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1 to 15 August 2011 16 to 31 August 2011

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Foggy and low clouds for today.
A view from the campground towards the Saint-Lawrence river at low tide.

On our way to visit the CIMM (part of "The group for research and education on marine mammals"). We got hit by a big rainstorm.

Sculpted belugas at the entrance of the CIMM.

Even if the center is in French only, all the employees are fluent in English. I strongly recommended this visit before going on a whale-watching cruise. This way you can understand much more about the whales and the environment they live in.

Before we head back home, a short stop at the internet Café Bohème. Nice place, but very noisy and with very slow service. We prefer the internet café at Les Bergeronnes.

A very good day, not too busy!

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

We are taking the ferry to go across the Saguenay for a visit at Baie-Saint-Catherine, population.....214 souls.

On our way down to the ferry in Tadoussac.

Good idea to carry your kayak!

Looking at the Saguenay River and the fjord.

Not much to do in Baie-Saint-Catherine, so we chose to go hiking the trail to the falls.

When we had an indication for the falls it was great, but lots of time, we did not have an indication!

You can almost always find interesting stuff in the forest, like this set of wheels... What were they for?

The trail was not very well maintained and used by quads. There were lots of other trails coming to or going off the main trail. And very few indications as to which one was the right one.

The falls are very nice.

The infrastructures require repairs, sad!

The sun was even part of our hike.

A few photos of the trail.

An island with white dots?
Seagulls.

The GPS was a little confused with the ferry ride!
We took a "different" road then recommended.

A glass of red wine, a good book and a campfire, what a good way to end a good day.

Thursday, August 18,2011

A day of rest.
A quick trip to the internet café at Les Bergeronnes and we are back with a good book and getting ready to leave tomorrow.

Friday, August 19, 2011

A beautiful day to travel, sunny and not too warm.

Between Tadoussac and Baie-Saint-Catherine, they have 3 ferries going at all times.
We only have to wait 5 minutes to get on the next ferry.

Only going at 4 km/h because we are coming up to the dock.

We have not seen this sign before coming to Québec. It indicates the exit of a campground.

We are still travelling on secondary road 138. We leave behind the Whale Road to follow the St-Lawrence River Road.

The Charlevoix tourist region is a beautiful place with the Saint-Lawrence river on one side and the mountains on the other.
Very beautiful

In the last century, the church played a very important role in Québec.
Every village has this very big church, a monument of our past, and present!

Once we got to Baie-Saint-Paul, we could not find any signs to direct us to an information center!
We parked the motorhome at the local shopping center and take off with the car looking for one.
First thing, do not go with a travel trailer or big motorhome in downtown Baie-Saint-Paul!

But before we went hunting for the information center, a pit stop for a good smoked meat sandwich.

We found the information center close to the church.

The big thing for Baie-Saint-Paul are the painters and sculptors who have art galleries on the Rue St-Jean-Baptiste.

Our campground in Baie-Saint-Paul, gouffre means abyss.

Very nice campground, but only a small little problem. They have this nice little farm in the middle of the campground. Nothing bad other then Dodu, Pong and Ping are pigs and the smell like... pigs when the temperature hits +28 C.

More photos of our site later.

We are staying here until Monday, lots to see and do here in Baie-Saint-Paul and the Isle-aux-Coudres.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

A little bit of history, Jacques Cartier discovered the island in 1535. He named it "Isle-Aux-Coudres" for he found plenty of hazelnut trees called "coudriers".

Some stats about the Island. With an area of 30 square km, a width of only 3.6 km and a length of 10.4 km, it is not a very big island. To go around the island you will need to cover about 23.3 km total.

Let's go to Isle-aux-Coudres. We have to take a free ferry ride to get there.

A very steep hill to get to the ferry...

AAAHHH! A cruise!

Once on the island, we stopped at a small private museum with an observation tower.
Can you see us in the photo?
In the next photo, we can see the next museum we will visit.

The museum, loosely translated by "Water Cars", kind of nice.

We liked this little museum.

The next stop is at the Pedneault cider place, where they make ... cider... and wine from apples and pears.

Just cute...

The wind was pretty strong today and lots of peoples were taking advantage of the wind to do some "kite-surfing".

Tonight, we are going to a play at the Auberge La Coudriere. The play is called "Cheeeese!"
We arrived too early, so we stop and did some reading and had a good meal before the play.

We could not take any photos of the play, but it sure was a good play.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

A gray and rainy day. Off we got to visit a vineyard.

The Omerto vineyard makes wine from tomato and it is the only one in the world to do so.
No, it is not red! Very good wine with seafood. Pascal, the owner, told us all about making wine with tomatoes and the history behind it. Very interesting.

After a tasting of wine (and purchasing!), we are back in Baie-Saint-Paul. We stop for a visit to the museum/store of "Spruce gum".
The owner was very interesting to listen to. But he will be closing his museum /store because of the way our government, at both levels, making it hard to continue. Sad to see this tradition go!
We forgot to take photos so all we have is this small stove.

After supper, we are on our way back to the Isle-aux-Coudres for a show with two good stand up comics.

Here the GPS shows us the MAX speed we hit on the way over.

Good show, but again, no photos.
Tomorrow we are driving back to Berthierville.

Monday, August 22 to Thursday, August 25, 2011

Before we leave Baie-Saint-Paul, here are some photos of our campsite at the campground du gouffre.

The road between Baie-Saint-Paul and Québec city is very steep at times.

We will be at Michele's brother's place for over a week.

Nice weather, but the pool water is on the cold side.

We spend a very nice week at Patrice's place, just plain good old family time.

Friday and Saturday, August 26 and 27, 2011

We left the motorhome at Patrice's place and we are now in St-Jérome at my sister's place, Christianne, until Sunday.

The reason we are back just for a few days is that we have a family reunion at my other sister's place with our cousins from my mom's side of the family. Confusing?

Friday night, Christianne cooked us a very nice supper.

Saturday is the big day, the reunion starts...
I will not be writing all the names of everybody and the photos are in no particular order.

Pretty Michele!

A nice group photo of the whole gang.

Let me tell you that the cameras we going full blast...

The end of the evening arrived so fast... Time to go home!

This reunion with the cousins was just great. I had not seen many, if not all of them, for a least 30 years.
So many stories and memories were shared... A pleasure to see them all

A big thank you to my sister and her husband for putting such a great party.

Sunday, August 28 to Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Christianne just about to come out on the balcony to wave us safe travel back to Patrice et Manon's place.

Kind of hard to see in the photo, but the storm Irene did hit St-Ignace. Lots of wind and rain, but no damages.

We spent the evening indoor watching TV.
Catherine getting ready to head to college in Trois-Rivières.

Monday is back to sunny weather. Why not fix my bike?

I can't believe me and Patrice are having a beer!!!

Catherine (#52) is playing soccer, Michele and Manon are in the bleachers.

We took it easy today because Patrice and Manon are at work.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Wednesday is Montreal day! We are spending some time with our youngest son, Benoit.
We spent the afternoon in Old Montreal.

We even did some biking...

Why are we so sad??? Our other son, Jérémy, is not with us...

Benoit! See you in a week or two...

It is always fun to spend time with our son Benoit.

Until next time.

Life is good...