Once we were finished at Baddeck it was time to put the
pedal to the medal and say farewell to Nova Scotia. And New Brunswick. Goodbye
Maritimes! You've been wonderful.
Next stop, Quebec City!
A couple issues with that…
Um… You can’t travel from Cape Breton Island to Quebec City
in a day – especially when that driving day starts at two in the afternoon. (Well,
you probably can if you get up really early, and don’t mind driving until
really late, and don’t have a trailer to pull behind you.) Okay, whatever. We’d
get there the next day. No big deal. We overnighted in the Wal-Mart parking lot
in Miramichi, and then headed into Quebec via the edge of the Gaspe Peninsula.
It was at this point we got the bright idea to actually call
the campgrounds around Quebec City. They were all full. Apparently something
about it being the weekend – and a long weekend in nearly every other province,
to boot – and, you know, the people of Quebec like to camp. Oops! Not sure how we completely missed these facts,
but it was a good thing we had called ahead. Apparently not being on any sort
of schedule has made us totally lose track of things like days of the week,
holidays, etc., etc. (Hmm, guess that’s
going to have to stop soon!)
Time for plan number two! Quickly looking at campgrounds
along our route, we opted to stop sooner rather than later and pulled into
Camping Amqui, just outside of Amqui, QC, where they had one spot available for
us. We had no idea what was in the area, or what the campground would really be
like (because websites and reality don’t always mesh), but it turned out to be
one of those gems you just happen upon once in a while.
We never left the campground – we didn't need to.Shortly after arriving, Lily made friends with a bilingual family. The kids played, and learned some new French words (The little girl was adorable, speaking French at me – and fully expecting me to get it. Surprisingly enough, I could figure out what she generally was talking about – kids are easier to interpret than adults.) It was really nice to get in some adult conversation.We all kayaked along the edge of Matapedia Lake in the double kayaks that are available to rent, and later went swimming in the pool. The campground had activities during the day, and festivities complete with music, food and fireworks in the evening. A walk around the campground unveiled bushes and bushes of ripe saskatoons, ready for picking. It was obvious that no one knew what they were, and I had them all to myself. (Or would have if my two little locusts hadn't inhaled them all. I was going to make a pie – the berries never got that far.) Yummy!
Their laundry was
inexpensive and I took the opportunity to wash everything I could (I love cheap
laundry! The semi-standard four dollars to wash and dry gets really painful on
the pocketbook. Especially when you have children that just Refuse to Stay Clean.) Oh, yeah, and they had recycling bins
that took everything (Have I said before I hate throwing out recyclables? So much waste already ends up where it shouldn't, I try to do a little bit to keep the world clean.We
end up collecting bags and bags of them in the hope we’ll encounter a recycling
bin somewhere).
In a nutshell, it was an ideal stop for us.
 |
| Munchie joined in Lily's tea party |
We had only planned to spend a night, but ended up staying
two (having to move campsites on day two, but ending up basically kitty corner
to where we had been, which meant the kids were even closer to their new
friends).
I love it when good things happen unexpectedly!
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