... to the Joan of Arc Garden in the Battlefields Park on the Plains of Abraham (note the sign):
...to the public restrooms (note the sign):
We had dinner Halloween night at Panache (highly recommended). No Halloween celebrations there, but walking back to our hotel after dinner we saw two guided "Ghost Tours" walking around the city.
The photo above shows the upper end of the Promenade des Gouverneurs, a delightful walkway. Note the refinery across the river at the left. I'll refer to this in a later post.
The skyline of Quebec City is dominated by the Chateau Frontenac, built by the Canadian Pacific Railway starting in 1893:
Here is another view of the Chateau Frontenac, from the lower end of the Promenade des Gouverneurs mentioned above:
We did not stay at the Chateau Frontenac, but we did take a tour of the hotel. That was one of the highlights of the trip. Behind me in the photo is the lower end of the famous toboggan run on the Dufferin Terrace. Check out this video (not mine).
We last saw Margaret in Christchurch, New Zealand last November. And we last saw Robbi, now living in upstate New York, at a Gould sister family reunion at Sand Bar State Park in 1987! 
And the height of land on VT-108 through Smugglers Notch:
Even though it was just the beginning of foliage season, we had snow on the mountain tops on the day that Margaret and Robbi arrived—October 1st. Seems early for snow. Madonna Mountain on October 2nd:
Margaret and Robbi, we hope you return soon!
The first resupply stop, four days later, at VT-11/30 near Manchester:
Emily and Heather hiked through to Camels Hump and then came off the trail so that Emily could attend a wedding among other things. Emily hiked the LT from Camels Hump to the Canadian border in a series of day hikes and short backpacking trips, not necessarily in order (but always northbound). The last section was actually back at Camels Hump. Emily was joined on this hike by her friends Allie and Alex from Middlebury, Brian, Nancy and me. On top of Camels Hump on September 12th:
At the clearing just north of the summit, we celebrated with champagne! Brian left us there and returned to Boston.
The end of the hike, done at last:
Congratulations, Emily!
and went out with another...
It was a wonderful wedding, and everyone had a great time. The best man delivered a memorable toast (including a reference to Jen's winning a teen-age beauty pageant), and the newly married couple did a spectacular tango for their first dance. They didn't tell anyone that they had been taking dance lessons! I have a video of part of that dance, but alas it's a rather large file, about 100x the size of a photo, so I won't put it on the blog. Jen and Andrew, nice job with the dance, congratulations on a wonderful wedding, and best wishes for the future!
The father of the bride and his brother:
And this is probably the only photo in existence of our family all dressed up at the same time!
The weather was perfect, and the crowd was enthusiastic but well behaved. The stadium holds 68,000 people. While there were no people in the sections behind the stage, the rest of the stadium appeared full and there were many people seated on the field. So I'd say there were close to 68,000 people there.
The stage had elaborate lighting effects:
The audience danced and sang along with many of the songs. The photo below is looking away from the stage, and is illuminated only by the lights from the stage. It's late in the show, and everyone is on their feet:
The concert ran from a little before 8:00 to around 11:00. No warmup, and no breaks. Grand pianos and other band members went up and down through the stage floor as needed. When Elton John and Billy Joel played together, their two grand pianos were "face to face." It was a good performance. See below for the setlist.
This is a view of the new Stowe Mountain Lodge which opened a year ago. The front part of the lodge is complete, but they are still constructing an additional wing out back:
The lodge (along with the rest of Stowe Mountain Resort) is owned by AIG, so it will be interesting to see what happens to it as AIG deals with its troubles.
All three photos were taken on the Chin. We hiked up the Laura Cowles Trail and down Sunset Ridge Trail.
A nearly full moon rose to our left during the concert:
The theme of the concert was "The Lake Effect," and every song had a water theme. This was in recognition of the quadricentennial celebrations this year of Samuel de Champlain's voyage and discovery of Lake Champlain in 1609. Some of the songs were Waves of the Danube, Russian Sailors Dance and selections from South Pacific. Afternoon became evening:
The concert closed with the 1812 Overture and Hands Across the Sea, with fireworks:
After all, it was the Fourth of July weekend!
We shot paper targets and milk jugs full of water, mostly at 100 yards:
The photo above is the "before" photo, and the photo below is the "after" photo, showing a hit on the milk jug on the far right. If you look carefully, you can see a column of water directly above where the jug used to be, and a spray of water above and to the right. The blast knocked over the milk jug to the left of the one that was hit.
Below is a video of a hit on a different milk jug:
Note the field just left of center, with a barn at the lower left. This is the Lyle Locke farm on the Plot Road. If you enlarge the photo (a lot), you can see cows in the field.
The purpose of the hike was to find Pink Lady's Slippers. Nancy and Emily had heard that there were a lot on this trail. Sure enough, we had no trouble finding them:
The Pink Lady's Slipper is the state wildflower for New Hampshire.
This was last month, of course. I'm behind in my blogging.
