On to Quebec!

As a part of our Fall Leaf Tour, we had decided to visit our friends Ernie and Noela who lived just across the border near Lachute, Quebec.

On Wednesday morning, we loaded up Ken & Bonnie's car and left the campground around 8:15.  We crossed the border into Quebec...

...and within a couple of hours, we were approaching Montreal.

Because the traffic was fairly congested as we traveled through Montreal and we were all needing a bathroom break, we stopped at a Tim Horton's on the other side of Montreal.  We enjoyed some hot drinks and some of their TimBits.  :)

As we headed out of Montreal, the countryside was dotted with farms everywhere.

About this time, Bonnie realized she had left her belly bag at Tim Horton's.  Fortunately, when we called the restaurant, someone had found it and turned it in to the manager.  Thank goodness!  Since we were so close to Ernie and Noela's, we drove on to their house and decided we would go back to Tim Horton's after lunch.

After hugs and greetings with Ernie and Noela, we enjoyed a delicious lunch of cold cuts, cheeses, and salads.  Then, we all hopped in Ernie's big truck and drove back to Tim Horton's to pick up Bonnie's bag, and then out to their family horse farm.

At their horse farm, they give riding lessons as well as stable and board horses.

The farm was started by his dad, and then Ernie and Noela took it over and added their own ideas, and now their son, Peter and his wife are running their farm and adding their own touch to the business.

Ernie and Noela gave us a tour of the stables and the fields...

...with their cute little granddaughter, Alexanne, leading the way.  :)

We also met the biggest horse living at the farm, Allie May.

They explained a lot of what it takes to run a horse farm and riding stables and it is a lot of hard work!  Every day the stables have to be mucked out and the horses fed and taken care of as well as all the riding lessons they provide.  During the summer, many of the riders participate in horse shows and the farm transports the horses back and forth to the shows.  And on top of that they make a lot of their own hay so during the summer they are busy cutting, raking, bailing and storing hundreds of big bales of hay.

After saying our good-byes to Peter and his family, Ernie & Noela took us to a park located on the reservoir of the Riviere des Outaouais.

After parking the truck, we walked along a bike trail down to a nearby campground.  The campground had full hookups and a lot of nice big sites.

As we walked through the campground, we enjoyed talking and visiting as we went along which always makes walking more fun.

After we returned to Ernie and Noela's house, we enjoyed a delicious dinner of coq au vin that Noela had prepared for us and then played a couple of games of SkipBo with the women winning both games!