Sojourn Days 11-20
Day 11 July 30 Another slow start this morning as we got to talking with our camping neighbors, working on our web page, and making a few phone calls. We decided that we had too many things to see in Quebec before our August 8th sail date to Newfoundland, so we called and moved that date back to the 13th of August. So many things to do and see, and so little time.
We finally got underway a little after noon. Our first stop was at the Casino de Montreal. It was quite an adventure getting to it even though we could see it was no more than a stone’s throw from the main highway. We had to drive several circuitous kilometers to get to it, including traversing a grated railroad bridge. Once there we found it to be quite nice inside and out. It is surrounded by acres of beautiful flower gardens, ponds, waterfalls and sculpted shrubbery. We played a little video poker (unprofitable) and left after about an hour. Finding our way back to the main highway was a complete disaster. We were doing illegal ‘U’ Turns etc. Several people must have recognized us as they were honking like crazy. Or, they were honking because they love JESUS!
Rode the Metro to our first destination, which was Montreal Tower at the Olympic Park, only to find out the actual stadium area inside had closed for the day just a few minutes before our arrival. The 1976 Summer Olympics site. It did not prevent us from enjoying the exterior of the structure and it’s unique design. It is hard to describe how high the world’s tallest inclined tower is, and it can literally be seen from anywhere in the city. We then walked through the Biodome which is a wonderful experience. It is a combination a display center and research facility, and has been created totally of natural living plants and animals. It portrays the major climate zones of the world, and starts you out in a tropical forest, covers mountains, the seas, and ends up with penguins in Antarctica. When we asked why that particular display was darkened and the animals looked like little statues, we were told that was because in their habitat, it was night at that moment. This exhibit is an absolute must see.
Our next destination was Mount Royal Park, and again we took the Metro like we were veterans. Upon arriving at the Mont Royal station, we determined that dinner would be in order before we headed up to the mountain, and upon a recommendation from a passerby, turned around and went another direction. The restaurant that we found turned out to be excellent. Unable to read or understand but a few words on the menu, we had to rely on a young waiter, who though wanting to be helpful, spoke no more English than we spoke French. He did very well in ordering for us, since each of our dinners were outstanding. We had a table immediately beside the large open expanse to the street and enjoyed watching the people pass by.
Fortunately for us, we asked about taking a bus to the top of the mountain instead of walking due to the hour, and were we ever glad that we did. We would still be struggling up the road. As it turned out we caught the last bus up, and the driver told us exactly where to be upon his return down the mountain. Once at the observation area, we were thrilled with the view below us. It was a little after 9 PM and totally dark except for the lights below in the city. Montreal Tower in the Olympic Park is an awesome sight, day or night, and it could be seen quite clearly. Returned to our van via our trusty Metro system, and arrived “home” dead tired after another grand day.
Day 12 July 31 Barney awoke before 7 AM, wanting to get the upload on the Internet before we left camp for the day, so I headed to the laundry and the shower. Unable to get online, we decided to make it an earlier day and he would try again in the evening upon our return.
Our first stop put us in an area of the city we had yet to explore, and mostly today was a walking marathon. We have decided that if we stayed here another week, we would be as fit as two fiddles. Every leg of the Metro requires a minimum of 30 to 50 steeply inclined stair steps, both up and down and considerable walking in between them. Our paths today were Rue Sainte Catherine, Boulevard de Maisoneuve, and Rue Sherbrooke. We visited several churches along the way dating back to the late 1600s to some built in the early to mid 1800s. We took a quick look at the city’s multi-level underground shopping mall, but chose to be outside instead of aimlessly spending our time inside. Today we were in more of the business district with huge skyscrapers, and hotels. We also found the Museum of Fine Arts, and spent some time viewing their exhibits.
We found the restaurant that we had seen our first night, and thought that we would splurge on elegant French cuisine in a secluded outdoor setting, however, when we checked the menu posted outside, it was Italian fare, and decided to pass and save our $$$$$ for later. Since we were not that far from Rue Crescent, we walked back and grabbed a table outside to enjoy Happy Hour for the last night in Montreal. After watching some of the dinners being served, we decided to stay there, and we had a great meal. It is a little sad to leave this city, but we are excited about what lies ahead.
