Adventures With Dad

So on the way from Ottawa to Montreal, we drove through a little town called Montebello.  We later found out that it’s kind of the ritzy expensive area, but it didn’t overly impress us at the time.  I think people have low standards here.  :)  Anyway, in Montebello, there’s a little tourist trap called Parc Omega.  We’re tourists, so we got trapped.

Parc Omega started out as a private hunting area for a small group, but has been turned into a 2000 acre wilderness area/zoo.  As you drive through the park, LOTS of animals will come up to your car in search of food.  The recommended food is carrots, and naturally, the park sells them to you.  It’s actually not a complete rip off either, at $2 for a bag of large carrots.  You go through them pretty fast if you hand them out one at a time, but if you break them into small pieces, it’ll last for the whole drive, even if you share them with your kid, who blew through all of hers within what seemed like 10 feet of the gated opening…  (ahem, hi Gina…)

In any case, it was VERY neat.

Gina was teasing the elk, and at one time had 2 of them in the truck chasing her half way across the seat for carrots, Giggling and smiling the whole time.  The elk were clearly the main attraction here, partly because they’re the most forward and friendly, but partly because they’re just big, and unique to see.  There are also wild boar, there were several little babies running around, and these were clearly the cutest animals in there.  Additionally, there were several species of deer, and some ibex, and buffalo too.

Buffalo are far uglier than they look on TV.  Up close they look cross eyed and stupid, or maybe this herd was just “special”.  In any case, they were just shedding, which certainly increased the overall ugliness of them.  (This is distracting, Melanie’s checking her face for pimples, and kinda poking and prodding at them when she finds them.  IF she reads this, and asks me to remove it, I will, but in the mean time, I likely shouldn’t laugh out loud, so I won’t, I’ll just write it here for all to share.  I’m such a great dad, eh?)  The buffalo shed their fur in giant hunks.  So when it peals off, it’s almost like a foot wide chunk of skin falling from their body.  They’re also fairly bald underneath.  So the difference is huge.  Generally with a dog, the hair falls out and there’s just short hair left.  But with these, it’s just all or nothing, and it’s thicker than a wool sweater.  So I’d eat one, but I suspect they’re dumb.  We weren’t supposed to feed them, because they CAN attack the truck in search of additional food.  I promptly ignored the rule and fed them anyway because…  1) I hate my truck, and I’d likely feed them more of they could actually write it off.  2) that warning is probably aimed more at small cars, since in a car, the buffalo could see inside, and would be even with the windows.  They couldn’t even see into the truck.

We saw several racoons.  This isn’t new, we’ve seen lots, just generally, they appear more like pancakes, and appear on the side of the road, whereas here, they were sitting in a mini tree house, eating.  One was climbing down.  That was interesting.  There was kind of a ladder thing for them to use to get up and down, but instead, he just climbed down the tree, head first…  Which must be pretty freaky when you’re little…  Or if you slip..  “careful, careful.  CRAP!!!, this is gonna hurt…BANG…”

The ibex were ugly, period.  Their horns are WAY too big for their bodies, and their eyes are ugly too, like a goat.  There was one that was injured, I felt bad for him, but really, he was little, and I suspect the coyotes will put him out of his misery in fairly short order if he doesn’t heal quickly.  Part of the goal of the park is to keep the environment natural.  That includes the preditor - prey relationship.  Which is likely a good thing…

The radio tells stroies while you drive, and we were told to expect that it would take about an hour to complete the drive.  Well, 5 hours later, we were out of carrots, and the park was closing…  So that’s likely enough…  :)  Anyways, it was really fun and I’d give it a reasonable access fee too.  It was like what the pictures in some of the Disney/Busch parks promise in their brochures, but this was it actually happening…

There are supposed to be Moose in there too, but we didn’t see any.  Gina kept calling the Elk Moose, but seems to have given up on that now.  She’s a bit weird, I think she’s the embodiment of my mom’s curse on me “Someday, I hope you have kids just like you…” And when she knows she’s wrong, she doesn’t want to learn anything better, she’ll do it more, just cause she can.

In any case.  It’s the weekend, and this is a good day to explore Montreal, so I won’t write too much more.  There’s some stuff in Montreal that we’d like to investigate.  My dad recommended Le Bifteque (or whatever) and our kids both love Poutine.  Montreal smoked meat might make the menu too.

Wow, all I care about is food, and I just finished lunch.  I am a sow.  (and Lyle, not just with dip!)

Man, it’s amazing how often I write things aimed at people I KNOW don’t read this.  Kinda funny.

BTW, You’ll also notice that there’s a Texan reading this, and he’s cheering for the Rangers.  So if you’d like to let him know that Hockey is Canadian, please feel free to comment back to him.  (Though after watching the Flames, we certainly don’t deserve it - Though in fairness, I have ALWAYS maintained that Kipper sucks.  And he does.  Just slowly more people are realizing it now…)

So here’s the real question, if I cheer for Montreal, is that a Canadian team?  Hahaha.  Also, for the record, Montreal is also called the “Habs”.  What is a hab?  Is it short for habitants?  I dunno, but if you do, I’d like to know…

Over and out.