Canada Trip 2024 Day 1 - All Roads Point to Montreal
A little less than a year ago, Jenn came home from San Francisco saying she was pregnant. After a topsy-turvy 9-months, we welcomed Elle into the world on May 31st. We are ready to test the waters three months later with our first trip as a trio. We decided to take a road trip to Montreal and Quebec City for our first adventure. We packed the night prior, were down at the car a little before 8 AM, dropped off Frasier at Camp Canine, and began our journey north.
We hit a little rain as we drove out of the city, but we mostly had a beautiful drive. We had done our best to “plan” for breaks throughout the drive to let Elle out of her car seat and for bottles and diaper changes. We stopped at two different rest stops along the way and at McDonald’s, about ten miles before the Canadian border. The drive on paper should take around 5.5 hours, but with the many stops, we didn’t arrive in Montreal until 4 PM. Elle was an angel the entire drive; she slept for most of it, and when she wasn’t, Jenn was playing with her, or she was staring out the window at the beautiful scenery.
We arrived at the Vogue Hotel in central Montreal, dropped off our car at the valet, checked in, recorded a room tour, and returned ready to explore Montreal. Elle loved being outside and out of the car. We went into a few Starbucks to look for a Montreal mug (we came up empty) and spent 30 minutes walking around the nearby streets. We returned to our hotel room, fed and changed Elle, and hung out briefly. One of the areas we had to learn on the fly was how to keep everything clean while not at home. The hotel supplied us with a microwave, which we used to sanitize the bottles and supplies. Unfortunately, our first go at this burned our cleaning brushes, but we got the hang of it afterward.
We hung out in the room, let Elle rest, and took in all the new sights and sounds before heading down to dinner in the hotel restaurant Yama. I started with a gin martini, and we split their nigiri platter. It wasn’t our best, but it was perfectly fine. I had the filet for our main course, and Jenn had the scallops. They were fine, sort of what you’d expect from a hotel restaurant. It was nothing out of the ordinary but perfectly fine. Elle did well throughout the dinner; she got a little fussy in the middle but mainly rested in the stroller bassinet. We ended the night getting some small Turkish desserts from a store a few blocks away before calling it a night.