When we returned to the campground, Jocelyn, our host explained that there was an Internet virus that was affecting all of the servers worldwide and that it was nearly impossible for anyone to access them. We will just have to wait until that resolves itself.
Day 13 August 1 After finally getting connected and uploading the web page, we headed down the road toward Quebec City. That took most of the day since we took a small road along the St. Lawrence River. Sadly, we saw our first accident in Canada today, and it must have happened very shortly before we came up on it. A car was upside down and mangled from rolling over a very large cluster of rocks, and people were running to assist the occupants. Since there was nothing we could do to help but stay out of the way, and say a prayer for them, we continued on and encountered numerous emergency vehicles along the way. We had seen virtually none prior to today, and had even remarked that for all the people in Montreal, and all of the “innovative” ways that people cross intersections, it was a miracle no one was killed before our eyes.
One major task today was finding ICE for sale! It is a rare commodity, and one that we take for granted in the states, but in Canada, you must request it in a restaurant. Ice machines have usually been found everywhere while we were traveling, but it took several stops including grocery stores, and a Wal-mart before we finally found some at a Shell station. Evidently, gas stations are the only places that carry ice, and then not all of them.
Grocery shopping here is also a major chore since it seemed that those we stopped at were intended more for bulk sales than for a couple of minor items like we usually need. It is also a time consuming process, since all of the signs indicating what is in the aisles are in French. We literally have to walk each and every aisle to find what we are looking for. Attempts for assistance can be very comical. The workers are friendly and eager to help, but we lack the communication skills to explain our items. So far, we are doing quite well and dinner turned out to be a major success, even if it was not what was intended.
We found a campground just west of Quebec City where we will spend tonight and tomorrow night.
Day 14 August 2 Our host at the camp was most helpful in giving us easy directions in to Quebec City, and best of all the area in which to park once we arrived there. As with most all ‘touristes,’ our first destination was Vieux-Quebec, or Old Quebec. We must have walked miles today, or at least it seemed that way, but we were intrigued and beguiled by the charm of the city and the people. We parked down by the harbor so we had to walk up through the winding streets of the oldest and steepest part of the city. We did cheat a bit by riding the ‘Funiculaire’ part of the way.
We enjoyed the architecture of the old buildings, some of which dated back into the early 1600s, and the vivid colors of the flowers that were everywhere. We stopped for a fish and chips lunch at L’Omelette near the center of the old town and then continued with our walking tour. A highlight of the day was taking the tour of the Parliament Building. Quebec City is the capital of the Quebec Province, and Francois, our guide provided a lot of the history of the area going back to Champlain landing here in 1608, and founding the city. We were totally impressed with the opportunity to see this building and learn about the Quebec provincial government.
Of course, no visit to Quebec City would be complete if you did not go to the Chateu Frontenac, which is a huge hotel towering over the boardwalk and overlooking the St. Lawrence River. The hotel is impressive in it’s size and decor, however, the setting to us was the beauty of the place. There are always activities on the boardwalk and people are strolling day and night enjoying the delightful weather.
A proprietor who spoke English provided me with names and locations of several of his favorite restaurants. We had “refreshments” (happy hour) on the Parc Circle, and decided that we would prefer to go back and cookout this evening rather than eat in town as we were not really hungry. We will save our appetites for tomorrow when we can thoroughly enjoy it. Amazingly, we came across one of the suggested restaurants on our way back to our car, and stopped to make arrangements for tomorrow night.
After dinner, we tried repeatedly to get online, however, were unable to do so. It seems that in Canada, we need a special card for dialing local calls to our ISPs, so tomorrow will include hunting down that missing link.
Shortly after we had gone to bed, we were visited by three raccoons, that were determined to get into our coolers that we had left out for the night. Barney got up and moved them into the van, and we were not bothered again.
Day 15 August 3 We decided to spend the first part of our day just driving around and seeing what we could find of interest. We happened upon a parc that was high on a hill overlooking the city, and ate our lunch there. It was at the Avenue of the Braves, honoring the British soldiers that had been killed in a confrontation with the French in 1770. From there we came upon many other historical sites, and beautiful views. What an interesting place this is!
