St. Louis Du Ha! Ha! had the last laugh

Day One, June 30th:  Lawrencetown to Rignaud.

Distance 1,343kms

Wildlife spotted:  not a damned thing.  My fifth time through New Brunswick and I still haven’t seen a moose. 

We left Lawrencetown at 6.30am and made good time to the New Brunswick border.  It was grey and misty and the wind farm near the Tantramar marshes looped round and round slowly in the mist. 

We weren’t an hour into New Brunswick when the sun broke through and made the trees shine bright green.  Despite that we agreed it was a very boring province to drive through.  The farmlands along the river valleys are very pretty, but most of the province is an enormous tree farm.    As we drove past Fredericton and up along the St. John river valley, we imagined what it must have been like for the American Loyalists who left farms, towns, and even New York city and moved up here in the 1700s to start again.  Hewing a life out of the forest.

Himself’s ancestor, Daniel Leeman, was a soldier who helped provision the settlers along the river, before he himself settled on Deer Island.  We stopped in to Kings Landing to use the bathroom and say hello to the past, but Tourism NB wanted forty bucks to wander round the farm, so we passed and moved on.  Lotta miles to cover today.

A little while later we passed a large van idling up the highway, blinkers on.  As we passed on the fast lane, we noticed a teenage girl rollerblading up the highway by herself in front of the van.  I still can’t figure out how she roller-blades uphill.  Himself reckons that she’ll have a hard go of Montreal if she hits it at rush hour.

We got past Edmundston and into Quebec by 3pm.  We needed coffee, water, a pee, and some food.  We missed the exit for Cabano and decided to pull into St. Louis du Ha! Ha!  The joke was on us though, the town was in the rural Canadian coma that so many are nowadays, and after a bit of searching we found an alimentaire that sold water and beer but no coffee.  We stocked up on the beer for the campsite later.

Forty minutes later we swerved past Riviere du Loupe and hit the St. Lawrence seaway.  Clouds were coming in fast from the north and  the Pelerin islands were just a haze in the bay.  Beyond them, the Laurentides were layered to create perspective as if by a Flemish landscape master.  We finally got our coffee at an Irving stop and just as we paid there was an almighty clap of thunder and the power went out. 

The storm roared down over us and visibility was reduced to zero except when the lightning flashed.  We finally drove out from under it and stopped for a bbq chicken in St Appollinaire.  Just as we ordered our food, the storm spun round and came at us again.  A fork of lightening hit the restaurant sign, but the power just flickered and held.

Camping didn’t seem to be an option at this stage so we outdrove the storm again (my thoughts were with roller-blade girl), and finally outran it for good at Montreal. 

Through the tunnel and out onto the #25 through the city.  The signs said ‘circulation fluide’.  At 8pm on a Saturday you would expect that, but still it is always a relief to get through the city.  Finally stopped at a cheap motel in Rignaud.  We are less than an hour from Ottawa and my body is vibrating from the car.  The Chinese landlady had no English and didn’t get my French so we did our business in my learner Mandarin. 

Finally, finally we sat outside our motel and opened a beer.  I read the label.  It was in French.  Non-alcoholic beer.   Like I said, the last laugh was on us.