Maskinonge to Riviere Bleue and beyond

After a night in the bean fields, it was time to make a mile.

As was expected, there was not much English to be heard or seen in Quebec.  Road signs are mostly obvious, except the ones describing the intimate details of the next detour!  I like the horizontal-style traffic lights that are common here, with two reds, one at each end.

I was also fortunate enough to see Jacques Villeneuve (F1 driver) on the road, twice(!), driving two different cars!  Well, at least it must have been him as no one else could safely tail-gate at a half-car length at 110Km/hr!

Montreal was successfully skirted to the north, though we were close enough to go by Mirabel airport. I noted that Montreal and Quebec City are the only two place names in the province that do not include ‘Saint’ and at least three hyphens! 

On we cruised through Donnacona (OK, three places), just west of Quebec City, and found the McDonalds free wi-fi was slow, and in French!  We crossed the St. Lawrence at Quebec City

 

and succeeded in catching a rock or some other projectiles in the windshield, which made a nice bruise.

I starting to think that all the road bugs in Canada must be in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.  In those provinces, keeping the windshield and radiator clear in the summer is a constant challenge.  But I noticed that once I got into the bush of Ontario and further east, there has hardly been a smashed bug on my window!  I am certainly driving pretty slowly, which helps, but I was driving slow in those provinces as well and still became plastered in bugs.

From the river crossing in Quebec City, we followed the south shore of the river as much as possible almost up to Riviere-du-Loup.

Lots of beautiful and well cared for houses seen in this area of Quebec. 

Almost every house is immaculate, with landscaping and flowers, and grass mowed like a golf course. Some pretty large houses with a river view, 

and, some not so big ones!

 

And the churches!  Every little town has a huge church with intricate rock work and steeples. 

And there are cemeteries everywhere as well.  Must be a lot of dead people here. Along the way, we had to fill the tank with diesel in St. Augustine at $1.30/L, and the price of gas was worse.

Since we were headed towards New Brunswick, we found a secondary highway leading through Pohenegamook. Clearly, they had some letters left over when naming all the ‘Saint’ towns and just tossed them all in the hat to name this one!

Since it was getting to be that time of day, a small municipal park on the edge of Riviere Bleue (Blue River)filled the bill with apparently free camping, a decent bathroom and a water tap.

Next: New Brunswick!