After going to bed last night at around 3:30, I woke up at 7 am. When I went to wake up Philippe, he convinced me to sleep in until 8. The whole morning was a struggle to get everything together. We also had to be very quiet because all the other girls were asleep and I didn't want to wake them early. But I did wake them up to say bye (and I'm sure they went back to sleep after).
We hit the road around 930 or 10. We took the bike path through, and out of Ottawa. It was really nice! It was good pavement and very scenic! I really enjoyed the morning cycle out of town. There was one part though, that also messed Michael up a bit (he took a different bridge and I can see why) that we had two locals show us the round-about way out! But alas, we found the bridge and route into Quebec. Unfortunately there was no "Welcome to Quebec" sign for me, so I had to settle with no picture. Hull was really nice as well. I didn't know what to expect, but it was much nicer than I thought it would be. It was right on the water, and there were a lot of trees, and a pretty good green route. We weren't sure weather to keep taking the green route, so we started taking it, then called Michael to ask his opinion and he said just stay on the highway. So thats what we did.
I don't know how it's possible, but it seems the only times we really seem to have tail winds happen to be when Philippe is around. So, needless to say, we had a pretty good tail wind all day!
Our first break was in Thurso, which was a smelly town (don't know why though.... maybe a sulfer mill or something?) to get something to eat. It looked like there was a storm (we saw some lightning ahead) just ahead of us, and we felt a few drops of rain, but it never seemed to come and hit us, which was amazing!
Because it was so hot, we needed to fill our water bottles by the time we got to Montebello. We stopped at the info centre, and while there Philippe asked if I noticed the Fairmount. I saw the gates but thought it was a golf course or something. We both thought it was so random that there would be a Farimount in Montebello so thought we would ask the info centre about it (you know, just out of curiosity). The fates had spoken. It sounded too good to be true! There was only one cheap room left, there was going to be a tail wind tomorrow, it was presently raining in montreal, it was cheaper than any discount at any other fairmount, because it was Montebello there was a lot of land for the hotel so it had a lot of facilities, etc. Need I say more? So, we decided to stay for the night in Montebello and then get into Montreal tomorrow.
We went to check in and the hotel was amazing! Apparently the staff was on strike or something, because they were all dressed really casually (and at the front desk there was a sign apologizing for their attire because of the strike. We were surprised they were allowed to get away with it!). But it was a WICKED hotel (bavarian/wood cabin feel). We later learned it's like the largest wood cabin in the world (or something like that). It had massive hotel grounds and tons to do! We wished we had more time to really explore the hotel more. But we walked around the grounds, went into town (which was REALLY nice and cute!) and had dinner (at Au Zouk), and came back for desert at the hotel and then went for a swim (in a WICKED and BIG pool!!! The outdoor pool was closed by the time we went for a swim, but the indoor pool was amazing!). It was really a beautiful hotel, and the perfect day! We finished the day off by relaxing in our room, watching some TV, then going to bed! It was wonderful!