Life on the Highway: Montreal and Upstate New York

We left New England and went into upstate New York.

We stopped at the Clinton County Fair, where we had regional style hot dogs. A Michigan (with meat sauce and onions), and a Quebec all dressed (with chopped Cole slaw, mustard, and onions). We also had a roasted ear of corn dipped in butter and sprinkled with salt, some blooming onion petals, some fresh squeezed lemonade, and a fried snickers for dessert! We listened to some local music at the bandstand, saw the crowds at the tractor pull, and went through the barns and saw farm animals, even some cute baby goats and calves too! Such good country fun!

Then we ventured up to Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Even though neither of us speak French other than a few words that would not help us at all, we had a great day! The driving there is just like in New York City, only on a smaller scale. People jay walking, bicycles everywhere, and cars all over the road. It was fun navigating around a city with signs where we had no clue what they said!

We drove to Old Montreal first, with its small, narrow, cobblestone streets, to see the Notre Dame Basilica. The sanctuary was elaborate in decoration and very colorful, with even the floor tiled in a blue and white design. As we entered, someone was playing on the huge historic pipe organ, and it sounded beautiful. The stained glass windows depicting the religious history of Montreal and all the statues were interesting. We walked around to the back of the church to the large Chapel (there was another smaller chapel), and marveled at the bronze decorations there. The whole room was shiny and ornate. Just beautiful!

the front of the sanctuary

the back of the sanctuary

the chapel

From there we headed to Olympic Park, past the famous stadium built for the Olympics. . .

. . . to the Insectarium. What creepy, crawly displays they have there! It was the most fascinating, complete display of insects from all over the world. Some were pinned, others alive. There were thousands!

When we were hungry, we went to a deli downtown for one of their famous smoked meat sandwiches. It is like a cross between pastrami and corned beef, and served on seedless rye bread with mustard. Delicious!

Of course we also had to have some poutin (fries with hot gravy and cheese curds), so we made another stop and savored over that too!

Our last stop was at a grocery store for some regional foods, and some of our favorite Canadian candy bars, Mr. Big, and Coffee Crisp. We picked up a Tourtiere (a spiced ground meat pie) that made a delicious dinner entree that night, some Montreal style bagels (lightly sweet) for breakfast, and some Oka cheese (which was strong) to have on crackers for lunch the next day.

We came back to New York and headed to Cooperstown. We visited the Baseball Hall of Fame, and looked at all the plaques of the players inducted, including the newest 2012 inductees added two days ago! It brought back memories of my grandmother and mother talking about some of those old time great players, and I remembered a lot of players from when I attended some of the San Diego Padres games. We spent a lot of time there looking at all the artifacts and memorabilia from baseball's history, and displays of all the current teams.

We went to Syracuse to the Erie Canal Museum next. This museum is housed in the last of the weigh station buildings. The museum told about the canal, its history and purpose, the boats, the buildings, the growth of the towns around the buildings and locks, and even had an old boat for us to climb into and experience.

Although the canal is no longer in use and is mostly filled in, we were able to see a part of it at Erie Canal Park. I was amazed at how small and shallow it is.

We had a picnic lunch at the park, including some salt potatoes, a local favorite, that we picked up at a grocery store. They are young potatoes boiled in heavily salted water, which gives the skins a snap and the insides are fluffy and creamy, similar to a baked potato. Delicious with melted butter!

In Rochester we stopped at the George Eastman (founder of Kodak) house and International Museum of Photography. What a mansion! It had lots of big, beautiful rooms and gardens. The museum was quite interesting with the history of cameras and photography.

Next we went to Ontario Beach Park, where we were able to put our feet into Lake Ontario. It had clear water, and the softest, finest sand.

Then we were hungry, so we went for a "garbage plate", another regional specialty. We had the cheeseburger plate which consisted of macaroni salad and home fries, topped with two cheeseburger patties, mustard, onions, and meat sauce, and served with bread and butter. It was filling and delicious!

We went to the National Museum of Play and the National Toy Hall of Fame. What a fun place! There are all kinds of rooms and stations just to play in. They had Sesame Street, and the Berenstain Bears house, as well as cars, balls, optical illusion areas, a library, a toy grocery store, and more. You could spend all day and still not do it all! In the Toy Hall of Fame, they had collections of toys that came from many generations: dolls, cars, soldiers, beanie babies, puppets, building toys, board games, a room full of electronic, computer, and video games, and more. We got to play with some of those too. It was a lot of fun!

We had great hot dogs in Rochester too. They have red hots and white hots. The reds were more traditional in flavor but shorter and plumper, and the whites were more like sausage. Both were split and grilled, then served on a toasted bun however you like them!

We drove to Le Roy and visited the Jell-O Gallery where that wiggly dessert was invented and first produced. The small museum had an interesting presentation on its history and all of the different flavors and many recipes.