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October 4 Tuesday Bicycle touring from Oka Quebec to somewhere along the St Lawrence River We survived another day in Quebec. We got up leisurely after 8 AM, letting the rush hour traffic subside. Cycling along route 344, we found nary a spot without houses all the way past Laval and Montreal. They have a fetish for stop signs here. They are everywhere. We are on the main road and a teensy little road will enter from the side and there will be a three-way stop. In some places every block has four-way stops. My knees are killing me from all the starting and stopping. It took forever to get anywhere. Good bicycle touring. Kidding. We stopped in Rosetown for breakfast at 11 beside a duck pond. Some preschoolers were out for a nature walk. All was calm until seven boys showed up from a nearby school with their lunches. They didn't eat much of their lunches though. First they chased the ducks and swans into the water and then sat on benches and tore their sandwiches into pieces to hurl into the water. Next, they threw their apples into the duck house shelter which is in the middle of the pond, built up out of the water. Finally, they filled their plastic lunch bags with water and chucked them onto the roof of the duck house. I see these kids are environmentally aware. Four other kids come from the opposite direction. Must be another school over there. One boy is deaf. They came over to us and started speaking to us in English right away. Maybe they took the cue from my Canada flag? They asked if we were on a Tour du Canada. We told them we were. The one boy, about twelve years old, says "As soon as I saw those bags, I said 'They're not out for a ride around the park.'" He says he always wanted to ride his bike across Canada. It is warm when the sun is on us, but it is chilly in the shade with a bit of wind. This beats the 25 centimetres of snow Calgary got yesterday though. They haven't even had their first frost here yet. Lots of pumpkins for sale. Great stacks of them everywhere. We are having a tough time finding a tourist information that is open. I thought I found one and when I went inside it was an information place for computers. It sure surprised me. I had to laugh out loud. The next one I tried turned out to be a restaurant. I give up. Who needs a map anyway? They have some bike routes right on the highway. I don't think they are very safe though. Both lanes run on the left side of traffic. That means we are now riding on the road directly against oncoming traffic. Brilliant idea, eh? It would be somewhat better if they at least had the farthest lane going toward the traffic and the inside lane going with traffic. Route 344 ended at Hwy 640. We are not allowed to ride our fully loaded touring bicycles on Hwy 640. We zigged around and finally came to Hwy 136. We found some picnic tables outside a roadside café. The café is made from a bus. We made chili for supper. I asked an old lady across the road if we could camp by the bus. She didn't speak any English. We had a lengthy conversation, but I don't think she understood what I said and I only picked up snippets of what she was saying. She doesn't own the bus. We are camped beside the bus, right alongside the St. Lawrence. A few large vessels are going down the river, sweeping noiselessly past in the dark. Their wake creates waves on the shore a couple of minutes later. We had an over 100 kilometre bike ride today. |
