Blowing it in Quebec

It was a quiet solstice for us.....hopefully, some of our friends made up for us by doing proper druidish things. We got up the next morning ready to greet the first day of summer, by investigating the National Historic Site near Trois Rivieres, where, in the early 1700's through until the late 1800's, the area was known for its iron production, with smelters and forges. "Les Forges de St. Maurice" was extremely well presented, with explanations of the operations that even I could understand.






This sundial correctly gave us the time as 09:40, but then I remembered we are on daylight savings time.....can anyone tell me how the sun knew that?









We spent three to four hours there, before setting out in our car for the next short leg to Quebec City. The highway on the south side of the St. Lawrence appeared to be a bit less of an autoroute, and more scenic, so we crossed over to that side on the only bridge over the river between Montreal and Quebec. We then meandered along the south side of the river, enjoying the scenery, but getting aghast at the rising prices of gas, which had gone from 98.9 near Montreal to 111.9/liter. During the drive, we've been speaking to each other in french (or trying to), and listening to french radio stations (yes- we still had a choice of some english ones). Fourty-some years makes a long gap for our memories of high school french! We arrived at a KOA campground in south Quebec early in the afternoon, and checked in, then headed out for a bit of sightseeing, and shopping. The area around here has a lot of market farming, with large fields of vegetables and fruits.....we picked up some just-picked field ripe strawberries at a road stand, and some groceries in a local supermarket. Back for another quiet evening of tenting. June 24 (tomorrow) is Jean Baptiste day, also called La Fete Nationale (National Holiday). I'm not entirely sure why John the Baptist got involved in Quebec Nationalism, but it is this day which is celebrated vigorously as a day of remembering the francophone roots of this province. The whole province gears up for a big celebraton, with parades, concerts, picnics, and of course, no work (big holiday). Many people have started the celebrations a day early (in fact, this last weekend, as the actual day is mid-week, on Wednesday). Fleur-de-lis flags fly everywhere, and are painted on peoples faces, as well. We drove into the old city this morning, and made like big-time tourists. We have often been called upon to use our impressive vocabulary in French, but whenever we speak, somehow the people instinctively know we are non-native speakers, and switch to English. If it wasn't so convenient, it could be embarrasing. The old city is walled from the old fortress, with brick and stone/masonry buildings lining the streets and alleys. We walked our feet off, and stopped for lunch in the lower part of the old town, below the ramparts.







Le Chateau, and boardwalk, Quebec City











Very nice, but now our budget is blown! (A couple of sanwiches, with beer cost us $47.00, before tip.....and we've been close to maximizing our budgetary means most of the week. We continued walking, taking in the grassy lawns on the Plains of Abraham, where people were starting to assemble for this evening's soiree for the beginning of the Fete Nationale.



The ladies of Quebec dress very stylishly!










Several popular groups and singers were practising and setting up.....none of the names are familiar to us, but they are apparently quite well-known and popular here. By late afternoon it was time to head back to our site, and to total up our accounts for this week.
Being Tuesday, it is again a Day of Reckoning. So here it is: Distance travelled this week: 1559.7 KM Costs: Gas - $195.34 Food - $209.12 Accommodation - $226.41 Other - $98.93 Total - $729.98 So this week we indeed blew our budget by almost $30.00. However, our past four weeks were all under, so we are still, in total, under our targeted costs.....but our cushion for emergencies, ferries, odd luxuries (like celebrating Linda's Birthday in a couple of weeks?) has shrunk a bit.




Linda bags a Moose in Quebec City!











We were originally planning to stay in Quebec City for Jean Baptiste Day, tomorrow, but likely now we will continue a short distance east, and possibly we can make it to Charlottetown, PEI for the next big celebration, Canada Day on July 1 (seems appropriate to aim for the original city of Confederation for that).