The busiest photo-taking day of the trip — the Montreal Marathon Shoot — and it rained, POURED, nearly every minute.  Tomorrow, while I’m heading east and have very few items on the agenda, it will probably be gloriously sunny.  Ah well, I’ll find some water somewhere for the dogs and we’ll pretend we’re on a normal person’s “vacation” for awhile.  Maybe 20 minutes.

So loads of grey and streaky photos for the website, flickr and here.  Not as many blog photos as previous posts since it was really like combat outside the van.  People must’ve thought I was nuts just standing in the downpour — that crazy wet woman taking pictures in the rain!  The past few days, my camera has started acting up again.  The lens just doesn’t want to go back out after zooming in.  So I have to press-press-press the button in rapid succession.  Or just turn it off and on again.  A pain.  But after getting rained on a bit, it’s moving in and out nicely.  Just needed a little lubrication?  Just hope it works tomorrow!  I will probably be purchasing a new camera for August’s big trip.  I can’t decide if I’m just going to move up a little level or a big level.  I think I’ll keep this one around (after getting repaired) for days just like this though.

The dogs were contented prisoners for the most part.  Grip & Fix are not big on rain.  Grem really doesn’t mind but starts full body tremors after about two minutes.  Not that she wants to go back in the boring van though when there’s a chance Mom might screw up and drop a leash.  I found some big open space despite the urban setting for Nik to do laps under my control (with the help of the red kitty Cuz). 

On with the show.  A cool concept:  a self-serve bicycle rental station.  I guess this wouldn’t work in New York with all the hot shot bike thieves.  Although these bikes are so duddy looking, who’d want to steal them?

One of the high points of the day was finally getting to see the Orange Julep stands in Montreal.  One is shaped like a giant orange while the other has incredible neon (both shown at the regular Flickr stream tonight).  Lunch was from the giant orange — grilled cheese (as tasty as it looks – not) and a small julep (frothed up orange juice).

Another scary street sign.  I guess when there have been a series of accidents in an area, they put up these “Danger – Debut” and “Danger – Fin” signs.  So when you leave the “Fin” zone, you can go back to not being as careful?  I think it’s strange.  And scary.  I find myself imagining what happened – and what caused it when I’m in the zone.

This old tobacco ghost sign is not all that ghostly looking right now.  Apparently, it was recently unveiled when this giant hole in the ground appeared next door.  Note the Frenchy parking meters and “Arret” sign.

This seems to be a Montreal phenomenon – or else I just haven’t noticed it anywhere else.  Instead of the internal staircases to the second floor, the buildings (in both good neighborhoods and bad) have the stairs on the outside.  And most of these staircases from hell have some dramatic bend in them.  So far I haven’t seen any leading straight up to a third floor.  It seems scary and difficult enough — but how do they cope with the six months of ice and snow?  Or do the people all telecommute?  Surely, they must not have small children or dogs to deal with.  Just what happens if you break a leg?  I guess it’s no worse than stairs inside — but I think at least a couple of my dogs would be freaked out for a long time about it.

I need to start a collection of plastic uniform store signs after today.  I just love them.

And lastly, I had to stop to admire these neat restored trucks today.  The big badge in front tells me that they are Citroën.  It looks like they might be from the 1940s.
http://www.autoevolution.com/trucks/citroen/history/