Beloeil and St. Jean Sur Richelieu

Marina du Phare at Beloeil, with Mont St-Hilaire in the background. Rachael can be (barely) seen all the way on the left, midway up.

Old Beloeil

View from the restaurant balcony , Beloeil

Park of the Patriots
Evening view from the Boleoil Marina du Phare

Holly ready for a rainy ride to St. Jean-sur-Richelieu
Along the way

This riverboat from Vermont that had some problems (mentioned below).

Old manually-operated lock on the Chambly

Lock attendants doing their thing
Rue Champlain, St. Jean-sur-Richelieu

St. Jean-sur-Richelieu is the Hot Air Balloon Capital!! Who knew?
Night falls...
John says:

It was an uneventful trip to Beloeil and the scenery was gorgeous and we spent two nights there. The mountains made a great view but we did not climb them. We left Beloeil and went through the Chambly Canal and locks to St. Jean. We scheduled this so we could do all 9 locks in one day. The locks were hand operated and it was actually fun. We had to wait at to go into one lock because a riverboat crew member fell into the lock and a lady spilled hot coffee on herself and had to wait for an ambulance. The canal was only 40 feet wide and a speed limit of 6 mph but the scenery was so fantastic that we did not mind the slow speed at all. We arrived in St. Jean and spent two nights there. St. Jean was a cross between Canada and upstate New York and we knew we were getting close to the US. After Montreal, most of the Canadian towns we have visited had some empty storefronts; more so the closer we got to the US.

We left St. Jean this morning and it was a short ride to the Customs wharf at the Canadian/US border and Rouses Point, where we will stay for two nights. The weather will keep us here tomorrow and therefore the two night stay. We will be on our way to points further south on Friday as long as the weather cooperates.

More on that later ...

Holly says:

I thought Beloeil was a very picturesque town. We noticed that every town we visited in Canada was CLEAN and orderly--clean streets, manicured lawns, flower gardens, etc. We were afraid to even jaywalk :-) Of course, we were along the river, which is probably the expensive part of town. The "main street" areas were colorful and had a European feeling. We also noticed that every town seems to have at least one huge cathedral with steeples reaching for the sky.

The office staff where we are now speak Spanish and we've been hearing French for so long, that I was confused about saying "thank you" in the right language. They do speak English also, so when all else fails...

Now that we're back on US soil, we will be back to using our cell phones!