Old Man River
Friday June 26, 2009
Copyright(c) 2009, Jim Beachy
In the town of Rivière du Loup, River of the Wolfe, a foggy dawn has birthed a ghostly gray morning that appears vaguely out of focus as shapeless banks of fog drift silently past the hotel window, sometimes obscuring the brightly-colored buildings across the street, other times rendering them in water-color pastel shades of blue and red.
I actually don’t mind fog, and some of our most rewarding experiences have been surprises offered to us by a fog-shrouded day. But this day, I’d like to see some of the mighty St. Lawrence River, and with this fog I’d be lucky to see the guardrails on the far side of the road. So we make lazy once again, hang out for a while, and finally the fog begins to lift and we roll at a little after 10:30 AM.
The river is always to our left as we head east, practicing our new French vocabulary in our headsets. Our vocabulary is growing little by little every day. (They tell me I have a credible rendition of “Rivière du Loup.) This is quite necessary because the available number of English words spoken by the people we meet diminishes with each kilometer farther from the big cities of Montreal and Quebec, so we must balance that with an increasing number of French words spoken by us. The people are friendly and laugh with us at our attempts to communicate, and we have a good time with the language. It’s a barrier only in the sense of easy communication, but never in the sense of enjoying the interpersonal interaction with the people we meet. In the visitor centers (Information Touristique) where we stop, they always speak English much better than we speak French, but when we talk to other bikers, we sometimes have to resort to pulling out maps and pointing. Yes, I still do carry a map although I generally never use it because I have the GPS.
It’s a bit chilly this morning, about 61F (16C) as we ride in and out of fog banks that mysteriously appear and disappear off the river. Sometimes the gray fog recedes off the banks and lies offshore like a giant white blanket thrown aside and rumpled as though by someone just getting out of bed. When the fog is off the shore, bright blue sky appears through the wisps that escape landward. I’m just a little disappointed that we can’t see more of the expanse of water, but the fog does create quite a picturesque rugged coastline. The tide appears to be out and we can see large expanses of exposed shoreline that presumably will be covered later today when the tide returns.
I have mapped several interesting potential stopping points today, but Slow-Down Guy is in evidence, and we wander slowly and stop often to take pictures, explore a visitor center, or walk to the shore to explore whatever we find there. Several times we get off the highway and ride through the villages to take pictures and enjoy the well-kept, brightly colored, neatly trimmed homes, and marvel at the architecture of the village church with its giant single or double spires. By the time afternoon rolls around, we still have 140 km (almost 90 miles) left until we reach Ste. Anne-des-Monts where we have tentatively penciled in a stopping point. Slow-Down Guy doesn’t really care if he makes it to that destination, but as it happens, the timing and the availability of accommodations more or less dictate that as a stopping point.
We have been watching in fascination all day as the topography demonstrates slow metamorphosis from massive expanses of flat, fertile farmland that to hills that slowly creep closer and closer to Rt. 132 where we are traveling. Finally there is no farmland, only the hills and trees, and we see glimpses of our first sea cliffs as we round the curves. We have definitely made the transition to Haute Gaspésie! Just about then the fog, which has never really left us all day, returns in earnest, and we ride the last 30 miles (18 km) or so entombed in a relentless dark gray shroud that, while rarely causing difficulty in seeing the road, nevertheless obscures any scenery we might otherwise be able to see.
It has not rained on us since we left home, but we narrowly escape at least one local rain squall and ride through some wet pavement; the fog is heavy enough that water is dripping off the mirrors and collecting in droplets on the big Tulsa windshield.
We arrive in Ste. Anne-des-Monts by about 5:30 PM, find a small hotel with a full-service restaurant (Hotel a la Brunante) and I wash the road grime off the bike and trailer and cover the bike. I’ll leave the trailer uncovered tonight because a light rain has started to fall and putting the cover on the trailer in the rain is worse than leaving it uncovered.
In the restaurant, the waitress speaks no English, but we have a great time practicing our meager French and figuring out what we are ordering. We seem to have ordered at just the same time as a private group of about a dozen people. The somewhat harried waitress comes over and offers what we think is an apology for the wait, and we do our best to reassure her, but dinner turns out to be a leisurely affair. Quite leisurely. We sit and talk while watching the other patrons. It strikes me that, although we can understand only small snatches of what anyone is saying, their facial expressions, laughter, body language, and vocal inflections are the same as in any restaurant we’ve been, anywhere we’ve been. It’s gratifying to realize so forcefully that a smile is the same in any language! Let’s use it often!
I check the GPS and we are, by 150 miles, farther north than we have ever been, farther north than our previous excursions to Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island or the northern tip of Maine. Today we’ve traveled a slow-down 299 km (186) miles, and 1,886 km (1,172 miles) total for the trip. I find daily amusement in how few miles we are traveling. I do believe this is probably the lowest daily total for any trip we’ve ever taken. But I’ve become pretty good friends with Slow-Down Guy and we are doing well! We’ll travel a little farther north tomorrow but mostly east, and then begin heading south. We might hang out for a few days in the same area after tomorrow’s travels, maybe do a little whale watching around Gaspé or Percé, but only tomorrow knows the plans that will be made or changed.
We’ll see you then.
