It's been a while since my last entry as five kids, lots of catching up with family and plenty of eating and drinking kept me from Lana's Blackberry. This will be lengthy!
With their arrival at our campsite it was only a few minutes before we had coined the phrase, "it adds to the adventure." While my sister had packed the tent, she left her poles safely at home in the basement. It was quickly decided that two families (nine in total) could fit into our tent. With the two men in the, not so mosquito proof, vestbule and the little ones and ladies snuggled inside. Worked well, although by morning the inside of the vestibule was littered with mosquitoes too full of blood to fly.
It was with great relish that I handed over the Long Haul Trucker (my bike) to my brother-in-law Teddy while I rode his ultalight triathlon rig. He's always up for a challenge and I'm always eagre to challenge him. Teddy took to touring rather nicely and we even started discussing ideas for a future trip. It wasn't until we hit the first doozy of a hill (likely the steepest we'll see on this trip) that his enthusiasm took a slight dip. His legs had taken a beating but it only showed on our fourth day together when he and I rode unladen bikes to Quebec city with the rest of the gang driving. Teddy was hanging back and enjoying the view, which if you knew him, isn't his usual priority.
Teddy's priority however is sustinance in the two major categories: meat and an accompanying beverage. Teddy arrived with every sort of rub, sauce and condiment you could imagine. The girls had a different fruity drink concocted for each meal and the guys drank, not so mild bourbons and ice cold beer insulated from the "heat" by their own little neoprene Eagles jerseys. This man can tailgate.
We became practiced at quickly serving the kids and shuttling them off to "Disney" after which we hunkered down to quietly enjoy our meal together. My biggest challenge was staying awake to chat after a full day of riding with a full stomach and bourbon in my bloodstream. There were a number of instances that I worried about falling asleep and rolling into the fire.
While Teddy and Laura were sampling the wonders of bike touring Lana drove the kids around - or maybe the kids drove Lana - not sure. Lana used the time that we rode to get laundry done, to give the kids some playtime, meet us for lunch, buy groceries and to scout campsites for day's end. As much as Teddy liked touring he wasn't too keen on not knowing our exact destination from day to day. The only answer we had was that, "it adds to the adventure."
We spent our last day together wandering through the narrow cobblestone streets of the ever popular Vieux Quebec (Old Quebec). We had a horse tour of the lower section and visited the market and the site for the 400th anniversary celebration. We ended our tour dinning at the Creperie right next to the iconic Chateaux Frontenac. The evening was capped with a bottle of "iced apple cider" by the fire.
The morning of our parting ways had us cycle to old quebec once again, this time so that we could take the ferry across the St. Lawerence to Levis on the "South Shore". We did have time for lunch in old Quebec where we had a nice conversation with a local couple after the gentleman had spilled his beer on Colby from their seat above us. In what I see as characteristically "french canadian" style he went on and on in mixed french and english about what a marvellous thing we were doing. It has happened a lot on this trip but this was an exceptional case as we thought the conversation had ended numerous times but he kept coming back in disbelief. I'm sure the girls get a lot out of these exchanges.
The South Shore is turning out to be what I had pictured in my mind's eye. Crazy beautiful vistas refreshed over every rise, inspiring columns of clouds like I've never seen and the quaintest homes and villages that ooze with history. Just yesterday we spent lunch at a historic, out of the way moulin (mill) where we had the freshest, tastiest home cooked meal. The mill was a working museum that had a perfect view of the seaway below.
Today we are hoping for the same tailwind we had yesterday and more of the same remarkable scenery and encounters.
Greg
