We were getting a little tired of the sheer amount of driving we were doing, especially in the mountains.  So, map, guide book, and cell phone in hand, we’ve re-arranged the last few days of our trip.  Less rural southern Quebec, more Quebec City, and home a day early.  KOA Lévis, we’re coming back! Now we had two more days in Quebec City.  We booked a Michelin restaurant – Légende, which had Michelin-worthy food, but maybe not Michelin service or ambiance? Still very good service, but ‘Michelin’ means it should be a cut above.  However, I’d still recommend it to anyone going to Quebec.  We wandered neighbourhoods, asking anyone local where they would recommend moving to.  We checked out real estate offices, looking at what was available.  And we shopped.  Again.  The sales clerk in Le Mouton Blanc actually hugged us good-bye as we left, that’s how much we’d spent there over three separate visits!

Oh, and, LL has decided to move here. Really.

I’m not a cat person.  I’m constantly fascinated by cat-owners who, when asked about the scratches on their arms or neck, say, ‘oh, Buttons did that this morning, the naughty thing.’  Who wants a pet that will attack?  I mean, the worst thing Scout ever did to me was throw up on my shoes – and I like to think that wasn’t intentional.  But my friend LL has the most easy-going, chill-est, most laid-back cat, Safiya.  Safiya RV’ed across Canada and the US in 2022/23 and is quite the seasoned camper. 

But, Safiya has one flaw: if there is a place you DON’T want her to be, that’s where she’ll go.  You’d prefer that she not ride on top of the slide-out, for fear of her either being flung to the floor at a sudden stop, or caught in the gears as the slide-out is moved?  Too bad.  You don’t want her crawling beneath the gas pedal because you can’t get her out and you’re afraid to start the engine?  Too bad.  And you really don’t want her climbing into the hole under the bed slide-out in case she gets stuck and can’t be retrieved?  Too bad. 

But all of that aside, she’s a great traveller, and could almost make me a cat person.  Almost.

You expect differences when you travel from province to province.  And not just terrain.  Obviously there are language differences, differing levels of multi-ethnicity, different traffic signage, and so on.  You also expect certain consistencies across Canada – for example, most Canadians are polite and friendly.  Tim Hortons is Tim Hortons.  And, grocery store chains are going to be all the same.  Wrong.  I noticed it last year, and it was even more evident this year – Quebec consumers are far more interesting than Ontarians, at least based on their grocery stores. 

I had thought the IGA in Chambly was the most impressive grocery store I had visited in Canada (and I’ve shopped Whole Food, Farm Boy, Pusateri’s, etc…), but then we went to the Pasquier Delson in Sainte-Catherine.  Ooh, mon dieu.  The choices in the cheese, deli, meats, and junk food sections are amazing.  Next year I plan to travel to the Maritimes and I’ve decided: no grocery shopping before leaving the GTA; I’ll just wait until I hit the South Shore to stock up.  I mean, what is a holiday without smoked duck, or boar sausage, or potato chips from Breton, France?  Really.

I’m sure Parc du Bic is a lovely National Park, and we were to spend a couple of days there.  But somehow, after pulling in and parking, it just didn’t grab us. I think we felt we’d Gaspé’ed out.  And, we were rather dreading the next few Harvest Host stops with our faulty generator (the temperatures were starting to climb again), so, several emails and phone calls later, we had completely rearranged the last 5 days of our trip.  All our Harvest Host stops were cancelled (I made sure we confirmed with HH’s 48+ requirement for cancelling).  We left Parc du Bic first thing the next morning and headed back to the delightful KOA at Lévis/Quebec City, followed by the KOA south of Montreal (so pretty – one of the prettier campgrounds I’ve seen), then on to the truly exceptional KOA north of Kingston. 

I started to see these little restaurants in almost every town we passed: Dixie Lee.  By the end of the week, we had seen at least 10 of these fried-chicken places, even though neither of us had ever heard of them.  LL is a fried-chicken nutter, but, because of their low-key signage, we would have always already passed one before we had realised it was there.  So, when we saw there was one in Amqui, one of our last towns in the Gaspésie, well, we had to stop. 

According to the map on the paper tray-liner, these places are all over eastern Quebec, New Brunswick, and parts of Nova Scotia. 

It was okay.  I liked the fries, but LL said the chicken was just okay.  And that the vinegar tasted weird?!?!? 

Anyhoo, we had another uniquely east-Canadian experience.

This trip has been a lot of driving.  A LOT.  To the point where, by the end of the day, we’re often too tired to do anything else.  But there were a couple reasons why this surfeit of driving happened.  First of all, we wanted to see Gaspé.  And it’s big – really big (I’m not sure I realised that).  Both of us had to be back in the GTA by a certain date, so that was limiting.  And, because of Elbows Up, more people are camping in Canada.  It was very hard to get a campground for more than two nights in a row – in fact, around the long weekend (June 22 is Gaspésie Day and June 24 is St-Jean-Baptiste Day) the best I could do was one night at aa time at several places. 

So when we saw a sign for the Acadian Museum in Bonaventure, I felt we needed to go in.  Otherwise, we’d just be driving from camping ground to camping ground (with an occasional stop at a distillery or a poissonnerie).

The museum was very interesting and well done – learned a great deal about the mass deportation of the Acadians from Nova Scotia (the English really do have a lot to answer for). And even bought a birthday present for someone for next year. 

All my life I’ve seen pictures of Percé Rock.  I had imagined that it was way off the shore, and we’d be lucky to see it from the mainland.  But as we drove into the village of Percé, and then on to our campsite, we discovered that it is right there.  Less than a kilometre offshore – at low tide, you can walk to it (although we did not try that).  And on such a beautiful sunny day, it was spectacular.

Today was driving lessons, including how to use a tow-haul, and gearing down on steep downhill grades.  It seems the Appalachian Mountains don’t simply end at the Canada/US border, but actually start in southern Quebec. How delightful. LL is a good teacher, but I was glad when the day was over.  On the upside – all of Ontario and Quebec is blanketed in a heat wave, except for our cool little corner of Gaspé.  Thank heavens.

We left our campground mid-morning, planning to wend our way around the coast to Percé, knowing not much would be open on a Sunday.  We got 10 minutes out of the campground, and were just leaving the town of Cap Chat, when we looked at each other and said, ‘That distillery we just passed – do you suppose it makes gin?  Do you suppose it’s open?’  Google said the answer to both was Yes, so we turned around and went back.  Obvs. 

I couldn’t do any tasting, as I was driving, but as well as a lovely gin, we each bought a bottle of an olive-flavoured eau-de-vie, which the salesman assured us was good for deglazing the pan when grilling meat or fish.  Hunh. Then, back on the road, gin laden, as God intended.

As well as being my mother’s birthday, June 24^th is St Jean Baptiste Day, a national holiday.  As per usual, LL & I have managed to hit a tourist area when everything will be closed.  Hopefully, there will be some festivities to enjoy instead.

Edit: We didn’t find too many festivities, but we did find some amazing poissoneries.  We’ve bought a lot of seafood on this trip, and we’re only halfway through.  All the fish mongers are so helpful, and the produce is fresh and cheap.