by our servers jewelry

Lake Champlain

A Mustang club was having a big rally. Again.

Mustangs brought us in and Mustangs took us out. I don't think there is any deep meaning in that and if there is it escapes me. Probably a good thing. 

A delayed but not by horribly much flight got us home late late late, it was good to get out of that very uncomfortable plane. Allegiant is a great deal for the money airline, but if you have back issues, make sure you take your meds before getting aboard.

Have a work your way west Wednesday. Do something whoppingly wholesome.