It seems every day in our visit to Canada is not without its challenges. But, then again that is what makes life interesting I guess.  It is kind of like in 1987 during our first vacation as a married couple I lost my wife in a WalMart store in Bozeman Montana. I don’t remember too many other details about that vacation but I do remember searching for my bride for over an hour before I found her. But, that is a story for another post so I will get back on track.

We are now in a small motel room in Riviere-Tois-Pistoles. It is a very small town about 200 km north from Quebec (don’t ask how many miles that is as I have yet to figure that out). It is a pretty crude but clean room. The sign above the small sink says don’t drink the water. The motel is off the main road going into town and about a 1/2 mile down a gravel road. There is no a/c or tv but that is ok. What makes this room so special is its location; it is about 50 ft from the shoreline of the St. Lawrence River. And believe it or not it has wireless internet access. The picture here is of a young fellow dipping his feet in the St. Lawrence, which I also plan on doing before we leave in the morning.

The closest town doesn’t have a restaurant but it does have a pretty well stocked cheese place so that is where we went to get our supplies for supper tonight. I think eating in the view from the picnic table where we will dine will be much more pleasurable than the food and that is how it should be.  It was in the upper 80s when we left Quebec this morning but right now around 5pm it is in the upper 60s with the wind blowing off the River which is probably a mile wide here. I guess I will have to haul out that “special” jacket I bought yesterday to keep warm.

But now on to the challenges for the day. We are taking Quebec Highway 132, which is a two lane road, all the way around the Gaspe peninsula which goes all the way to the mouth of the river. It will take about two more day to get around before we come back down into Nova Scotia. During our first 200km of travel we have only come across two small pull-offs where you could stop and take in the St. Lawrence view. One of the difficulties is that for the most part all the land that adjoins the St. Lawrence seems to be in private hands. But we did find the secret to alleviating that problem and that is to seek out the Catholic church in each town; they are usually against the river so their parking lots make excellent viewing stands.  But there are no restrooms there so we have to stop again later for my wife’s frequent necessity stops.

The last challenge for the day was when we stopped for a late lunch. We went to a chicken place called Saint Ambien, I think (by the way almost everything in Quebec Canada is named Saint something.) We ordered from the counter and then went to a table to wait for our food. A few minutes later they said our food was ready but we couldn’t eat it at the tables we were sitting at as we ordered our food from the “Rapide” counter. We explained that we had no idea there was any difference about where we ordered and since all the tables in the room were pretty much empty wouldn’t they allow us to eat our food there.  The apparent manager of the place came out and told us again that we ordered from the take-out counter so we had to eat our food outside in the parking lot!  As usual Yvonne took this much more calmly than I did even though she deemed her chicken uneatable because it wasn’t cooked enough for her.

Anyway here we are with our nerves settling down and getting ready for the challenges of tomorrow.  I want to include one final picture in this unusually long post (sorry about that). I will undoubtedly be taking many more as the sun sets over the river.

And the journey continues….