Respect the Signs

Hi everyone, it's Emma. 

We left home at 3:40 this morning to begin our first stretch of driving. This departure time was carefully chosen to avoid morning rush hour in major cities, coordinate a convenient arrival time in Montreal, and generally degrade everyone's mental state to borderline lunacy. By six a.m. we were in New York, which looks very cool and ethereal when enrobed in early morning mist. Some people might have described it as 'hilly,' but I think 'lumpy' would be a better term. Lumpy and foggy. It was a nice sort of highway to be on. Then the lumps, hills, whatever, got bigger and more craggy looking, and we were in the Adirondacks. At this point we were more or less fully awake, it being around eight, and we were trying to photograph every lump/hill/mountain in sight.

Somewhere we passed a sign that said 'Montreal 197 mi,' which made us feel very optimistic because we were close enough that there were signs for it! We were almost there! (Never mind that the only thing the signs were telling us was that we weren't really anywhere near Montreal.) But eventually we really did start to get close, and the rest stop we stopped at had a Canadian flag as well as those of America and the state of New York. (Incidentally, it also doubled as a police station.) 

When we finally crossed the border, we stopped at a tourist information center that sold postcards (which we weren't allowed to get) and had a free "Cyclist's Guide to Canada" (which we were allowed to get, despite the fact that we did not bring our bikes). Dad and Zola exchanged money while Mom talked to the people at the desk about who knows what. Then we got back in the car and drove the rest of the way to Montreal. On the way, we saw a bunch of signs that shouldn't have been amusing but were, because they were in French. My favorite was  one with a picture of some road signs that said, "The signs are speaking to you - RESPECT THEM." There was also one that said "Dynamique" with a picture of something that looked like a construction vehicle. 

Now I'm typing in our hotel room in Montreal, and soon we're off to the Biodome. Dad will probably post about that later.

The family van.

Zola, Grace, and me at a rest stop.

The last exit on this highway in the U.S.

The back of the... gigantic sign.

As you may have inferred, this is the Canadian border inspection sign.