Today was a good day. A little warm, but we drove through pretty scenery all day long, and the roads, until the last part, weren't too bad. Somehow we got an early start, 8:35. It was pretty warm when we started out, and was hot and humid by the end of the day. However, as we drove along the river in the pretty little town of Rimouski, where the St. Lawrence River widens into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the air was nice and cool and we had our windows down. We stayed with the 132 South at the split, and followed it to where we crossed the river into New Brunswick (at 1:40 p.m.), then we took the scenic 134 to Bathurst.
We had to fuel up again this morning, so today's price was $1.194/liter (I figured that to be $3.615/gallon). But when we got further east, the price was down to $1.09 where we camped so we are hoping for better days ahead.
As we drove through the last part of Quebec, we passed lots of big fields green with wheat or other grains, and lots of huge farms, usually well kept and in good shape. Many had blue or red roofs on all the outbuildings, and you could spot them a long way off.
Collins led today, so Marilyn was our "spotter" which allowed me to capture some interesting pictures that I probably would not have been able to get without her "heads up." (Actually, it was "get your camera ready.") The first was a field of buffalo!! Since we are not seeing any wildlife, we were very excited to see our friends, the buffs. I even moved our buffalo out of the mix of our traveling zoo and gave him front and center privileges.
I was hoping that would challenge some of our other zoo animals to bring their live counterparts out of the woods (like a moose), but it did not have any impact at all. However, the next exciting thing Marilyn spotted was this flock of sheep and its shepherd on the hillside just as we turned south on 134.
Church steeples dot the landscape and we are greeted by a church in every little town we go through. Some of these churches are really beautiful. In one cemetery, there was a charming little chapel right among the gravestones. We see lots of interesting things as we travel, especially on days like this when we are going through countrysides rather than big cities, which we much prefer.
And I got a great picture of Collins passing on a double yellow line!!!!!
Granted, it was a "slow moving vehicle" and we followed him, but I got evidence on him! I'm sure this will come in handy at some future date.
We had a very nice lunch spot right along Lake Matapedia. I think this became Matapedia River and we followed and criss-crossed it for several miles. Very shallow but the water was crystal clear and very scenic.
While we were parked here, Joe took the opportunity to take a photo of the windshield where the rock hit it yesterday. It's right below the roof on the driver's side, not quite in the middle of his side of the windshield.
We also have seen several "Dixie Lee Restaurants" through here -- maybe they started showing up in New Brunswick. And Marilyn picked out a car (yellow) and a house that she thought she could live it -- it overlooks a river in the backyard.
We left the farming country and got into the mountains (you can see them behind the house), and we went past several lumberyards and met a few trucks loaded with lumber. We passed one huge lumberyard and Collins said they made toothpicks there. Joe replied that they must have been for Big Foot.
Marilyn "spotted" a covered bridge so I got a good photo of that. We followed this pretty Matapedia River for miles and miles, saw some boaters out there but the water is pretty shallow. One guy was standing up with a paddle moving along, maybe called a "punt," looked like a canoe except it was longer. Might be called "poling a canoe." (Joe did a little research for me.) I didn't get a good picture of that, though.
The mountains here were lovely, with this river at the base. We
We crossed the province boundary into New Brunswick (where most signs are bilingual and most people speak English). This is also part of the Appalachian Route.
"
As
part of the NB Trail system, the International Appalachian Trail (IAT)
enters New Brunswick at the border of Fort Fairfield, Maine and Perth
Andover. It tracks northeast through Mount Carleton Provincial Park and
up and over the highest point in the Maritimes. The trail then leads
north to Tide Head and crosses into Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula at
Matapédia."
Shortly after we crossed the river, we found a visitors center in Campbellton and stopped there to pick up some maps. The lady there was very helpful and loaded both Marilyn and me down with a bag full of brochures and maps for New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia. From there, we headed down the "Acadian Coastal Drive" right on the pretty Chaleur Bay. The tide must have been out because we saw lots of wet areas of land, and lots of outcroppings of rocks. Some people were walking around on the beach and we came through one area where it did look like a real beach. However, this is where the road deteriorated, so we bumped along to our campground in Bathurst. We lot an hour due to time change when we crossed into New Brunswick, which was a surprise to me (Marilyn advised me of this first thing this morning.) Marilyn also told me something I never knew -- Newfoundland is 1/2 hour faster than New Brunswick because it is too far east to be in the same time zone but not far enough to be an entire hour ahead, so they made it a half-hour difference. Learn something new every day!
With the time change and the bumpy road slowing us down the last couple of hours, we didn't get to our campground (Sunset Berry Patch, Bathurst, N.B.) until 5:50, so we were all ready to be done for the day. However, after dinner, we played a couple of hands of cards, then Joe and Collins went out and "patched" the windshield with some tape to try to keep it from getting worse. While I was fixing dinner, I blew the breaker at our campsite, so that delayed supper a bit -- I was trying to not heat up the RV, so I was using the George Forman and the microwave, and Joe had both air conditioners going, which was just too much pull. Fortunately, the campsite was set up so that he could plug in to an electric box on the other side, so we were soon back in business. I usually watch how much amps we are pulling, but I just forgot that tonight in my effort to keep the RV cool. Oh well, live and learn. We didn't suffer any damage and I think the campground will just have to reset a breaker (at least, I hope that's all that will be necessary.)
We drove 227 miles today, finally left that French-speaking province of Quebec, so we are looking forward to the adventures of the next few days in this part of Canada.
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