Driving home from work on 18th of March 2011

Until the end of 2011, when I retired, this was my drive home from work: beginning with the highway along the St. Laurence River, then crossing the old Champlain Bridge (now demolished and a new Champlain Bridge constructed there), and then along the highway to my exit, Sherbrooke Street West, passing the old NDG post office. . . .

My drive home from work in March 2011(five)

Departure...

On the Champlain Bridge...

On the Decarie Expressway...

Downtown Montreal in the distance...

My exit...

Getting off at the Sherbrooke Street exit, then west on Sherbrooke and home...

It is true, even I find this drive home from the south shore of Montreal, across the Champlain Bridge (recently announced to be in need of demolition and a new bridge constructed at a cost of $6B; Pont Champlain, the busiest bridge in Canada with over 100,000 vehicles using it every day), then along the Decarie Expressway, so bleak and depressing as to make me wonder how much longer I can stand the drive... To think that I began this drive in 1976 when the bridge was only 16 years old, and now it is considered, by some, to no longer be safe. It would crumble in the event of an earthquake. I, too, am getting old.

My Drive Home From Work (four)

Heading home, west on Sherbrooke, there's the Chalet-BBQ, so many happy memories there! Riding my bike as a kid and buying french fries in a brown paper bag and eating them as we rode up and down the lanes in NDG; then, just passed Girouard, the old Empress Theatre, later Cinema Five showing "I Am Curious Yellow" and "Rocky Horror Show" and many other films, with its pseudo Egyptian facade, and the present gallant effort to preserve and make this building useable again... no neighbourhood movie theatres are left in Montreal; then a forlorn building on the corner of Belgrave and Sherbrooke; and a Petro Canada gas station on the corner of Cavendish and Cote St. Luc Road.

My Drive Home From Work (three)

It's spring 2007, or is it fall 2007? Here I am heading home again: there's the St. Lawrence River to my right as I cross the Champlain Bridge heading into Montreal; there's Montreal and the mountain, and a bus and car ahead of me; not much traffic at this time of day; passing Bell Canada's new buildings that were empty fields before the construction:

My Drive Home From Work (two)

Now it's winter and I'm heading out to the Champlain Bridge, merging in with the other traffic; there's the sun setting on the left, dismal winter sun barely making it into the afternoon sky; we've had snow, relentless winter and cold; soon, commuter bus traffic will be heading out in the far left lane, driving against the traffic; home soon:

My Drive Home From Work (one)

From the top down: passing where the toll booths used to be after you've crossed the Champlain Bridge; slowing to rubber neck an accident...looks like she rear-ended him...; then the twin spires of a church in St. Henry (just at the top of Georges Etienne Cartier park on rue Notre Dame); then approaching the exit for Sherbrooke West and hang a left at the lights at the top before passing Girouard and memories of the past... This was maybe September 2007.