Friday June 26, 2009
Copyright(c) 2009, Jim Beachy
In the town of Rivière du Loup, River of the Wolfe, a foggy dawn has birthed a ghostly gray morning that appears vaguely out of focus as shapeless banks of fog drift silently past the hotel window, sometimes obscuring the brightly-colored buildings across the street, other times rendering them in water-color pastel shades of blue and red.
I actually don’t mind fog, and some of our most rewarding experiences have been surprises offered to us by a fog-shrouded day. But this day, I’d like to see some of the mighty St. Lawrence River, and with this fog I’d be lucky to see the guardrails on the far side of the road. So we make lazy once again, hang out for a while, and finally the fog begins to lift and we roll at a little after 10:30 AM.
The river is always to our left as we head east, practicing our new French vocabulary in our headsets. Our vocabulary is growing little by little every day. (They tell me I have a credible rendition of “Rivière du Loup.) This is quite necessary because the available number of English words spoken by the people we meet diminishes with each kilometer farther from the big cities of Montreal and Quebec, so we must balance that with an increasing number of French words spoken by us. The people are friendly and laugh with us at our attempts to communicate, and we have a good time with the language. It’s a barrier only in the sense of easy communication, but never in the sense of enjoying the interpersonal interaction with the people we meet. In the visitor centers (Information Touristique) where we stop, they always speak English much better than we speak French, but when we talk to other bikers, we sometimes have to resort to pulling out maps and pointing. Yes, I still do carry a map although I generally never use it because I have the GPS.
It’s a bit chilly this morning, about 61F (16C) as we ride in and out of fog banks that mysteriously appear and disappear off the river. Sometimes the gray fog recedes off the banks and lies offshore like a giant white blanket thrown aside and rumpled as though by someone just getting out of bed. When the fog is off the shore, bright blue sky appears through the wisps that escape landward. I’m just a little disappointed that we can’t see more of the expanse of water, but the fog does create quite a picturesque rugged coastline. The tide appears to be out and we can see large expanses of exposed shoreline that presumably will be covered later today when the tide returns.
I have mapped several interesting potential stopping points today, but Slow-Down Guy is in evidence, and we wander slowly and stop often to take pictures, explore a visitor center, or walk to the shore to explore whatever we find there. Several times we get off the highway and ride through the villages to take pictures and enjoy the well-kept, brightly colored, neatly trimmed homes, and marvel at the architecture of the village church with its giant single or double spires. By the time afternoon rolls around, we still have 140 km (almost 90 miles) left until we reach Ste. Anne-des-Monts where we have tentatively penciled in a stopping point. Slow-Down Guy doesn’t really care if he makes it to that destination, but as it happens, the timing and the availability of accommodations more or less dictate that as a stopping point.
We have been watching in fascination all day as the topography demonstrates slow metamorphosis from massive expanses of flat, fertile farmland that to hills that slowly creep closer and closer to Rt. 132 where we are traveling. Finally there is no farmland, only the hills and trees, and we see glimpses of our first sea cliffs as we round the curves. We have definitely made the transition to Haute Gaspésie! Just about then the fog, which has never really left us all day, returns in earnest, and we ride the last 30 miles (18 km) or so entombed in a relentless dark gray shroud that, while rarely causing difficulty in seeing the road, nevertheless obscures any scenery we might otherwise be able to see.It has not rained on us since we left home, but we narrowly escape at least one local rain squall and ride through some wet pavement; the fog is heavy enough that water is dripping off the mirrors and collecting in droplets on the big Tulsa windshield.
We arrive in Ste. Anne-des-Monts by about 5:30 PM, find a small hotel with a full-service restaurant (Hotel a la Brunante) and I wash the road grime off the bike and trailer and cover the bike. I’ll leave the trailer uncovered tonight because a light rain has started to fall and putting the cover on the trailer in the rain is worse than leaving it uncovered.
In the restaurant, the waitress speaks no English, but we have a great time practicing our meager French and figuring out what we are ordering. We seem to have ordered at just the same time as a private group of about a dozen people. The somewhat harried waitress comes over and offers what we think is an apology for the wait, and we do our best to reassure her, but dinner turns out to be a leisurely affair. Quite leisurely. We sit and talk while watching the other patrons. It strikes me that, although we can understand only small snatches of what anyone is saying, their facial expressions, laughter, body language, and vocal inflections are the same as in any restaurant we’ve been, anywhere we’ve been. It’s gratifying to realize so forcefully that a smile is the same in any language! Let’s use it often!
I check the GPS and we are, by 150 miles, farther north than we have ever been, farther north than our previous excursions to Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island or the northern tip of Maine. Today we’ve traveled a slow-down 299 km (186) miles, and 1,886 km (1,172 miles) total for the trip. I find daily amusement in how few miles we are traveling. I do believe this is probably the lowest daily total for any trip we’ve ever taken. But I’ve become pretty good friends with Slow-Down Guy and we are doing well! We’ll travel a little farther north tomorrow but mostly east, and then begin heading south. We might hang out for a few days in the same area after tomorrow’s travels, maybe do a little whale watching around Gaspé or Percé, but only tomorrow knows the plans that will be made or changed.
We’ll see you then.
No comments:
Post a Comment