As we were leaving Ottawa, I phoned my brother-in- law for suggestions on how to get through Montreal. He recommended we avoid the 401 at all costs, as it was always jammed with traffic. In Ottawa we got lost and had to rely entirely on our GPS to get us out through Gatineau. He suggested a highway that was “sort of a Perimeter” and would be slightly better. Slightly better than the 401 is all we could get. We encountered what we considered serious traffic jams, but were glad not to experience worse.

After being in a virtual crawl for about an hour we almost missed our exit to get off the freeway. My French navigator woke up just as I was about to go by it, and told me to hurry to the exit because a slow highway tractor was allowing me to dart in.  I had to cross a solid line to do that but my navigator was very insistent. As only French navigators can be insistent. Unfortunately, a local traffic constabulary was parked around the curve and immediately engaged in hot pursuit of me.  When I stopped the car to take my lesson, the cars that passed honked and hooted with mirth. But then my French navigator proved her worth. She batted her eye lashes  at the officer and explained we did not know that was not allowed in Quebec. As a result, the officer let us off with a warning. No ticket.

As a result, we took what we called ‘the River Road.’ It was very interesting. It really was a long line of small towns without breaks almost all the way from Montreal to Quebec City. It was a very slow but very pleasant drive. We were content. There was much to see and we were meandering.

We finally got off the freeway east of Montreal near Trois-Rivières where we got onto the road that followed the St. Lawrence River. We could not make time on this road, but we are not in Quebec to make time.

Time was much too valuable for that. As Jimmy Buffet said, “Time ain’t for savin’, no, time’s not for that.” I would say time I is too important for savin’.