The Flambée des Couleurs - Misty Edition

Tough Cookies: Hintonburg Style isn't intended to be a travel blog.

I like to write about what happens in my neighbourhood, the restaurants I visit and life with Margot and Glosette Girl. But sometimes that life involves visiting new places and trying new experiences. And this just happens to be one of those times. So hot on the heels of last week's fall camping post, I'm going to write about another mini adventure: a visit to Quebec's Eastern Townships.

The Eastern Townships are Canada's New England.  It is a place of hills and lakes, agri-tourism, monasteries, small mountains, and cute little villages and towns. Glosette Girl went to University in this area so the area will always be special to her. To me it's just a really pretty region that's just close enough to Ottawa (a hard 3 hours or more realistic 3-and-a-half hour drive) for a long weekend visit.

Normally I like planning an itinerary for even mini trips like this but with the fall camping trip and life in general being generally busy I wasn't able to do much more than check out a few websites and get a rough idea of what I wanted to do.

Still, we were able to cram a few cool things into the weekend.

We started out with a trail run (Margot's training for the cross country team if you can believe it) on a forest trail. Then it was on to our B&B where we relaxed in a hot tub (I'll spare you the photos even though you know you want to see them!)

Then we were off to experience Foresta Lumina, a night time multi-media walk through a forested valley. I'm only going to say one thing: holograms are awesome.

The weather didn't quite cooperate this weekend - it was more grey than anything. But sometimes them's the breaks folks. And at least it didn't rain. Actually, even though the fog and clouds obscured most of the fall foliage views we were hoping to get (the big attraction in this area at this time of year) the grey weather made for an eerily beautiful atmosphere.

I'll have a ghost on the side please

Those snaps are from Mont Orford, in case you were wondering. In the end we hiked and walked a lot, saw a cool nighttime show, and visited the nice little town of Magog, sortof the hub of the region and which legend says sits on the shores of a lake with a monster hidden in its depths.

Monsters? Mist? Night time walking? Either I'm developing an interest in the occult or Halloween is just around the corner.... bwah ha ha!