Yesterday we had spotted a great parking area, and luckily had no problem finding a space. We were in a large parc with huge shade trees, which is a part of the Plains of Abraham, where another major battle had taken place. We chose to use this time to catch up on our log. Because of our AK2K license plate on the front of the van, and our Florida license on the back, we seem to draw numerous people who just want to stop and chat with us. It is always fun, and two men on bikes who stopped just insisted that we visit a number of places along our route and even pointed them out in our road atlas. The fact, that we could speak no French, and they had limited English, did not hinder any of us. They finally departed in laughter, when we told them that we would send a postcard.
Celebrated our last day by walking halfway down the hill to Le Vendôme for our evening meal. We were lucky to be seated outdoors, and were served a delicious four course French meal complete with wine. Everything was perfect, from the staff at the restaurant, to the ambiance of the locale, to the nice couple we met next to us. We chose to walk (in lieu of using the Funiculaire) back up the 170 steps that were required to reach the top level, and surprisingly made it without too much effort. As we told you before, we are really getting fit! Sure……….
We were so happy with the meal, that we stopped by to thank the shop owner who had taken the time to suggest several eating places to us. He was glad that we came in to thank him. From there, we walked the streets one final time, and were surprised to see thousands of people and families still out for the evening, and this was now after 10 PM. This has been a wonderful experience for us. We love Quebec City.
Day 16 August 4 Not much going on today. Basically we just drove from Quebec City to L’Isle- aux-Coudres, about a 60 mile drive toward the north east and along north shore of the St. Lawrence River. It was a pretty drive through mountainous and forested country side. We had to take a ferry ride to L’Isle- aux-Coudres, where our campsite was located. Believe it or not, there was no charge for the ferry either way and it carried at least 50 cars, and had quite a number of handlers for the lines.
Dinner tonight was pure camp fare, beans and wienies grilled over the charcoal. Delicious! Barney built a fire, and we loved the warmth, as the air has really started to chill down at night. It was also a full moon, which was nice.
Since this is a slow news day, this space will be filled with more bad publicity for Firestone. For several weeks before we left home we were hearing a hum in the van when it was moving. Thinking it could be caused by a low fluid level (we were suspicious of the transmission) we took the van to Firestone for an oil change, tire rotation, wheel balance etc. They had a special going which included ‘topping off’ all fluid levels.
When we got the van back from Firestone we still had the hum. Then we foolishly just blamed the hum on the old age of the van. While in Quebec City two days ago the hum became more apparent and a vibration was felt in the steering wheel. We stopped in a Wal-Mart parking lot and checked the power steering fluid level. We could find NO evidence of any fluid on the dip stick! A $1.97 bottle of fluid at Wal-Mart fixed the hum which we haven’t heard since. Thanks Firestone!!!
So far we have driven 2500 miles on this trip. We have averaged 14.995 mpg. The lowest price for gas has been $1.099 per gallon in Brunswick, GA and the highest has been $1.819 (US) per gallon in St. Joseph-de-la-Rive, Quebec, Canada. Knock on wood, the old van is doing well.
Day 17 August 5 We drove the entire perimeter of L’Isle- aux-Coudres before getting back on the ferry for the continuation of our journey north. On the island there were B&B’s everywhere, and hikers and bikers at every turn in the road. It only took us half an hour to do the whole island, and we were on our way. This area is far more scenic than we anticipated. The hill that we had to climb upon leaving the ferry was 18%. That degree of incline is rarely seen in the states. Today we encountered many comparable steep grades.
We stopped at the golf course associated with Le Manoir Richelieu and had our lunch. The course overlooks the St. Lawrence River, and is extremely hilly. It was originally inaugurated in 1925 by President William H. Taft. We stopped at the hotel and viewed the grounds and the Casino de Charlevoix, which is a part of the total complex. It was a beautiful place overlooking the wide expanse of the river.
Spent the night in a campground in Baie-Ste-Catherine in order to be close to where we will board the boat in the morning for the whale watching excursion. Let’s hope we continue to have good weather for our trip, and success in our sightings of the whales.
