We Must Be Travelers

“Tourist don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they are going.” (Paul Theroux)

The Gaspe’ is divided into sections, The Valley, The Coast, The Haute-Gaspesis, Land’s End, and The Bay. We have worked our way north and east to Land’s End. Yesterday we took a modified zodiac out in the Bay to look for whales. We did see some behemoths, but I enjoyed the opportunity to see the cliffs and sea caves even more. After our return to shore, we set out to hike the 7K roundtrip to Cap Gaspe’, the real “Land’s End”. Butch made a valiant effort but his knees gave way and I had to Summit on my own.
It was a stunningly beautiful walk. At the top there is a lighthouse and markers regarding the Appalachian Trail (placed by the Georgia AT group) and the international Appalachian Trail. It is just amazing to know that we have traveled along these same ancient mountains for almost 2000 miles.

Gaspe’ Bay brings bittersweet memories for those of us who lived through WWII. It was prepared as a safe area for the British Royal Navy in case Britain had to surrender to the Germans. All of the vessels at sea, who could escape, were to come here. What a sight that would have been, but how happy that it never happened.

Did a little beachcombing late yesterday. Still finding tiny piece of green glass & not much else. Didn’t these folks do anything but drink beer? Out of green bottles? We are moving on to Perce’ tomorrow. It is only 50 miles away but we want to camp on the beach again and to take the boat out to Bonaventure Island to see the bird colonies.

Can you say Travoux? (Road Work)

After four days on route 132 we have learned a new word. Travoux means "road work" and it is the most common sign seen in Quebec.

We really enjoyed Reviere-du-Loup but  we needed to move on. The drive up the western coast of the  Gaspe' along the St. Lawrence River (Seaway) was terrific. There are dozens of little villages spaced only three to five miles apart, each with a huge church and store or two and many brightly colored houses. Each village has a campground, usually right along the beach.. We stopped several times to walk on the beach and to search for sea glass. We camped at Mont-Louis, a little village grouped around a cove. Our campsite was right on the beach and I picked up about a cup full of sea glass, mostly the ubiquitous green, but some blue and red pieces as well. We walked to an award-wining restaurant in the village for dinner.

I could have stayed longer at Mont-Louis but we are running into another holiday weekend, Canada Day. Butch and I have spent 9 of the past 10 years in Canada on Canada Day and we knew from experience that we needed to get settled before the hordes descend or we

would be camping at Walmart.  Traveling northwards, Highway 132 began to climb and to edge along cliffs far above the seaway, much like the Pacific Coast Highway. Very spectacular scenery so we stopped often to take photos and enjoy it. We skirted Forillon National Park in favor of an early arrival at Gaspe' (au Sandy Beach). We used On-Star to track down a campground and found a spot at Camping Gaspe'. Needless to say, the National Park CG's were full.

This is a pleasant little private park. The owners have wintered in Daytona Beach for 39 years and speak English well. They were very anxious to accommodate us and although our site is small, the setting is very nice and we are comfortable. There is another couple from the lower 48 here, from North Carolina! This is the first time since we left NY that we have had English-speaking neighbors.

We drove over to Forillon NP today and saw some spectacular scenery. We will be going back tomorrow.

Keep the Camping Karma Coming

Last year, when we went to Alaska, I did a Blog from time to time about our trip. I am the ultimate over-planner and I planned myself into a frenzy. This year we are headed north to Somewhere. We have been so busy getting our NC house ready to rent that I didn't have time to think about what we were going to do when the renters came. So, the first night we slept in the travel trailer in the Mason's barn in Farner, TN. I will admit that it was a different experience and isn't that what travel is all about?

The next day we finished getting ready for our trip and drove as far as Bristol, TN. We had a general plan to go to the Atlantic Provinces but had done no route planning at all. We were between Knoxville and Asheville on I-40 when we learned there was a road closure ahead. Just two miles down the highway was the intersection with I-81, our route planning was done for us.

It was a no-brainer. We left the fast accumulating congestion on I-40 and joined about a million 18 wheelers going north.

As dinner time was approaching, we consulted the Camper’s Guide and decided on Shadrack Campground in Bristol, TN . I used my new tablet to look up restaurants and picked the Mad Greek for dinner. It was a race weekend in Bristol and the Mad Greek was a Mad House. The place looked like a casting call for a NASCAR movie. We waited our turn and were rewarded with an excellent dinner at a reasonable price. 

 We continued north on I-81 through Virginia. Bad road and bad traffic, but the scenery is to die for. The Blue Ridge is always visible off to the east and the valleys and vistas are stunning. A multi-vehicle accident slowed us to five miles per hour for almost an hour, so we chose Shenendoah River State Park for our second night on the road. We stayed over an extra day so that I could paddle. Butch put me in at a low water bridge and I paddled back to the campground. Wonderful! We also met a great couple, Mary and Bill, who are folksingers from Florida. They are called Heart Strings. We are hoping they can come to Sopchoppy next spring.

Our third night was spent at Lake Lackawanna SP in PA. We had stayed there before and knew it would be quiet and nice. The next day we switched from I-81 to I-88 on the advice of a trucker from Quebec that we met at a rest area. A good choice as this interstate goes up through the Adirondacks and is like a parkway. We exited at Plattsburg to stay at Cumberland Bay SP, right on Lake Champlain.

We rarely make reservations in advance but do try to work around known holidays such as Canada Day, Victoria Day, etc. Little did we know that June 24 is a national holiday in Quebec (Ste Jean the Baptiste) and the weekend before is like our 4th of July. Plattsburg is only 40 miles south of Montrial and the campgrounds were packed. By agreeing to move from site to site we managed to stay at Cumberland Bay for three nights. This gave us an opportunity to hike and raft the amazing AuSable Chasm and to take the Ferry to the Vermont islands.

Leaving Plattsburg on Saturday, we zigzagged across northern VT and NH on secondary roads, often less than five miles from the border. This is beautiful country but the roads are terrible. We stayed one night at Brighton Bay SP near Ocean Pond, VT. This was a heavily wooded little park on the shore of a generous-sized lake. We almost had the place to ourselves. This small state park out in the wilds had the most fabulous CG backrooms I have every seen. They looked like something out of a first class hotel Go figure!

The next night we stated at La Roche de Or CG near St. George, PQ.  I thought I had seen everything but I wasn't prepared for La Roche de Or. It has 300 sites, a huge swimming pool, all kinds of recreational activities, a restaurant, and campers packed in like sardines. Each campsite appeared to have at least 10 residents and everybody was yelling in French. But, camping karma kicked in again. Our assigned site was too small and we could not get into it. We were given two sites at the top of the hill with nobody around us. Very nice.

Finally, we reached Camping Municipal de La Pointe  in Riviere-du-Loup. It is a lovely place. We are up on a hill over the St. Lawrence River with spacious, shaded campsites and within walking distance of all kinds of goodies (including the "glace" store). The actual holiday (Ste Jean de Baptiste) was yesterday and even Walmart was closed. Our CG had planned a "Fete" and invited us to attend but it was rained out. We though we might take a whale-watching tour here but it is very cool and we are told that we will probably see lots of whales as we travel northward along the coast. So far we are doing splendidly.