bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday-  We left and drove southwest to the town of Gaspi. We stopped at the Visitor Center.  Gaspe is one of the best natural deep harbors in the world.  We toured the town. First we drove by the new Church, which the gal at the visitor center was pushing. It was a church, nothing like the ones we have seen, except that it was cedar outside and in. I did not bother with a picture.

We went downtown to the re-created village on the site of “The Birthplace of Canada”. We looked at the various buildings but did not pay to enter them.

This is a statue of William Wickham.

Most of the area is  from the 1800’s, but is on the site of where Jacques Cartier built his home, the first in New France. This cross, marks the spot.

We walked around looking at the various signs which were in both French and English. This is a replica of a semaphore.

  

We went downtown.

We stopped at the IGA for some groceries and then drove Hwy 132, through the area that we did not travel in the MH yesterday. We were very glad that we did not take the MH down this section of the road.

On the way back to Perce, we stopped in Saint-Georges-de-Malbaie ( a part of the Perce district) to look at the rock with an Indian Head on it. We stopped at the rest area and hiked down to be able to see the rock. The story goes” White men came from Europe on a tall ship, kidnapped a young Amerindian girl. and took her back to their country far away. Ever since her lover tirelessly awaits the return of his beloved with his back to the sea and sorrow in his eyes, his gaze fixed on the cliffs”.

When we returned to the town of Perce, the tide was out. We could see a walkway from the shore to the rock. We checked it out, but the rocks were too big for me to walk across safely, without  possibly injuring my ankle.

We returned to the MH, put the groceries in the refrigerator. Bob walked the dogs, and we went to lunch downtown at  Auberge de la Table a Roland. Bob had a seafood pie, which was basically a quiche. I had a shrimp sandwich.

Parking in town was very expensive. $6 to  $9, so we asked if we could leave the car in the restaurant parking lot. They said yes, as it was late and they had no more clients,  and we wandered around the town. A lot expensive stuff!  We returned to the MH and took a nice nap!

We ate dinner at home and watch “The Insider” a  movie we had recorded. We stayed up watching it until  after 11, which is late for us!

Sunday-  We left around 9 and drove southwest to Chandler on Hwy 132. We drove past a lot of sites and went southwest of Chandler to the federal park. It had an admission fee, so we did not enter. We returned to Chandler and stopped at the IGA. We had forgotten a couple of items from yesterday, so we bought them. We also found that they had fresh lobster on sale for $10.39 lb.  So we bought two and they took 20 minutes to cook.

The young guy and gal at the seafood counter did not speak English, but we figured everything out. At 15 minutes we returned and they flashed 5 fingers at us. We wandered some more and they flashed 5 fingers again. Finally, the lobsters were cooked, we paid and left.

We continued northeast back towards the RV park. We stopped at this rest area to take a picture,

We spotted this lighthouse, which must be like the one behind the RV park, as it was not on the map. These seem to be private lighthouses which are rented out to tourists.

We stopped at another rest area to take this picture of the waves on the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

We stopped at the Magasin General Historique Authentuque 1928. It was a General Store from 1928 to 1972.

They charged $11 each, but for us they charged $6 each to tour. They did a verbal tour in French and no tour in English, but they gave us a booklet with pictures to look at and the son of the original owner talked to us in English, as did his wife. His son was leading one of the French tours.

It was interesting to see how they lived. The store had been in existence since 1926, when they had a fire. They rebuilt and re-opened in 1928. The store  was originally owned by Tobein, Jones and Whitman Company, who were the second oldest company in Canada, after the Hudson Bay Company. The company sold it to the current owner’s father in the 1940’s. It was converted in the 1970’s to this tourist destination.

 

 

The Singer sewing machine sold for $15.

 

Above note the telegraph. This really was a general store. The machine on the right was a check writer, which was used to pay the fishermen for their products.

This stapler was interesting. The round area in the back held wire which made the staples. How about a rain hat for $1, below.

The next area was for the larger items. There were sleds and stoves.

 

 

We returned to the MH and ate the lobsters for lunch. That was interesting since we did not have the tools to crack the claws. We managed and the lobster was really good!

Bob took the towels and sheets to the laundry and I did laundry at home. We had a quiet afternoon as we needed the rest. We will be traveling distances the next two days.

Monday- We left Perce and traveled southwest on Hwy 132 along the   bay.

The farther southwest that travels the more that the area became more English occupied. We started noticing that the churches were Anglican ( we even saw one Baptist church)  and the signs were now in French and English. We also noted the difference in the houses, they were more English than French. The trees were also different. Instead of the evergreens that we had been seeing, we  now saw more other types of trees.

Below was at a pretty little rest area.

The road finally leaves the bay and moves inland along the    river. We traveled through hills and mountains.

 

We met our first rude French Canadian. We had heard that many of the French Canadians were rude, but until today we had not encountered and rudeness.

