Author: Graham Reddoch

Our overlandish adventure eastward, beside the ever-widening St. Lawrence

River, reminded us more and more that we were not in Manitoba any longer! Other than the relatively horizontal plain of the river, everything around us was up and down, and it continued that way until we took the ultimate CruiseMaster/ Smart car roller coaster ride to Land’s End, at the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula.  Oh, oh, will

we make it down this cliff and up the next one? Stay tuned for the answer. LOL

This post attempts to capture the olfactory, auditory, & visual images that at times seemed so extreme, creating an experience of sensory overload! The further east we drove, the more the air took on the unique fragrance of sea salt. The tides became more extreme, and the waves broke

louder on the shore. But more than anything, it was the unique architecture of homes and churches, the quaint villages nestled in the coves, and the striking vertical landscapes that captured these flat-landers. LOL. Only two dozen pictures were selected from over 300 taken since our last post. We hope they will help to convey the wonder of this amazing land!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The answer to the question in the first paragraph is “Yes, we survived!” LOL.

Betty & I are now relaxing in a beautiful campground between Gaspé  and Percé.We are taking a couple of days to decompress before heading down to see the famous rock, and are sure future posts will continue to differentiate further the characteristics of this amazing land, far from the prairies of Manitoba.

à votre santé

(Cheers!)

 

Québec is always rated in the top 10 North American cities, if not

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Betty & I left Île d’Orléans this morning, our plan was to park our motorhome at a Québec City Walmart, and drive the Smart for a quick tour inside the walls of the old city. Parking at the first Walmart was regulated by a connected mall, so we couldn’t stay there. At the second Walmart we couldn’t park because of a city by-law, but we would likely be OK if we went to one out by the airport. Staff were apologetic, and we were disappointed.

While Betty & I have both visited and thoroughly enjoyed the old city on a number of occasions, Charlie must have gotten into something at the winery that upset his stomach, and we doubted he’d be happy cooped up in the motorhome while we toured the city again. So we decided to head for the bridge to the south shore, and explore the more tranquil, rural serenity leading to the Gaspé.

Was it supposed to be est or oeust? Gauche or droite? Samantha (our gps) or Betty (our navigator)? Not wanting to focus too much blame here, but the CruiseMaster ended up cruising hilly, narrow streets it never should have been on!! In spite of our intentions, we ended up seeing much of the city centre, passing the legislative buildings and, if we had turned left instead of right, we would have taken out the old city gate, along with our a.c. and solar panels! I’m sure the modern version of the Plains of Abraham battle wouldn’t have turned out so well for us!

So confession time, the few pics attached to this post were actually taken on a

previous trip. You can tell by the fall colours and heavy coats. For some reason, Betty was buried too deep in maps to take any pictures this time around. LOL

To decompress and catch up on laundry, we have stopped at a nice park called Camping Pointe-aux-Oies in de Montmagny, where the Riviere du Sud joins the Fleuve St-Laurent. It’s still a beautiful day, even if we didn’t go for a walk…

à votre santé

(Cheers!)

This post is dedicated to the most picturesque island of Île d’Orléans, which is situated in the St. Lawrence River only 5 km from downtown Quebec City. There is more or less only one narrow road that circles the island, which has been described as the “microcosm of traditional Quebec and as the birthplace of francophones in North America”.

Today, for Betty’s birthday, we took a drive from our campground – Camping Orleans – on the eastern point, to the western point, about 20 miles away. These are some of the 193 pictures we took, mainly from a moving Smart car, as there was little or no room to pull over…

à votre santé

(Cheers!)

Back in the day, the motto on Quebec license plates identified it as “the beautiful province”. More recently, the tag is “Je me souviens” meaning “I remember”. Not sure what I remember yet, but I do know that this is one beautiful province!!

After our stay in Rigaud, we braved Montreal traffic, coming out the other side for a nice Boondockers Welcome stay in St. Hyacinthe, Quebec. Our sweet host there, Lisette, invited us in for tea & cookies before a quiet rural night’s stay. The next day we topped up at

Drummandville Costco (in preparation for Bet’s 65^thbirthday celebrations) and headed for Quebec City, ending at a Harvest Host winery – Vignoble Domaine L’Ange Gardien– just east of the city.

