Catching up, June 8

It's been a few days since I set up to write another part of this blog, so here we go.

As i said, we were very tired when we settled into the Maison Banville in Saint-Félicien. And they were calling for rain the next day. So it tok only a little pushing to get us to commit to a two-day stay at the Gîte. We set out to have a pleasant supper at the outdoor pub just down the road. What we didn't know was that this was the graduation day for most of the regional high schools, so the joint was hopping, and the streets were busy with noisy cars. And the bar had not brought in enough staff to serve everyone properly. So the service was very slow. And the meals that we got were not as ordered. And the wine which we ordered was not that good. (In Quebec, many places allow you to bring your own wine, and they will open it for you as part of their service; but if they have a liquor licence, you have to order from their list.) We were an unhappy group going home, although we loved the Gîte.

The next morning it was raining as promised. But we had a task to accomplish: Nancy realized that she had left her purse at the bar the previous night, and Barry went to see if it was turned in. Since we had left a rather small tip as a result of the poor supper we all got, we were feeling a bit on shaky ground. But Barry returned triumphant, and all was okay with the world again.

The day proceeded to be cool and rainy. Some of us went back to rest in bed after a rather sumptuous breakfast, and others wrote or read. But in the afternoon we decided to go to visit a local museum on (believe me!) cheddar cheese. It was a cheese factory developed by the Perron family about a hundred years ago, and still run by the same family. There was a tour of the old plant, with description of how the cheese was made from raw, then pasteurized, milk. While the talk was interesting, it was a bit excessive in its completeness. And of course, it was all in French. The ninety minutes spent there was tiring.

So of course we followed that by a visit to the "Maison des Bleuets", which sold all things blueberry, as well as lots of other things. So we were ready for a nice dinner by then.

Since this was June 5th, and our 39th anniversary, we all went out to a better restaurant in the area. And the food was very good, with the restaurant also being in the setting of a local "presbytère". It was still raining pretty hard, and the Lexus was handy.

June 6th was to be a day of moving on. We had decided to try and go to Métabetchouan by bike, and Darlene was off to help us find a place to stay in that area. Lots of adventures, finding a place which looked good and was close to town. And including running into Martin from the Maison Banville, who had discovered that we had taken his wife's shoes when we left (they were about the size of Barry's, and Darlene and I thought they were Barry's). She found a wonderful place: the Lamy house, named after a doctor who had built it in the 1920's, and run his practice out of there. At the time, he was the sole medical person in town, so he was doctor, vet, and dentist. He made a lot of money, and

it shows in the house, which was splendid. When we arrived, after a chilly ride on a wonderful trail, Darlene had set up an elegant lunch on the upper front porch, a sort of turret partly enclosed by

brickwork, and very elegant in its own right. And of course there was a bath tub in our room, to add to the grace of the place. It was terrific, for our last night all together. We ate at a local restaurant, where the head of the family who owns it was present to greet us, along with his son (dressed up in a suit and tie). We ate local food, well prepared by someone who cared about it. And it showed. We loved the place, and the food.

We had biked 65 km to Métabetchouan.

And this brings us to yesterday. The day dawned cool-to-cold and sunny, with a strong west wind. Barry and Nancy were going to bike the remaining way to Alma, where we started this ride. And Darlene and I were off to the airport to get her started on her ride home.

After another scrumptious breakfast (the food has been good, as my waistline will attest), we headed off in the car, making it to the airport in Bagotville in time to have a coffee before I said a sad good-bye to Darlene and returned through Chicoutimi to the Alma area.

Barry and Nancy had had a wonderful ride into town, along the lake with the wind at their backs. Their ride was about 40 km. And they were happy, resting in a coffee shop when I arrived back from the airport. The sky, though, had changed, and there were black clouds on the horizon. We decided to start our trip back to the East and decide on the way what we would do. The weather decided for us: there was a very heavy rainfall that began just before Chicoutimi and continued well on the way to Tadoussac. So we went all the way, with two diversions.

We had wanted to go down to a camp by the water along the north shore of the Saguenay, to see if we could see the gorge a bit better. But the road was very difficult and there were very few people, so we turned around on that one and returned back to the main road. And we should point out that the main road was pretty impressive. Lots of forest and rocks, with glaciated valleys, and some small rivers. But we continued on our way, getting off the road onto a paved road and going into Sainte-Rose-du-Nord. This turned out to be a small little artists' community with many charming houses and gîtes and restaurants. We decided to stop and get a bowl of soup or something warm at the little restaurant near the Post Office. We were met with a woman, who owned the place, with incredible energy and almost a pressure of speech. She said she was the mother of five children, and did everything in the place. We cold believe this, although she did seem a bit bipolar.

The rain finally stopped and we moved on to Tadoussac itself. We stopped at the Tourist Office, talked with the woman there (who for once complemented me rather than Barry on our French). We looked at several sleeping options, but then decided on the Hôtel Le Pionnier. We had separate rooms, but both looked over the River, and we were actually tired, having some food and drink for supper (in Barry and Nancy's room), then heading off to bed. We didn't bike at all that day.

And today, we decided to spend the time exploring Tadoussac a bit, at my request. We walked through the town, Barry and I going across the ferry and back, to see the mouth of the Saguenay but not seeing any whales, then going through the magnificent Hôtel Tadoussac (mostly built by

American and Molson moneys), and enjoying the restaurants and café's in what is definitely largely a tourist town. We had a recommendation from our serveuse this morning to go to a hilltop near here by trail, and we did that, and it was wonderful. Views in all directions. Flowers galore. Wonderful clouds.

I saw a whale! A beluga, probably. From a great distance, but nonetheless something white and big and coming over and over to the surface. So I believe it to be a whale. Happened while Barry and I were walking down around the point along a trail which Nancy had found earlier.

And we have to stop eating so much. Ate at a restaurant again tonight. Good, but of course more than we needed. Sigh. To bed.