Storyline: Unfinished Roadtrip
To reach our second campground in Montmagny, we again tried to avoid the busy highways as much as possible. Smaller roads would take us through Yamaska (name sounded interesting), north-east of Drumondville, to Victoriaville. The latter, too, sounded interesting and perhaps even romantic. My idea was to stop there for lunch and explore the town. While driving through it and looking for a gas station we discovered that it was a boring industrial town. After all it is not far from the infamous Asbestos.
We drove by the Lactantia dairy factory and continued on, looking for a better lunch stop. We eventually found it at the “Park of Sainte-Agathe-de-Lotbinière” falls. It had just rained, but we dried the nice red bench, and had our lunch there.
Then strolled to see the covered bridge and the falls. When booking, I though we’d have time for at least one hike during a driving day.
I wasn’t far off, but time really wasn’t that much either. Thus, spacing between stops should be even denser next time with no more than 4 hours driving time.
After the short time in nature, we headed to Montmagny, covered in the previous post. Getting there took longer than expected though. Somewhere, I believe it was in Saint-Agathe, all the roads were closed and police were stopping and checking every car. Or was is Saint-Gilles? A small enough place that no one could escape the police check. When our turn came, Alex opened the window and a female police officer shouted something fast in Quebecois. “On ne parle pas français”, I shouted from the passenger seat and she politely asked us in English if she could see inside our van.
They are looking for someone she explained. “Sure”, says Alex and unlocks the side door for her. She popped her head in and let us go. “Well, she didn’t check the bathroom” joked Alex driving away. I guess they are trained psychologists. They know it if there is something wrong before even checking…
After Montmagny, on day six of our trip, we begun retracing our 2010 road trip, keeping mainly on route 132 that meanders by the south bank of the river. I remember vividly the pretty town of Kamouraska, its artisanal shops, especially the carved wood gallery.
A stop there was a must. We used the art museum of Kamouraska parking lot and Doranya was not the only RV parked there. The town did not disappoint. We again fell in love with it.
Shall we move here, we joked. Forget about the Quebecois French we can manage this, but I can’t imagine what would it be during the winter? We spent some time wandering around.
I could not locate the wood carving store. The owner was old in 2010 and if no one took IT over, it probably closed a long time ago.
There was a guest house (a gite) I remember where we spent a night back then. It was a very distinct house with outside staircase to our room and a small restaurant on the side, where breakfast was served. It was somewhere in the area. We continued our driving and soon after, we saw the house.
Exactly as I remember it! It was in Saint-Andre. Manoir St. Andre. I guess some things are more permanent than others. And I wonder what it is that makes us wanting to find our random discoveries from our past. Perhaps the good memories associated with them. I remember many details from the 2010 trip. The Delta hotel by the river in Fredericton, which we’d not planned to visit this time, Halifax harbour, Peggy’s Cove, Indian harbour, Mahone Bay, Lunenburg. We turned back from Lunenburg then. We wanted to do more this time, but the circumstances are such that this trip has to be finished another year.
When we drove by the Manoir St. Andre it was already past noon. We though we’d have time for Parc National du Bic. Lunch and a hike perhaps. Crossing through Rivière-du-Loup however was slow. This is where the ferries to Saint Simeon on the north sore are taken and traffic was heavy. Besides this was one of our over 5 hours driving days to begin with. By the time we reached the park it was already well in the afternoon. We still wanted to stop and do some shopping in Rimouski.
Is it just us or does it happen to all of you? When we are away from the daily home routine, travelling, we lose the days. We have to check with our technology to tell us the date, time etc. The drive was long and the roads were busy. As I write this, I checked the calendar. It was Fri Aug 20. No wonder! Next time I have to be careful planning not just for the extended weekends, but around every summer weekend.
We had just stopped to feed Doranya at a gas station in Rimouski. While Alex was filling with gas, I opened the pantry to get some munches. It was late already and we hadn’t had lunch yet. A beer jumped out at me, landed on the floor cracked (a tiny crack) and start spraying all over. Darn! I had forgotten that I carefully squeezed a few beers on the top shelf by the glasses box. They seemed to fit perfectly well there. It was one of the two wheat beers we bought at Montmagny and that I really liked. Apparently, there was some room around, enough for the beers to shift and be prepared to escape. What a waste of a good beer. I grabbed the can, closed the crack with my hand and put it in the sink where it continued fussing angrily until all the pressure was released. I mopped whatever I could, but it took a few iterations to get rid of the smell. Luckily it was just the rug, which I washed later with a wet cloth. The rest of the beers went into the fridge. Later, when we bough more beers (in Gaspe), they travelled in their box on the floor, carefully stashed between the couch and the jump seat.
It was late afternoon, when approaching our destination on hwy 132 we were stopped again. We saw that all the cars were turned around, but we had to idea why and how to get back to out route, which at that point was the only one to our next campground – Camping Annie. When our turn came a young fellow said something we did not understand.
Telling him we didn’t speak French didn’t help because apparently, he didn’t speak English, or wasn’t willing to. From the passenger seat I told him we have to be at Métis-sur-Mer. In English. He then told me a bit slowly (in Quebecois) that we have to turn right, reach Mont-Joli, take Chem. De Price to the little village of Price and then road 234 that will bring us back to 132. Phew! Managed this one. At Grand-Métis we were reunited with 132. There wasn’t much more left from there to our campground.
If you remember we were planning to leave in July. The day before our departure Alex had the gallbladder crisis and I had cancelled or changed dates to most of my reservations.
This camping was the only one that fussed around using English. I used mostly an online booking system, however this camping, conveniently located on our main route was taking reservations only by phone. When I called they said they that don’t speak English. Knowing that there were not many campsites left I asked my fully bilingual daughter to help. When I needed cancellation, the same thing happened. My daughter helped again. They could not cancel, but I could use my credits within a year. By that time, I was tired of their game. They don’t want my business, fine. But I didn’t want to leave them with my money, so when it was clear we could travel again with the help of my daughter I rebooked for August.
What a surprise it was when Alex told me that at the reception, they actually spoke to him English. And this was the only Quebec campground we were in where the stop sings were actually bilingual: Arret/Stop. Weird, don’t you think? Perhaps the language police (yes, they do exist) haven’t gotten around there yet.
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