We drove into a rest area on that was right on Lake Matapedia. There were three  RV’s parked along the water. We had stopped to use the bathroom and walk the dogs. Because we have a diesel engine, and you cannot just turn off a diesel, you have to let it idle or it causes damage to the engine, we always leave the engine running for a short time. I got out of the MH to take a picture. A man walked up to me and asked if that was my car. He pointed to the MH. I said yes. He told me to turn off the engine. I explained that we had to leave it running for a few minutes so that it would not damage the engine. He became agitated and told me to turn it off or leave! He said that this was” a place of peace” and that we were making too much noise! I was pretty startled, but I was polite. He said it again and stomped off…. I took my picture and walked back to the MH. Bob was just coming out with the dogs and it had been long enough time, so he turned off the engine. Oh well, it takes all kinds of people to make up this world! It appeared that these three RV’s were camping in the rest area.

We continued on our way, stopping in Mount Joli for diesel at the same place we had stopped on the way east. We continued back to Captain Homards RV park in Saint Flavie, having completed the circle around the beautiful Gaspe Peninsula.

They did not have the reservation for the night again as they were supposed to! We were parked in a different site, I was offered two sites, and took the one that we could drive through. We parked and set up for the evening. it had been a long day, driving from Perce to here starting at 8:15 and arriving at 3:30.

We had left in cloudy weather and arrived to sunny warmer weather. We settled in, ate dinner, and went out at 8:30 to see the sunset over the St. Lawrence river. This was the first sunset we were able to catch on the trip. Other times it had been too cloudy.

 

Tuesday- We left at 8;30, hooked up the car and continued southwest on Hwy 132, now we were back on the Route of the Navigators.

We traveled only about 4 miles and turned onto AR 20. Evidently this stretch of road had been added recently as the GPS thought we were traveling through a field. We continued south to Quebec City and the KOA that we had stayed at on the way up.

We arrived a little after 1 PM. It was warm and sunny. I had requested on the web reservation the same site we had last time S-6, 50 amp, FHU, where we could get satellite.

The gal at registration told me that site was not available because we were too long for the site so they had given it to someone else! Huh? I explained that we had been in that site the last time and that we fit perfectly. They had assigned a site that was longer, but in the trees, even though I had put in the reservation that if S-6 was not available, we would like a site where we could get satellite. We discussed the issue and she moved us to K-6. We drove down to find a tree next to where the satellite is on the roof. We parked as far back in the site as we could and luckily have been able to get satellite.

We immediately changed into shorts, as it was very warm! We settled into the site for 3 nights. We took a short nap, then sat out reading our books until dinner. We ate, then went back outside to relax in the recliners.

Wednesday-  I was out the door to go to the University Laval and the Canadian National Archives to do some more Genealogy. Bob stayed at the MH and cleaned the outside. He did a few other tasks and took a nap.

Once I arrived at the university, I found that they had closed off the original parking lot that I was headed to, so I had to ride around until I was able to get to a parking payment machine and find a parking place. Using the machine was an issue, but finally it spit out a parking ticket. I put it in the windshield and found a parking place.

I found lots of stuff at the archives with various branches of my family Unfortunately there was no time for me to get into lands and other documents.

I returned and we sat out reading and just enjoying the warm weather. It is so warm we have had to put air conditioner on. The temp is in the 90’s with high humidity.

Thursday-  We left early and ran north to Cora’s Diner where they serve only breakfast and lunch. We both had crepes. Here they are:

 

We returned and I dropped Bob off and went the 7 miles across the bridge to the University to do some more Genealogy. I went to the parking kiosk and my Visa card would not work. I kept playing with it like I did yesterday, but nothing happened.

A couple, in their 50’s were walking by so I asked for assistance. They were very nice, but did not speak any English.  We were able to muddled through. The machine was not accepting cards, which was the issue. I had to use money. I only had a 10 with me, so I used that to get 2 hours.

I found more information but had too short a time at the Archives. Oh well! I left at 11:15 and returned to the MH. Bob was just eating lunch. We sat and watched the noon news and then took a nap. We both woke up to the vicious thunderstorm that was plummeting us. It rained very hard!  Once the rain stopped we went to an ice cream place for small  hot fudge sundaes.

Friday- Moving and returning to the USA.  We drove south on AR 20 to AR 55. We had a wait at the border as there was a long line. We easily went through and stopped at a rest area and ate a quick lunch. We left I- 91 at exit 26 and followed the GPS directions on Hwy. 58 to Hwy. 100 south. We would not take that route again! We had a very high hill on a very narrow road that we had to climb.

We stopped in Eden VT for diesel. Bob had used Google Earth to look at the gas station to make sure that we could get in safely. We unhooked the car as we only had a few more miles to go.

We arrived at Dave and Nancy Shambaugh’s house in Hyde Park at a little before 3 PM We set up in the driveway and settled in for the evening.  Dave works out of his home and Nancy arrived home around 6:30. We had some very nice Chinese take out for dinner and spent the evening catching up with our long time friends.

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