Easter Sunday, 2009. We're home from a night at the foot of Mont Brome in the Cantons de l'Est, Quebec. These first three pictures are of views from our outbound flight, of the muddy melt water of the Ottawa River merging with the St. Lawrence at Montreal, of the Rivière Richelieu flowing north from Lake Champlain and, as we turned finals at CYBM, of the long runway at Bromont with Mont Shefford on the horizon. A northwest tail wind blowing across the hills north of the Ottawa River took a few minutes off our estimated time en route; combined with the sunny day thermals it made for a bumpy ride... which I enjoyed all the same.
Laurie and Elva were just ahead of us. Don and Carol in their Rockwell Commander had us in view as we touched down and came in close behind; we had to "land long" before pulling off the runway, so as to give Don enough time for his landing. Francine and Robert arrived in their Cherokee as we were attaching our tie-down ropes. We all walked across to "sign in" at the office in the terminal and repaired to the Transit Resto-Bar overlooking the apron, where I shared Francine's poutine, and very bad for us it was, too.
We had some difficulty ordering a taxi as the dispatcher seemed to assume we wanted to go to an airport, not leave from one, nor was it easy to explain which airport we were talking about. Language problem. The waitress helped us out and a minivan eventually rolled up to transport the four women ahead of our husbands; we checked into four rooms at the Auberge du Château Bromont overlooking the golfcourse which is a somewhat cheaper version of the ("Sublime Confort") Château Bromont, up the hill.
Bromont is a nice little town with a central street (rue Shefford) of clapboard shops, bistro style restaurants, churches (one of them no longer used as such) and a Chocolate Museum, near the Rivière Yamaska that meanders towards isolated Mont Yamaska in the north. Closer at hand is Mont Shefford, the pretty wooded hill that Chris and I could see from our bedroom windows at the Auberge. We'd chosen the most inexpensive rate ($125 including a well cooked breakfast) despite the warning that this room would overlook a parking lot rather than "la montagne". In fact, with hardly any cars parked, we thought our view more attractive than the view from the other side of the building. Mont Brome with the ski-slopes gouged out of the hillside and brightly lit at night, looks less than natural. I know they're fun, but ski runs disfigure mountains in my opinion.
During our self-guided tour of Bromont, Carol firmly in the lead with a street map more suited to motorists than pedestrians, we all visited its Chocolate Museum, interesting enough for me to write about it in a separate blog post.
Where to eat supper was a problem requiring much discussion and research, because two of the restaurants the local people recommended were fully booked for large family gatherings, a Quebec tradition at Easter time, and if Robert hadn't taken prompt action and used his cell phone to book us a table for eight at the Restaurant beside the river, L'Étrier, I don't think they'd have had room for us there, either. Chris and I liked our three course meal there very much, with slices of foie de veau very tenderly cooked, although Robert and Francine thought the Cassoulet de canard du Lac Brome had too many baked beans in it. Everyone enjoyed our pichets de bière blanche, no question, and ignoring Laurie's suggestion that we should find our way back to the hotel by following in reverse the exact route we had taken to reach this place (three hours of meandering explorations with many detours and repetitions) we staggered straight back up the hill and I think we were all in bed before 10!
Today being more bracing and less sunny, we only spent the morning at Bromont, walking to the mountain and back to observe the skiers in action and to find out what it was like inside the Château. Then the plan was to take off through the snow showers back to Ottawa, the forecast 37kph gusts of crosswind notwithstanding. Chilled oil delayed PTN's departure by an hour or so, and XBU's crew (Elva and Laurie) kindly stayed behind with us during the warm-up time to make sure our plane would start at the next attempt. Which it did, and we bounced our way back to Rockcliffe, the first third of the flight under low clouds showering us with snow, but with marvellous view of Montreal's downtown skyscrapers and international airport as we came into clearer weather, followed by cloud shadows over our local terrain and bright views to the windswept north. The landing at Rockcliffe was an eyes-shut one (for Elva and me); by means of slipping over the runway threshold without flaps and landing right wheels first, our husbands got us safely down though. That's the main thing.
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