Boaters and Bikers
This is going to be one of those posts that people think is negative. Oh well.
We spent sometime in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue this afternoon. This is a town on the southwestern tip of the Island of Montreal. It is a place where, on sunny summer days, people congregate to watch the time go by. I can only wonder why.
I had been to Ste-Anne a few times in the past and always came home disappointed. No different on this summer day. I guess the reason I go back is because my brain continues to play tricks on me when it recreates the past using part memory and part imagination. I have to say thanks to Daniel Gilbert and his book Stumbling on Happiness for making me realize that I was once again duped by my grey matter.
Anyhow. Back to Ste-Anne. Let us start with the food. There are no decent restaurants. At least not facing the waterfront. Being that the waterfront is the main attraction of the town it is an unfortunate reality. They are all restaurants made from the same boring cookie cutter. Whether they call themselves an English pub, an Italian ristorante or a Greek estiatoria is irrelevant. The grub is the same: greasy fish and chips, oil laden fish, club sandwiches with fries, bland chowder. They all have a seafood theme to them trying to create the illusion that we are in fact sitting on the shore of a productive fishing ground. Given all the beastly jet boats that are moored on the docks it is no wonder the fish are long gone - well the edible ones anyway.
Sitting on the restaurant patios are a bunch of what I'll call easy-riders. Women and men, with their guts and lard pouring out over their skimpy, unappealing clothing - tank tops, short shorts, tight jeans and bikini tops. Tattoos burned into their skin twenty years prior - when they might have been attractive human specimens - now stretched into ghastly shapes no longer recognizable.
Parked outside are Harley-style motorbikes and motorboats. People lounge on their boats on display, zoo-like, as pedestrians on the boardwalk gawk down at those imagined lucky folks that get to spend a couple of hundred bucks in fuel just to get to Ste-Anne's, park their boat for a few hours and then power back home.
The whole scene just makes my skin crawl.
To settle the issue, as we headed back to our car we passed another site that Ste-Anne's is famous for - its locks. We happened to walk by just as the doors were opening up to let ten or so powerboats into Lac des Deux-Montagnes. It sounded like the start of car race. Engines sprang to life and a loud cacophony erupted.
At least they were escaping Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue.
Let me know what you think about what you have just read. Please and thanks!
We spent sometime in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue this afternoon. This is a town on the southwestern tip of the Island of Montreal. It is a place where, on sunny summer days, people congregate to watch the time go by. I can only wonder why.
I had been to Ste-Anne a few times in the past and always came home disappointed. No different on this summer day. I guess the reason I go back is because my brain continues to play tricks on me when it recreates the past using part memory and part imagination. I have to say thanks to Daniel Gilbert and his book Stumbling on Happiness for making me realize that I was once again duped by my grey matter.
Anyhow. Back to Ste-Anne. Let us start with the food. There are no decent restaurants. At least not facing the waterfront. Being that the waterfront is the main attraction of the town it is an unfortunate reality. They are all restaurants made from the same boring cookie cutter. Whether they call themselves an English pub, an Italian ristorante or a Greek estiatoria is irrelevant. The grub is the same: greasy fish and chips, oil laden fish, club sandwiches with fries, bland chowder. They all have a seafood theme to them trying to create the illusion that we are in fact sitting on the shore of a productive fishing ground. Given all the beastly jet boats that are moored on the docks it is no wonder the fish are long gone - well the edible ones anyway.
Sitting on the restaurant patios are a bunch of what I'll call easy-riders. Women and men, with their guts and lard pouring out over their skimpy, unappealing clothing - tank tops, short shorts, tight jeans and bikini tops. Tattoos burned into their skin twenty years prior - when they might have been attractive human specimens - now stretched into ghastly shapes no longer recognizable.
Parked outside are Harley-style motorbikes and motorboats. People lounge on their boats on display, zoo-like, as pedestrians on the boardwalk gawk down at those imagined lucky folks that get to spend a couple of hundred bucks in fuel just to get to Ste-Anne's, park their boat for a few hours and then power back home.
The whole scene just makes my skin crawl.
To settle the issue, as we headed back to our car we passed another site that Ste-Anne's is famous for - its locks. We happened to walk by just as the doors were opening up to let ten or so powerboats into Lac des Deux-Montagnes. It sounded like the start of car race. Engines sprang to life and a loud cacophony erupted.
At least they were escaping Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue.
Let me know what you think about what you have just read. Please and thanks!
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