July 5 to July 9

Left Quebec City (Levi) area just before the heat wave, the morning we left it was 28 at 8 am. Hot and humid!! Not a good nights sleep last night as Skipper caught another mouse at 2 am, and of course he always has to bring it to bed for us to see and admire! Yuk.

We are following Hwy 132 along the St. Lawrence River, lovely drive, one diary farm after another. Much more affluent than what we saw coming into Quebec. Stop in St. Jean Port-Joli, apparently the wood carving capital of Quebec. They have a museum here like the wax museum but wood carvings. We bought a puffin for the boat. On to Bic National Park, raining! We discover that they will not allow us to stay here as we have pets so on we go to Rimouski and find a very nice RV Park that won #1 park in Quebec last year.

July 6, off to Cap Chat weather is good so the view is great! Stop at Jardins de Metis (Reford Gardens) and spend a couple of hours walking and admiring the gardens. They have an area called "festival" where various creative genius have created their idea of the "perfect?" gardens. Well if you are familiar with Quebec "art" you will know these are very unique. There is one garden of 16 varieties of potatoes and a house built into the ground that contains 1000 potatoes wired together to produce sound and light. Remember those experiments in school? Anyway off to Cap Chat find a spot on the river, walk the beach, get my feet wet! Have our first lobster dinner here, very basic but the lobster is excellent!

July 7, (SKIPPER: Yes Missy and I are still on this trek with our parents! This morning I had the scare of my life! I was out trying to soak up a little sun when I hear these thundering feet coming at me down the beach, and then into view came these HUGE four legged creatures - monsters to me! My Dad thought they were great, but I ran to the 5th wheel as fast as my four legs could travel and hid under the table for the remainder of the morning!!)

Some fog this morning but it disappears quickly, at La Martre just below the red lighthouse there is a very bad accident involving a motorcyle it looks like, we have to detour, hate to see these kinds of things. The road is like a roller coaster! up and down and around some of the grades are 14 to 17% unbelievable!! Hope we have good brakes. The scenery is beautiful though and all we need is the sun to shine and we would be happy. Stop in Forillion National Park for lunch then off to Gaspe, drive through a patriotic spot, many Canadian flags! Then arrive in Perce and discover a quaint little tourist town, people everywhere. The rock is awesome! not a disappointment at all!! Our camp ground has a view of the rock so we decide to spend two days here instead of one.

July 8 we head into Perce for breakfast and to do some shopping, it's a beautiful day the sun is shining! Do some touring around. Go to dinner at a Pasta Restaurant, the food is to die for!! Some thunder and showers but just another excellent day.

July 9th we are up and off by 9:00!! amazing! I must admit that it is usually closer to 11:00 before we are on the road. The drive along the south coast of the Gaspe is totally different than the north, much less rugged and much more populated. In fact it seems a continuous string of homes and towns. Very hot today up to 33! and still very humid. We finally cross into New Brunswick and find our campground at Black Point, right on the water, Chaleur Bay and again we decide to spend two nights. Max and I go for a swim and cool off. Not long until the thunder starts and the clouds roll in and the rain comes, but it doesn't last long and we are able to eat outside.

In closing today I must say we were all a little nervous of the reception we would receive in Quebec. But after our time there we are all very impressed with the friendliness of the Quebecers. Everyone treated us very kindly and were interested in where we came from etc. Max and I feel like we need to learn some french!!