Today I was able to upload more pictures on yesterday’s post that wouldn’t upload at the Montreal Hojo.
This morning I filled-up with “Ordinaire”, which I think means Regular gas for C$102.4 per litre. It was by far the most expensive fill-up of my journey, but still less than C$17 for a full tank. As I rode est [French for east] on route 20, it was cool, breezy and mostly sunny. I took lunch 40 miles est of Montreal at Tim Horton’s, an upscale Canadian version of Subway and had a nice club sandwich with cream of broccoli soup. I’m pretty sure the Canuck’s took a page out of Obama’s stimulus playbook, because the road construction up here is every bit as extensive as in the U.S.
At a rest stop along the way I met Sam, who is a Vietnam Vet and a computer engineer. He’s riding a BMW GS 650 from his home in Michigan to the easternmost point in North America, I think it’s somewhere in Nova Scotia. We chatted for quite a while and it turns out he used to live in the Bay Area and he worked at IBM on Cottle Road. He said the wind was blowing his bike around quite a bit today and I mentioned that this breeze is nothing compared to the gale-force winds of the Badlands in South Dakota. Welcome to my blog Sam.
After the break it was a short ride into Quebec City. I checked into a nice motel on the main drag about 5 miles from Old Quebec. This place has a lot of history; the old town is a walled-in city with canons surrounding it. The French and British fought over this place numerous times and the French finally won. I think there are as many French flags here as there are Canadian. The city is a modern metropolis of 500,000, but the old town is stuck in a time warp, circa 1850 and it’s charming as Hell. It seems as if someone dug-up a quaint French town and plopped it in eastern Canada. The demographics are: 97.5% Caucasian; 95% French speaking. It’s as close as you can get to France in North America. Fortunately, unlike France, when you wave U.S. dollars here, the people suddenly learn to speak English. I walked all around old town and took pictures before having dinner of fabulous French onion soup, local beer and a baguette in a quaint little French pub.
After dinner I wandered around old town searching for my bike, but no luck. I hailed a taxi and described the street where it was parked. The cabbie quickly found it and I gave him a tip that got me a huge Merci Boku! I was just happy not to be wandering in circles saround freezing old Quebec. By now it was after 10 PM, it was cold, and I was eager to watch the second half of the 49ers game. When I got to my room the it was fortunate there are 2 English channels, ESPN and Discovery; the score was SF 7; NO 9. For 49ers fans following this blog, you know what happened and it was one of the most exciting and disappointing Monday Night Football games of all time; A true heartbreaker for us die-hard Niner fans. Despite the devastating 25:23 loss, the 49ers showed guts and it’s clear they can compete with the World Champions, but mistakes killed them tonight.
I’m not going to insist that you add Quebec to your Bucket List, because it’s a Tourist trap, but if you haven’t been to Paris, do yourself a favor and visit Quebec. Tomorrow, I’m planning to see more sights here before heading back to the US of A.
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