Day 18 August 6 Wouldn’t you know it, but we awoke to an overcast gray sky and this is they day we are scheduled to go on the whale viewing cruise. The temperature was still very balmy, but it did look like rain. Decided that this was a great day to have a big country breakfast, so we found a place to our liking in Baie Ste. Catherine . With our usual guesswork in reading the French menu, and a partnership decision as to what we thought we were getting, our very pleasant, but very French speaking waitress brought us a delicious meal.
After breakfast, we still had time before our departure on the boat, so we drove and took a ferry to Tadoussac and spent a little time driving through that picturesque town. While we were waiting on the ferry we spotted a number of whales in the channel, and thought perhaps we might cancel our reservation for the cruise, however, we decided it would be a fun to go and stuck to our original plan.
Our boat was a large catamaran style, and even though the swells in the St. Lawrence were fairly high, we were comfortable on the river. They had warned us to dress warmly, and we did, however, we were definitely not used to the bitter cold temperatures once we were further out from the shore. The artic waters that the Atlantic brings in here are really cold. The cruise was nice enough and we saw many whales, but we were a little disappointed as we didn’t see any of the large blues, or any of the tails slapping the surface. There are 7 different varieties of whales in the St. Lawrence, and we were fortunate enough to see 5 of them.
After we disembarked, we made a mad rush to drive back down to St. Simeon to catch a ferry over to Riviere-du-Loup, which was another one hour trip. We stayed at Chez Jean Campground for the night.
Day 19 August 7 Today we entered New Brunswick, and were immediately thrilled with the condition of their roads. Quebec Province has awful roads! In addition to that, we started hearing English being spoken which amazed us since we had been in almost total French speaking territories for so long.
Happened upon a nice park for lunch, and it was overlooking the world’s longest covered bridge. It had been built in 1921. We drove it both directions.
Our campsite was at Coles Island. We were lucky to get a spot overlooking the river, and had a wonderful view of a beautiful sunset. Nice evening.
Day 20 August 8 Our day started at 4 AM. It was already getting light, and when we pulled the shades up, the mist on the water was so pretty that Barney jumped out to take a picture. While enjoying our morning coffee, we worked on the pictures from the previous day for the web site and had a lengthy discussion as to whether today was Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. We finally settled on Wednesday. A large flock of Canadian Geese flew up the river and landed in front of us. We were so entranced, neither of us thought to grab a camera. What a picture it would have been!
We passed 3000 trip mileage today on our way to Prince Edward Island (PEI). New Brunswick has been a pleasant surprise to us. We had no idea it was so scenic. It is mainly rolling country side with large farms and there are numerous scenic rivers and lakes. There have been many signs warning of moose on the road but we have seen none. This province doesn’t seem nearly as foreign as Quebec. All signs here are in both English and French making it much easier to navigate. Don’t take that as a negative for Quebec. We very much enjoyed speaking with the people in Quebec whose English was generally much better than our French.
Crossed over the expansive bridge (9 miles long) into PEI shortly after noon, and immediately headed for the information center to find out about the availability of campgrounds. Stayed at the Linkletter Provincial Park Campground, overlooking the Northumberland Strait, which is on the southern side of the island.
Once we had set up our camp, we decided to drive the western end of the island and have our dinner at North Cape, which is the farthest point overlooking the Gulf of St. Lawrence. As it turned out, we arrived about an hour before sunset and saw that a number of other people had congregated to watch it as well. It seemed as if everyone had their own way of enjoying the moment. One couple set up lawn chairs and were reading, others walked the narrow trails along the cliffs, some spread a blanket and stared out at the sea deep in their thoughts, an elderly gentleman was playing Scottish tunes on his fiddle while two ladies were dancing a jig. We chose to prepare our dinner salads, have a drink and await the sunset. Again, our license plates (AK front & FL rear) attracted attention, and we met some really nice folks from Maine whose grandfather had helped to settle some of the nearby area. They enlightened us with a lot of local information which was very interesting.
The sunset was beautiful, as you can see.
