Tuesday 9 April 2024--Ron and Elaine head for home this morning. I'm headed to St-Jovite, 70 miles northwest of Montréal. Before leaving town, I pop into the local grocery to look for Stoned Wheat Thins, discontinued in the US two years ago. It appears they are discontinued in Canada now, too. I am crestfallen. At least I am able to stock up on Le Grec salad dressing.

I have coffee and a bagel at Tim's, and then head west toward Montréal on the Autoroute 10. I skirt the city on the 30, and cut through the Kahnawake First Nation Reserve to the Honoré-Mercier Bridge, avoiding what I know will be heavy traffic on the Champlain Bridge, the Décarie Expressway, and the Métropolitain. There's plenty enough traffic on the 13. North of the city, I join the 15, the Autoroute des Laurentides. Very soon, I leave the St Lawrence Lowlands and enter the billion-year-old Laurentian Mountains. It's about 45 minutes from the city of St-Jérôme, at the foot of the hills, to St-Jovite. The route through the valley is the spine of the Laurentian ski region.

The largest and best-known of the Laurentian resorts is Mont Tremblant, to which I've driven many busloads of skiers. On some trips, I've stayed up at the ski village, which I've watched develop over the years. On others, I've been housed in a motel outside the village of St-Jovite. But I've never had the chance to stay in St-Jovite itself, until now. Now part of the municipality of Mont-Tremblant, the village has always seemed to me to offer an agreeable mix of the frilly and the practical, accommodating local and visitor alike. My Airbnb is a spacious apartment with a balcony looking over the main street. I have dinner in--a bit of a shame, as there are some nice restaurants in town, but it's one place where I can cut costs--and go for a pint or two or three at La Maison du Brasseur, which I discovered on my last trip here in 2019. I'm not sure what I'm going to do in the next couple of days...maybe go up to the ski village, where there is a brewpub; or to Mont-Tremblant Village, by Lac Mercier. Mostly I just want to hang out here, and take in the village vibe.