This winery is simply fabulous –

from the wine-tasting, to meeting and chatting with the proprietor, to settling into our free camp spot with a fresh baguette, a bowl of Betty’s chili, and a glass of fine wine! The pictures don’t do justice. It doesn’t get better than that!

Except for the fact that we arrived early enough to take our Smart car for a zip around Île d’Orléans, an island in the St. Lawrance River off the coast of Quebec City, both assessing the capacity of the roads to handle our motorhome,

and checking out a campground where we could stay to celebrate Betty’s milestone birthday (not to put too fine a point on the date. LOL). After a most scenic drive on roads too narrow for the Boy, we arrived at Camping Orleans on the island’s eastern tip, and after confirming that a wider road could be used for access, we booked a site.

Now it must be remembered here that everyone it seems, but us, is speaking

French, and some of the local French Canadian inhabitants don’t speak English. When the campground attendant told me the price of our site was two thousand, one hundred and fifty dollars, I almost freaked out, until the person in line behind me corrected his placement of the decimal point. OK, we can handle $215. for our stay in this gorgeous park in this beautiful province! LOL

We look forward to posting more pictures of this quaint island and the nearby historic city. I’m sure our adventure will create many long-lasting remembrances of la belle province!

à votre santé

(Cheers!)

According to Google, the title of this post says we have arrived in Quebec, but

everything here is written in French, so I don’t know for sure… LOL.  This is when we really need our kids and/or grandkids to accompany us as translators.  OK, it would also be great fun to have them here to share the experience of visiting this most unique Canadian province. (I suppose, to be sensitive to the Quebec separatists, I should distinguish it from the other Canadian provinces by calling it this unique land– this unique nation seems just a little too far… LOL)

In any event, we are at Camping Choisy, just west of Montreal. The heat wave is continuing, and we are thankful for good 50 amp service that has allowed us to run both air conditioners throughout the night. It is a large campground on the Riviere Raquette, and it has 2 piscines, so we are hoping to go swimming today, if that is appropriate to do in a piscine… I sure hope it doesn’t mean bathroom! LOL

Betty is now able to affix another sticker to our map of North America, and we are looking forward to posting more pictures and stories from this great, unique (please choose one of the following: province, land, nation, other…)

 

 

à votre santé

(Cheers!)

On another hot and steamy day, Gavin took time out of his busy schedule to make appearances at the Supreme Court of Canada, Parliament Hill, and the Chateau Laurier Hotel, among other stops. (OK, they weren’t actual stops… The pictures were taken from a moving Smart car as we wizzed down Wellington Street. LOL)

Update to The Best Laid Plans…  Before arriving at McRae Provincial Park, we spent the night and day at Hitch House, a large motorhome dealership between Barrie and Orillia, hoping that their service department could fix our living room slide that had failed to retract at Pancake Bay.  Despite making the appointment as soon as it stopped working, Hitch House staff didn’t actually look at our coach, but spent the time searching on-line for a replacement slide motor, which apparently they couldn’t find.  So we spent our visit with family and friends in a reduced living space, hoping that the repair would be completed at the end of our stay.

When I called Hitch House on Tuesday, I was told they were unable to find a motor, and we would have to wait until a week Wednesday for them to check the breaker, which was the other possible cause of the failure to slide.  Instead, we visited Heidi’s RV at 3982 Hwy 11 South, RR#2 Hawkstone, ON, and although they only have 1 motorhome tech on staff, they fit us in right away – even though they were extremely busy – fixed the problem (a wiring issue, not a dead motor) and had us on the road again in less than 2 hours! Yeah for Heidi’s!! Not so much Hitch House…

Also, Weber came through with the replacement bbq hose, which Andrew shipped to Orillia, along with TireMInder locking nuts from Minder Research, and other mail. Yeah for Weber, Minder Research, and especially our son Andrew!!

