September,  24


Tomorrow we enter Quebec and head northeast on back roads in an arc which brings us east of Quebec City on the St Lawrence seaway. This second night we are hoping for a boondocks site on a high, prominent hill overlooking the St Lawrence, northeast of Quebec municipality. Nothing much other than a safe harbor for the night. Hereafter we set our sights higher for places we can sit and relax with the hyperactive Lucy. You may ask quite rightly, “ why the hell did you bring your dog!?” The answer is, despite the calamity, I want her with us… as we are a pack… a pack sticks together no matter. Something like kids… do they make kennels for kids? Ha!


 Well here we are. A fine day crossing the border and all I can say is how polite and friendly the Canadian border officer was. It makes me shrink-in thinking of our over militarized border. It looks ridiculous in  comparison. Barbed wire fences and X-ray bomb sniffers… border patrol with bullet proof vests and M-16’s. 

Reminds me of my two years living in Paraguay. If you read their history, they had a dictator (one of many) who placed his border patrol canons facing in…. Like east Berlin or North Korea. All I feel like doing is apologizing. 


The foliage is devastatingly gorgeous …reds at their peak and oranges I haven’t seen for years. Where are the photos you might ask. Good question. Catching the right light and shot is not easy…. Not many places to just pull over on Canadian roads. So coming soon we will get those leaf peeper shots. The day went well but not as planned. Typical of road trips we arrived at the boondocks site at 3 PM and the view was spectacular looking north over the St Lawrence. Alas there was another van there who’s occupant was not so friendly. I wanted to stay but we did have more time to drive and there was another place an hour and a half more NE. 


And here we are typing at the Park National du Bic on the St Lawrence.  Camp grounds are not my cup of tea but one must be flexible. We can hear the road and a train pasted by…. Hold your beers! Lucy said “just give me my kibble then a walk and a poop.” Done. 


The majority of farming and population of Canada is in the belt of land bordering the US. And there are the forests. What a magnificent country in so many ways.


But we are here to go north. The Gaspé calls. We discovered another route as well further north that will be on our list for another year.  Have to throw a bunch of photos in as we are on the evening of day three and lucky to have cell service (real not 3G) to be able upload. Most of these shots were taken by Luann.

 



Lucy Rose’s spot.
The headwaters of the Connecticut River.

Gonna be a mad red autumn here.
Quebec is rolling roads. 
Nothing but log trucks maxed out and pulling more on trailers. Get out of the way!


St Lawrence River Seaway. Way off is last glimpse of Quebec mainland.
St Lawrence River looking North 50 miles east of Quebec City.


September 25
Yesterday we ended a long day due to the fact that we had gone to a boondocks site that was spectacular 12th down or 2nd up)… splendid site even with a Porto-potty. There was another van there and the occupant was not congenial. That said it would have been perfect but just a gut call to try further on. The led to a decision to go 1 1/2 hours further … not a light decision toward the end of the day. We headed end for the National Park du Bic. Gorgeous place but due to having a dog we were restricted to a roadside site 100 meters from a national rail track. In short …three trains and log trucks do not make for a gentle sleep…actually any, There were folks there that had no dogs so not sure why they’d chosen that loop. Off we left in the morning unfit for duty. Luckily the Mrs made a bang up breakfast to fuel our sleepy start. 

Truth is the lower few hundred Km from Quebec City is filled with very large logging and stone material trucks and did I say they were big? So until one gets to Rimouski city it is quite busy. Thereafter the truck road and rail diverge towards New Brunswick. Going northeast now is so much better. 2 lanes and splendid views of the seaway. We had a few boondocks sites scoped out and went to each. None would do so backtracked 15 minutes to a small village where there is a “camping” site on the shore of their harbor. (Marsoui) $18 USD for a spot (we are the only ones) on the grassy area. Comes with a key to a bathroom and a shower/laundry! Tomorrow we head to the mountains so approach Gaspé from the east. There are more opportunities to camp in the PM from this direction and then arrive in Gaspé around noon to get to the local Parc National Forillon for a camping spot. 

Comments

  1. Ski3pinOctober 22, 2025 at 9:49 PM

    Rob, it's wonderful to see this landscape through your narrative and photos. Maybe, maybe someday we'll make a trip that way. Until then, this does fine as we have little knowledge of this part of the world. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete

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