Sunday, August 13, 2006
Trip Update!
Well, we're half way through the trip...we've spent the past 3 days at my cottage in Saint John, which has been wonderful. The weather has been gorgeous and sunny in the mornings, and rainy in the afternoons.
The only real hitch in the trip so far was the night before getting to the cottage - we're booked a camp site in this nature reserve called Rimouski ( probably about 150-200km south of the city of Rimouski, right along the NB border). Well, we turned off the main highway at about 7:15....by 8:30 it started to rain...the roads got worse and worse and were very bumpy. The going was slow. By 9:15 we'd hit the last tiny town on the map and kept going...2 minutes later the road turned into a dirt logging road. At this stage of the game we still hadn't seen a single sign for the reserve, so were a little worried we'd taken a wrong turn. Anyways, we went back up to a convenience store and asked for directions...the guy was a little surprised that we were heading to the reserve this late at night, and told us the campground was "atleast an hour away - at a good clip" and that the road were all dirt and some were not in very good shape, and none were lit at night.
That was enough to discourage us from taking on the challenge, so we abandoned our reservation for that place and started looking for....a HOBO CAMP! Yes folks, Laura was about to have her first run in with hobo camping!! We ultimately found a pretty nice city park with a fire pit and sheltered picnic tables. We started a little fire and roasted up some weenies - it was probably 11pm by this stage, so we just quickly set up camp and packed it in. In the morning Laura started to pack back up and I hear her go "huh, they even have running water!!". A minute later - "oh, there's an electrical outlet too!" The kicker though was "wow! There's a bathroom....and SHOWERS!!". Turns out that our first hobo camp wasn't in a city park, but was actually in a legit campground and we just didn't know it - Dickie, talk about the ultimate Hobo Locate!
At the cottage we've been out canoeing, and swimming ( i swam across the river, which was more of an effort than I remember in the past!) and have spent hours picking blueberries and eating ice cream. We had a nice bon fire on my beach last night, and saw shooting stars and a big full moon.
Also, simon, I saw the aquatic driving range! My cousin lives right out near there.
We head off back to Quebec, hitting up the Gaspe peninsula tonight, then tomorrow we're off to Bonaventure Island where there are lots of gannets. Hopefully I'll be able to provide atleast 1 or 2 more updates. I'm hoping to add lots of pictures to this post, but have never done it before so may have some trouble!
The only real hitch in the trip so far was the night before getting to the cottage - we're booked a camp site in this nature reserve called Rimouski ( probably about 150-200km south of the city of Rimouski, right along the NB border). Well, we turned off the main highway at about 7:15....by 8:30 it started to rain...the roads got worse and worse and were very bumpy. The going was slow. By 9:15 we'd hit the last tiny town on the map and kept going...2 minutes later the road turned into a dirt logging road. At this stage of the game we still hadn't seen a single sign for the reserve, so were a little worried we'd taken a wrong turn. Anyways, we went back up to a convenience store and asked for directions...the guy was a little surprised that we were heading to the reserve this late at night, and told us the campground was "atleast an hour away - at a good clip" and that the road were all dirt and some were not in very good shape, and none were lit at night.
That was enough to discourage us from taking on the challenge, so we abandoned our reservation for that place and started looking for....a HOBO CAMP! Yes folks, Laura was about to have her first run in with hobo camping!! We ultimately found a pretty nice city park with a fire pit and sheltered picnic tables. We started a little fire and roasted up some weenies - it was probably 11pm by this stage, so we just quickly set up camp and packed it in. In the morning Laura started to pack back up and I hear her go "huh, they even have running water!!". A minute later - "oh, there's an electrical outlet too!" The kicker though was "wow! There's a bathroom....and SHOWERS!!". Turns out that our first hobo camp wasn't in a city park, but was actually in a legit campground and we just didn't know it - Dickie, talk about the ultimate Hobo Locate!
At the cottage we've been out canoeing, and swimming ( i swam across the river, which was more of an effort than I remember in the past!) and have spent hours picking blueberries and eating ice cream. We had a nice bon fire on my beach last night, and saw shooting stars and a big full moon.
Also, simon, I saw the aquatic driving range! My cousin lives right out near there.
We head off back to Quebec, hitting up the Gaspe peninsula tonight, then tomorrow we're off to Bonaventure Island where there are lots of gannets. Hopefully I'll be able to provide atleast 1 or 2 more updates. I'm hoping to add lots of pictures to this post, but have never done it before so may have some trouble!
# posted by Greg @ 4:00 AM 