That’s all the excitement we can handle for now. Here’s hoping that our overlandish odyssey is able to continue without too many more things going awry.

Cheers!

Ontario’s humid heat wave continued this week, as we met up with family and old friends in and around Orillia. Pictured below are some of the highlights:

Deb &  Rob, Betty & I almost missed meeting up with Ann & Frank, as they were on a different level of a very large Orillia restaurant.

As Scottish poet Robert Burns noted: “The best-laid plans of mice and men, often go awry”.  That was our experience last week.

Betty and I had an enjoyable stay camping at the picturesque Pancake Bay Provincial Park, on the north shore of Lake Superior. When we were preparing to leave, I hit the button to retract our living room slide out, and nothing happened. Oh, oh! We had experienced this same issue during the first leg of our overlandish odyssey, when we were in Dallas, Texas. A mobile rv tech was called, and he wiggled some wires and got us back in business. But when we joined the South Texas

Renegades FMCA group north of Houston, the same problem occurred. As noted in a post from that time, a commercial airline pilot and certified airplane mechanic, Rick, troubleshot our system and identified the likely cause of the failure to retract.  He got our slide out in, but advised us to have an rv tech work on it when we arrived at our next destination.

When we got to South Padre Island, we called a mobile rv tech who came to our site to fix the problem. The problem, at that time, was that the slide out failed to NOT work. Yes, that’s a double negative. And it failed to not work every day from then until Pancake Bay, when it didn’t fail to not work. Wow, is that a triple negative, or just a convoluted way of saying it’s

busted? LOL! This time we calledGood Sam Roadside Assistance, being many miles from any populated area, and Darcy, the kind owner of Goulais River Truck & Tractor, got us on the road again. We now have an appointment this week at Hitch House, near Orillia, to have a new slide motor installed.

Just dealing with that issue would have been enough, but NO, there was more! My bbq hose also stopped working, which is a major concern when you love to grill. In this case, Peter and I did the troubleshooting, confirming that both the Weber and the tank were in working order. While checking on-line to see where I could purchase a replacement hose, I found a

review page on the Weber site, which noted that 95% of customers loved their Weber hose. In reply to anyone posting a low rating, Weber listed a 1-800 number to rectify the problem. So I called the 1-800 number, and sure enough, a new, free replacement hose is in the mail to me. (Which is great, except I now have to figure out how to get it from our son’s home, which is our mailing address when we are on the road.)

Also last week, as we were slowly exiting Neys Provincial Park, we discovered

that we had failed to close the upper cupboard where our plates and bowls are kept. The way we found this out was by the horrendous crash behind us, as the Corelle dishes shattered into thousands of pieces on our floor. The sight was most picture-worthy, but in our excitement to clean up the mess before Charlie got into it, we failed to snap any shots. Maybe we could re-create the scene now? Betty says NO!

As previously noted, we began this new leg of our adventure on fresh Michelins, manufactured in March 2018. While we had noticed a slight bounce in our front end between 50 & 60 mph, we put it down to Manitoba’s notoriously bad roads. But when we finally got onto smooth pavement in Ontario, the bounce was still there. I called our

tire store back in Winnipeg, and Rick suggested that one of the wheel weights, used to balance the tires, may have fallen off on the rough roads. So into a Hanover tire shop went our Cruisemaster last week, and it turns out the front tires were mismounted, causing a warped ride.  The tires were turned 180 degrees and remounted, and we are back to smoother sailing.

After a wonderful visit with Bill and Heather – Betty’s brother and his wife – Betty and I are now set up in Rondeau Provincial Park on Lake Erie, visiting Betty’s other brother, Jack and his wife Christine, and friends Rick & Penny – a wonderful

surprise addition. (Yes, that’s the 3^rdRick this post, a new record! LOL) Our Buena Vista add-a-room is up and performed well for a get-together last night, and our fingers are all crossed that we will avoid further mishaps for the next while, but as Robert Burns reminded us:

“The best laid plans….”

Cheers!