More sightseeing and silliness

The last batch of Quebec photos, I promise...

Zoom in to spot Nimue in the longhouse at the Huron site in Wendake:

She was right under the canoe.

Later, she pretended to be an inukshuk

Lest you think Nimue was the only mimic in the bunch, here's Chad:

Nimue responds to parental goofiness by trying (and failing) to re-orient the cannon toward us.

A little bit of rain was not a problem.

We climbed the remains of an old mill along the Jacques-Cartier River.

Nimue played with dried-out mud

and we discovered a road lined with old bread-baking outbuildings.  If you look closely, you see that this one was built in 1652.

Chad and I rode by Montmorency Falls, where I noted that it looked to be about the same size as Snoqualmie Falls (default from my youth of what a waterfall should be).   

When I got home, I looked up the stats:

Montmorency Falls: 84 meters tall, 46 meters wide

Snoqualmie Falls: 82 meters tall, 28 meters wide

so my eyes and memory are not so bad.

Some nights Nimue was all to ready to go to bed,

 and some nights she wasn't!

Things one does at forts in Quebec

One of the things we enjoyed exploring while in Quebec were the star-shaped forts along the St.Lawrence, built back in the 1800's when the locals were worried about pesky Americans invading.  These fortifications were never used, but line the river in the region.

While we were in Quebec City, we took a guided tour of the Citadelle and Museum of the Royal 22^e Régiment of the Canadian Forces.  Our tour guide was informative, funny, and clearly serious about the  national pride in the Royal 22^e Régiment, who still are quartered on the site.  

We enjoyed the view,

learned about the buildings,

cannons, (this one looked like a bug to me),

and the people.

For all the national pride, there was still room for touristic silliness.

 

 

The goat, Batisse the 12th, is the mascot of the Royal 22^e Régiment, was not out for all to see the day we were there, much to Nimue's dismay, so we had to make due with the pictures.

Nimue also spent some time exploring the ramparts leading up to the fort.

They warned one of the obvious, but didn't bother with fences to save people from their own stupidity. We thought the graphic was funny.

We also stopped by Fort #1 in Levis.  Here, we enjoyed a self-guided tour, and explored the ramparts looking back across the river toward Quebec City.

Bill and Faith check out the cannon.

Ma and Ni climb yet another set of stairs with tired legs

and Nimue figured out what one ought to do with a nice grassy slope in the sunshine.

When we got back to the bikes where they were locked to the fence, we discovered that the lawn had been mowed around them, leaving sticky green bits of plant matter everywhere. Not a recipe for Chad happiness, but at least it didn't affect the function in any way -- merely made the bikes a little bit dirtier. Better to be pelted with grass than cannonballs, I say.

Cycling surfaces in Quebec

During our bike trip, we encountered a variety of surfaces on which to ride.  By and large, it was pretty good -- the Route Verte is generally well-routed along a combination of rail-trail conversions, quiet roads, and separated bike paths.  Here is a taste:

Many delightful gravel rail-trail conversions, either flat or very gently graded, often running through the woods or next to rivers (or both).  These are friendly to all and were my favorite :)

Some of these trails were paved, or as in this case, in the process of being paved

An occasional dirt road, haring off into the farmland.  This one wasn't on the map, but had a sign indicating that it was going the way we wanted to go, so we followed it, hoping for a shortcut to bypass a busy road in town.  I'm not sure it was any shorter, but it did bypass town, so we dubbed it an "interesting cut".

Most of the route was well-signed

 and had occasional interesting trail furniture to navigate through.

We went over a couple of bridges with narrow bike lanes going in the general vicinity of Quebec City

 including a bike-and-ped-only suspension bridge

 and also got to ride a bike trail under the bridge on our approach into Old Town.

Chad and I took a cute little ferry over the river at one point on our big ride day together.  More bikes than cars on this one!

And, of course, I picked a road with an egregious grade to get up to the hotel after getting off the ferry. (I did hop off for a bit, mostly because he likes to climb at a much faster cadence than I do on the steep stuff.)  These things just find me.

Kid home again

My somewhat bedraggled kid came home from camp

with a dragon on her arm.

She had lots of fun and did many farm chores, which she may or may not choose to write about, and seems to be bigger that when she left.

While she was gone, I racked up a total of 36,000 vertical feet climbed on foot and/or mountain bike in 11 days, finishing all the trails in the open space district for the year,

fixed everything that had piled up on the sewing table,

went out to dinner several times and up to the symphony with Chad,

and finished making the apricot liqueur that has been soaking for a month.

Eating on the Quebec bike trip

One of the fun things about a bike trip, or even just traveling in general, is the food that one finds along the way.  The bike just makes it much easier to stop, when, for example, you find a duck farm on your route.

Le Canard Goulu (pictured above) is the supplier of fois gras for all the good restaurants in the region, and is well known for its fine duck products.  Of course I had to make sure our route went right past it :)  Nimue enjoyed visiting the white Muscovy ducks, and the woman inside the shop was nice enough to help me pick a tasty snack to add to our picnic stash.

A few miles down the road, we ran across a cheese shop attached to a rather large cheese-making facility.  Mmmm, more snacks.  Note the little orange "Arret Gourmand" sign -- the gourmet stops were often good places to pick up things for lunch.

Some days, we had to rely on trail mix we carried with us.  Or leftover pizza.

Other days, there was food at tourist stops.  (this one is the Huron village reconstruction at Wendake).  Even Faith occasionally eats an ice cream bar!

Sometimes, we cyclists were thirsty, rather than hungry.  In the apple-growing area of the province, it is a good idea to look for a ciderie.  The first one we tried to stop at was not yet open for the season, but the second one had a wide selection of comestibles to sample.

And, they had a nice patio where they would let you sit and drink your beverage of choice.  In this case, it was unfermented apple must -- a most delicious cider that Nimue picked out.  We had the added benefit here of enjoying our beverage for long enough that Bill and Faith caught up to us and joined in on the fun.

Speaking of things wet, the only rain we saw on the trip was first thing in the morning on the day we had planned to walk around Old Town Quebec.  Nimue responded by hiding everything except her eyes under coat, hat, and warm beverage.

For dinners, we relied on Bill's excellent, carefully-researched restaurant choices, which meant we ate rather well :)  The standout in my mind was a restaurant called Toast! in Quebec City, which served foie gras from the farm we had stopped at earlier in the trip, along with many and varied other interesting bits of yum.

We did run into one day where it was hard to find food.  Apparently June 24 is a national holiday and things were closed when we arrived in Saint-Michel-de-Bellechasse around lunchtime -- except for a tiny little internet cafe/photography studio that only served espresso drinks.  Nimue got lucky (I didn't think we'd get away with drinking lattes in front of her without getting her one too.)  The interesting photographer guy running the place, J. Lauzier,  only spoke a little English (about on par with our French), but we gathered that he had *never* made a coffee for someone so young, and was amused by it.  We also admired his work around the small shop.

Note that Chad focussed on the coffee and not on the kid when he took the photo...

Oh, look -- we are still carrying around an extra bottle of cider!  And this one was cider for grown-ups.  A fine way to kill some time while waiting for Bill and Faith to arrive at the hotel.  Enhanced by fresh strawberries from the farmers' market at the port across the street from the hotel. (devoured by Nim before a picture could be taken)

Also not pictured are the amazing giant ice cream cones hand-dipped in a thick layer of high-quality chocolate that Chad and I found at the Chocolaterie de l'Ile d'Orleans in Saint-Petronille.  Totally worth the half hour wait in line, and powered us through the last 25 miles of our long day on the tandem.

And last but not least, at lunch stops, sometimes you even find a playground!