Today we travelled from Rosseau to Burlington, Vermont, cutting through Algonquin Park, crossing the Ottawa River near Pembroke, and following it down and around Montreal, then across the border and about an hour into Vermont.

We came thisclose to creaming a deer that dashed across the road in front of the car near Eganville, Ontario.

The border was a long wait. Only one booth open and slow progress. We got asked twice where we were from, and then the officer mentioned our personalized license plate but read it back with one letter wrong...new tactics/mind games? No questions at all about the Labradors, who were angelic for the entire 9 hours, despite having their evening meal delayed by nearly 3 hours. We are in the Burlington Hilton right now, trying to surreptitiously pass off two dogs as one, in order to avoid getting dinged twice for the already ridiculous $50/pet/night fee. Takes me back to the days when we rented a condo in Florida, purportedly with only 2 dogs, and we had three, so we had to make sure to always walk a combination of one black and one yellow Labrador at any given time.

I'm tired and I'm rambling. It's been a long day, and there is one hell of a lucky deer out there in the backwoods of Eastern Ontario.