July 26 - Montreal, Quebec to Kitchener, Ontario - 400 miles

We had chosen our Montreal motel so that it would be easy to get out the West side of Montreal, and that was a good choice.  Before long we were in the country, green pastures and green crops with rows of trees separating the fields.  As we went toward Toronto, which we were to go through, the landscape took on a rolling nature with good size forests between breaks for farms.  All in all, it was beautiful.

Entering the Province of Ontario, we got closer to Lake Ontario of the Great Lakes, we could see the lake now and then as we crested one of the low rolling hills.

As we rode along the main highway between Montreal and Toronto, every once in a while there was a "Service Center".  The Service Center contained one very large gas station, and a combination of two or three fast food restaurants.  The combinations were interesting, with McDonald's, Wendy's, Tim Horton's (a big Canadian chain) and some other Canadian chains represented.  These are two to three times the size of say a regular McDonald's and handled a huge amount on people traffic.  Through our travels in Canada, we have gotten to like Tim Horton's, since they have good coffee, good sandwiches and soups, and, well yes, good donuts.

As we got closer to Toronto, the traffic got heavier and heavier and more and more freeway-like, until it was horrendous through the city of Toronto itself!!!  It was awful, at about 3:30 in the afternoon!!  There were two parallel roads, one a freeway and one a toll expressway, running side by side.  The freeway that we were on was three lanes wide and jam packed, while the toll expressway was five lanes wide, and jam packed.  Eight lanes of traffic in one direction at 3:30 PM!!  We couldn't imagine going through that route in the rush hour.  (The Toronto area has a population of four million.)

We had ridden through Toronto two years ago, in pouring rain, on a North-South set of freeways (today's were East-West) and had the same experience of horrendous traffic.  So today we agreed that there was no reason we could think of to EVER go through Toronto again!!!

Now for a little update on big trucks in Canada.  Remember, we had reported on big trucks on the Alaska highway last year.  Well, they are big in the Toronto area, too.  18-Wheelers are lowest on the totem pole, and 22-Wheelers and 26-Wheelers are as common as ants here.  We saw a couple of 30-Wheelers, and one 34-WHEELER!!  The 26, 30, and 34-Wheelers usually have the ability to lift one or two axels off the ground when they aren't carrying the heaviest loads.

All in all, we had a fun day, with beautiful scenery and good riding conditions.  We stopped in the town of Kitchener, about 45 miles west of Toronto.  Tomorrow is the run out of Canada, into the US, and back to Norm's home, so at least one of us will be home.

Back to Labrador Homepage