Montreal, Quebec

The RV park we are staying at and the one where our Maritime tour will begin is in Saint Phillippe, Quebec just south of Montreal. After setting up we started taking inventory and of course we needed to head to the nearest Walmart. The RV park is nice and there is any store you might need within a 10 minute drive. So off we go. The traffic patterns take a little getting used to as do the road signs but nothing to outrageous. One thing I did notice is that you seem to come up to speed quicker when it is kilometers per hour so I really have to watch the speedometer. The Walmart is the same as you find in the States with the exception that most products are labled in French with some having English below on the labels. It was funny to see the hockey equipment displayed much like the baseball equipment is in the U.S. We had fun wandering around looking at items we had no idea what they were. People are friendly and we have not met anyone that does not speak English once they find out that you do not speak French. Susan wanted to try Poutine so we were directed to a small cafe a few kilometers from us called Restaurant Mario's. The lady who owns it has been in business 20 years, she lives upstairs and the restaurant in downstairs.

It is at the corner of a four way stop in a older neighborhood.

For those of you that do not know what Poutine is, it is french fries, gravy and cheese curds served in a bowl. At Mario's, the plain, no meat Poutine is called BBQ. You can also have chicken or ground beef. It is truly Eastern Canadian comfort food and very filling. The owner was friendly and concerned that we enjoyed our meal, we did! It comes in three sizes, petite, moyenne and Grand. I asked for the moyenne or "average" as it translates to and the owner showed me the petite size, I quickly changed my order to petite and still could not eat it all. The complete menu can be seen here: https://stphilippe.marios.menu.ca/?p=menu&lang=fr

Later in the afternoon we had an unofficial "meet and greet" with our fellow travelers. The wagon masters and tail-gunners made BBQ pulled pork. It was fun to start meeting people and getting to know each other.

some of our fellow travelers. I am glad we wear name tags, and that I will have 61days to learn their names.

Our tail-gunners, Carlos and Lisa in the yellow hats. It looks and feels like it is going to be a good tour.

Tonight we went to our Welcome dinner at Baton Rouge. It was delicious, I had the NY Strip and Susan had the Prime Rib. The meal and the company was great. Tomorrow, we board a tour bus for Montreal. We are both looking forward to it and hopefully I will have plenty of pictures. Have a great weekend and come back tomorrow.