I was on vacation from July 11 to July 15. The purpose was not roadgeeking (it was someone else's birthday), but I traveled a lot of new roads.
New routes traveled:
From my home to Quebec City: I-93 north of Franconia Notch (the farthest I have been before), I-91 in Vermont north of I-93, A-55, A-10, A-20, A-40, and A-73, and A-440 on the east side of Quebec City, plus small parts of QC 162, 165, and 263. In addition, US 5 between I-91 exit 20 and Exit 22 (I got I-91 itself on the way back).
Quebec City and surrounding areas: QC 360 (Montmorency Falls), QC 368 (clinched, Île d'Orleans), QC 369 to visit the First Nations museum (plus QC 358 overlap), a bit more of A-73 (to QC 369), QC 138 (near hotel), QC 175 (small part near the Old City). I traveled the entire eastern segment of Quebec City's A-440, but I don't consider it a clinch, as it is a route with a gap, not two separate routes.
On the way back: A-740 from Exit 9 to Exit 3 (to avoid traffic, and the driver missed Exit 4), VT 105 between I-91 exit 28 and Hayward Rd. in Derby (trying to find food combined with thinking that I was on US 5 south for some reason), I-89 between I-93 and I-89, US 4 between I-89 and the covered bridge just past Quechee Gorge.
Road-related observations:
* No autoroute standards. A-440 has a traffic light near Exit 27.
* Horizontal traffic lights seen for the first time. These had two red lights, one on each side.
* Flashing greens in this area are used to mean a green left arrow. They flash faster than flashing yellows and flashing reds (although the only flashing yellow I saw was on A-55, and I saw no flashing reds at all).
* Billboards on A-20 almost always included an exit number in a yellow trapezoid somewhere in the advertisement.
* Where is QC 136's eastern end? I traveled the tunnel with the reversible lane that some sources (Google Maps, Quebec 511) say are part of QC 136, not not others (Apple Maps, OpenStreetMap, Travel Mapping).
* One VMS had something "BARRéE" or some other word ending in those two letters. No capital accented letters?
* Vermont signs things really well.
* Speed limits were in multiples of 10 km/h, but curve advisories were often numbers ending in 5.
* Crossing the border took 4 minutes northbound and 3 minutes southbound.
Other observations:
* Paying for meals with a credit card is much better in Canada than it is in the US. Why can't we use their automatic credit card machines?
* For some reason, two restaurants in the Old City (downtown) had "US$ 25% fee" and 30%. Near our hotel, there was one with only an 8% fee. This is a huge difference. (We brought Canadian money with us, so we didn't have to pay the huge fees.)
* Most people knew some English, but French was the main language. Almost everyone was friendly, even if they knew that we were American.
* 24-hour time (mostly business opening and closing hours) is used in French, but not in English.
* Nobody can agree on how to write a decimal point. I even had a menu receipt with both periods and commas in different places.
* Some people were busking. Two of them had received US $1 bills as tips in addition to typical Canadian coins.
* Before the trip, the weather was showing that it would rain the entire trip. During the actual trip, it didn't rain much at all. There were three bursts of rain lasting 10–30 minutes each: one on the way there in New Hampshire, and two while we were inside buildings.
* Everyone in my group, including I, was calling the First Nations "Native Americans" by accident.
* Sales tax is 15%, although some places have the tax already included in the price. At least it pays for better wages and healthcare.