Quebec!!

Hi everyone...this will be a long post since we have been offline a couple of days and much has happened. We left PEI expecting a short drive (3 hours) to Kouchibouguac National Park which is on the east coast of NB. As we went back over the Confederation Bridge and into New Brunswick, we realized we were in Acadian country; French flags abounded, and the sign at McDonald's in PEI that read "McLobster is back" (who knew there was "regional cuisine" at McDonald's?) now read "McHomard est en retour". Got a laugh out of that. In PEI I announced that since I had parented all the way to the east coast, it was Dennis' turn on the return trip. So, we stopped at Tim Horton's for a donut. Since we were in a French speaking community, Dennis tried his language skills and ordered an apple fritter by asking for "pommes frites". He got a strange look and when we left, Ceilidh said "Dad, you tried to order French Fries!" I thought we were all going to die laughing, and every kilometre or so, we would all bust up again.

As an aside (that comes into the story later) there are NO Starbucks in Atlantic Canada...and virtually no cappuccino. Tim Horton's regular coffee is what everyone drinks.

We stopped in a very sweet town Bouctouche, with a beautiful Roman Catholic church, were we had fries and the girls had slushies (remember, Dennis is parenting). This becomes important later. We were meandering around since we had a short driving day. Then, I look at the guidebook for the national park and read "Under no circumstances should you be without bug spray". We arrive at the park to find there are no water hookups...So we are 1:30 pm in a campsite nobody wants to be in on the east coast of New Brunswick on the scenic route. We decide that we will drive up to the next day's campsite at Riviere du Loup, in Quebec, which the girls are into...but it is a further 8 hours. Back into the car we go.

Now, Dennis was expecting that we weren't driving long, and was OK with the junk the girls had eaten...now we were driving for another 8 hours...Mhairi complained she didn't feel well, and about 2 minutes later, was throwing up into a hastily conjured bucket (my reflexes are pretty darned good after all). FYI, blue raspberry slushie comes up blue.

She felt a lot better after that.

I was needing a coffee, but we could not find anywhere for love or money, or even a plug for me to make my own. I was regretting having sneered at Starbuck's earlier in the journey and knew this was my penance. In fact, Dennis said it was my penance for booking a campsite in a swampy area, with no water! So, I joined the locals, and got a Tim Horton's!

So, the other thing we kept seeing were signs to watch out for moose. The signs started out benignly, with a picture of a cute moose on a diamond shaped yellow sign. The next signs had a much larger moose trotting out into the road. The next signs had "ATTENTION" in large red letters, with a moose TOWERING above a car, and finally, there were signs that showed a moose sign and a car sign colliding with nasty results, and an "extreme caution" written below. We had already decided NOT to do any night driving, but in this case, to get to our campsite, we knew we would have to, at a time when the moose would likely be out. This coincided with us driving west, into the setting sun, while it rained, resulting in near blinding conditions. However, we were fine, and lo, and behold, saw a mother moose and her calf standing in a field near the road. They very kindly stood while we pulled over, got out the camera and took some good shots.

So, Dennis has seen his moose. We also saw a fox and kit, and a black bear.

We made it to Riviere du Loup at about 9:30, and thankfully fell into bed.

Riviere du Loup is a charming town, with all the amenities, including good veggie selections "Hamburger tofu", and a very nice patisseries with real cappuccino. It was wonderful walking around and feeling immersed in French. The town is on the south banks of the St Lawrence, and we biked along the river, where apparently you can see whales. I guess it isn't really a river at this point...I think I could live here too...although I noticed that the fire hydrants are marked by large signposts, leading me to believe there must be a lot of snow.

We drove today for a couple of hours into Quebec City (our campsite is about 15 minutes outside of the city). Doing laundry and all that stuff...