Mont Ste. Anne in the background, as seen this past October.

We are finally back in Quebec.

Last fall Jen and I returned for a weekend after a 20- year absence. It made us want to get right back up here, preferably with a bunch of people.

The timeshare gods provided us with a vacancy here at Mt. Ste. Anne for February break and our friends the Halls were on board to help fill the place.

Pack up the kids. Cue the expeditionary music.  Off we went.

Then we hit Franconia Notch. Drizzle before. Drizzle after. But mahem as we passed through the notch. Snow, sleet and wind made passage from Lincoln to Littleton a strenuous and slow slog. After some rest and Thai food in Littleton (a nicer town than I had anticipated, and the Thai restaurant is great), we hit the road again.  The Halls did some calculations in their van and called to inform us in our van that, based on the time and our current speed, we wouldn’t be getting into our condo until after 2 am.  Ugh.

After breakfast in Barton,: American olympians,Canadian flag.

We secured two cabins in possibly the northernmost cabin outpost currently operating in Northern Vermont. Thanks for your hospitality, Barton, VT, and congratulations to your two winter Olymians. Our ne- return to Quebec would have to wait another half day.

But now here we are in a lovely condo, provided by Grammy and Grampy’s timeshare. Smack-dab in the heart of the Province du Quebec, Canada.

This is what people look like in Canada.

Cookie production line

It’s right at the foot of the mountain. The sun is out. There are beds for everyone. Some of us ventured out to check out the lodge and the trail maps and such. (Others stayed in the condo and hatched a plan to bake cookies.)

The ski conditions were improved by last night’s storm — 6 cm of new snow . What’s more, we’re expecting another dozen or so centimeters (just deal with it, we’re in metric Canada now, buddy) tomorrow afternoon. Based on this intelligence, we’re  planning out our week (those of us who are not baking). Other things to consider:

— Tuesday is two-for-one day at the hill. We’ll be skiing that day.

— Quebec City is only 30 minutes away and Jen and I are the only ones out of our whole group of nine who have ever been there. I think we’ll go there tomorrow.

— We have skating and cross country skiing equipment, but people keep skiing past our window and it really makes us want to ski on the mountain.

— We took a look at the map and realized that what we thought was the whole mountain was really ONLY HALF. There’s trails all over the other side of the mountain, too! It might be tough not to ski tomorrow.

On the rink, trying not to get tagged

— The smallish skate rink with the island in the middle is perfect for skate-tag, even though some of us looked up at the night skiing going on right above us and wondered if anyone would really notice us getting on the gondola for one quick run, just ot check it out

I’m sure we’ll get skiing at some point. We’ll let you know what happens as the week reveals itself.