Sunday was our last day to explore Montreal and we had a lot to go, so Jed & I got up and out before the house was moving again in the morning. We were going to go check out a different market, Atwater, for a quick breakfast stop at Premiere Moisson.
And after a few pictures, we were off to our next stop, St Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal. This was a beautiful church and amazing grounds.
But what brought us to this church was what was inside. We had read that there was a heart of a saint in here. An actual heart!! So we had to come check it out. We took the first tour of the day and learned so much about Saint Brother Andre and all he did for the community. It was incredible!
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| The Carillon (there is an amazing story and history to this as well, check it out here) |
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| A few of the crutches from people he healed |
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| Inside one of the three sanctuaries in the Basilica |
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| Inside a different sanctuary in the Basilica |
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| Actual size cut out of Brother Andre |
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| View from the top of the Basilica |
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| His first church also known as the Chapel of Origin |
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| Inside the Chapel of Origin |
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| Where he lived in the Chapel of Origin |
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| The Heart of Brother Andre in the Basilica |
After our time at St Joseph's, we hopped on the metro and headed back down to Old Montreal so we could make the first tour of the day at Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal. This place was spectacular! Pictures just can't do it justice. We sat for a while to just take it all in before we joined the tour. It was very neat to learn the history of this church and hear all the people that have come through the doors and even been married here. (Celine Dion was married here. That was almost enough to make Jed want to just walk out.)
After our tour, we hurried back to meet up with the group to grab a late lunch. On our way back to meet them, we ran into another movie shoot and took a million more pictures of the new graffiti that was going up all over the city.
Wendy found a fantastic diner for lunch called Beauty's. When we read about it in our Lonely Planet book, it talked about how the owner of the restaurant is almost always there to greet you. And today was no different. Jed and I were really excited and loved the history and story to this place and decided that we had to met Hymie & his son, Larry. I think we even introduced him to his first selfie!
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| Jed, Hymie & I |
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| Hymie, Me, Larry (son) & part of Jed's head |
The food was great, the bagels (from St Viateur's) were spot on, the shakes were so good and I loved, loved, loved talking to Hymie as he told me all about life when he first started here and how the place has changed. He was so sweet and even gave me free postcards with pictures of him and his wife when they first started out.
After lunch, Tim & Wendy had told us about a drum circle that was going on right up the street so on our way back to the house (with lots more graffiti on the way), we made a quick stop to check it all out.
Once everyone made it back to the house we all just hung out, ate more food and played Cards Against Humanity.
It felt like no time before we were getting ready to head out to dinner. Since we had eaten a late lunch and then snacked all afternoon, we were looking for a place that we could hang out, experience some night life and grab some appetizers. We found a place called Bily Kun. This place was really cool and kind of creepy. It had ostrich heads mounted all over the restaurant so it was just our style.
Jed and I called it a night before the wee hours of the morning hit since were had to get up super early for our long drive home in the morning.
And Monday morning came quite early and quickly. We quietly packed up the car and headed out for who knows what kind of adventures on our ride home. There was one place we had to stop before leaving Montreal and that was to St Viateur to stock up on a dozen bagels. After bagels for the road, we headed for the border.
The drive through Canada was very pretty and very uneventful. Right before & after you pass over the border into the States, you are driving through and area known as 1000 Islands. We could help it but to stop in at the 1000 Islands Tower and head to the top to check it all out.
After our pit stop at the border, we made it all the way to Syracuse before stopping for lunch. We found a place on the Diners, Drive In's & Dives website called Pastabilities. As we were walking to the restaurant to grab a quick bit to eat for the road, we randomly ran into the 24-Second Shot Clock Monument.
Lunch was good but a little disappointing. They are known for this spicy hot tomato oil which was fantastic but the rest of the food was buffet style at lunch so we missed out on all the things we were "supposed" to get.
We didn't stay in Syracuse long is it was lunch time and we had only made it to New York. But it wasn't long before we hit our next stop that we had to make a detour, Scranton, PA. If you have ever watched The Office, then you will understand the stop but if you haven't then Scranton is the most random and ridiculous place to stop.
Scranton is the sleepy town that The Office takes place. Many of the main landmarks of this area can be seen in the opening credits of the tv show. So we had to stop and see them all. The first one was the Scranton sign. According to websites, they had moved the sign from the side of the main road to inside there little shopping mall because of out of control fans stopping and trying to take pictures...
It was touch and go for a little while as we could not find the sign in the mall and were getting VERY disappointed but low and behold, we finally found it!
After another stop for a noted landmark from the show,
We found one more thing of interest before getting back on the road, Nay Aug Park - David Wetzel Tree House.
Hiking a little to find the tree house was great since we had been in the car for a while and had many more hours to go.
After our tree house adventure, we decided that it was pretty late and we needed to just get back home since we had to actually show up at work in the morning so the rest of the drive was uneventful. I think we made it home with very few stops around 1:30am. So quite a successful road trip and definitely worth it.
Tim & Wendy, thanks for the invite and Happy Anniversary!
