My travel this year 2001 (Sept.15-Oct.14) was mostly spent in Canada. The first flight of Northwest out of the country (Phils.) after the New York bombing incident was the day of my flight departure. Despite the after-horror feelings everyone shared that week, my flight was not much different from previous years. No untoward incident, either going to or coming home marred my trip. Someone was really taking care of me and the loved ones around me.

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The next weekend after I arrived, we drove to Montreal. We stayed at Le Chateau-Neuf, a hotel in Laval (20 minutes from the city) from Sept. 22-24. Highlights of the trip: Chinese Garden (The Magic of Lanterns); boat cruise around St. Lawrence river aboard Le Bateu-Mouche, museums, and the Notre-Dame Basilica, the oldest church in the city built in the 1800s (with twin towers 228 feet high), its vaulted ceiling a canopy of 24-karat stars.

... ... Mostly, we just walked around Old Montreal with its narrow cobblestone streets, peeped and browsed inside museums, old churches, climbed the tower inside Notre Dame de Bon Secours Chapel which gave a view of Old Montreal, Old Port and St. Lawrence river from on top.

Weekend at Big Gull Lake

On my 3rd weekend (Oct.6-8), Monday being Thanksgiving day, we drove to East Ontario to rent a cottage at Camps' Bay around the Kingston area... ... Fall was showing its face then, with the weather looking undecided as it shone, rained, dropped flurries and bits of ice hail, all in one day on our 1st 2 days. The weather said goodbye on the 3rd day with a promise of a high of 18C or 20C (?) - anyway, I remember it was warm, but still comfortably cool. Most memorable here was the motor boat that Eric & family took out to the lake which stopped after a few minutes and would not go. Well, all's well that ends well. Someone was still watching over us. What was loveliest in this place by the lake was the wilderness trails behind the cottages and the trees in its most splendid fall colors. This is one place I would like to come back to and spend more days in vacation.

Another place we visited in one weekend is the Black Creek Pioneer Village in Toronto- a family experience from another time - a day in the life of a 19th century village, with people, shops, buildings, old mill, kept at how they looked in that historic time.

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