Life is a highway , no , life is the open road !!!: Day 53

Life is good !!

August 18

I was up at my usual 5.30 and lingered in the tent a bit until I heard the truck door open , then I was off to was teeth and shave , when I got back there was Bob asking if I knew where the bacon was. Bob and Murray were part of todays cooking crew , and were suppose to make bacon and eggs for breakfast something we were all looking forward to !!. So after realizing they were not joking the search was on , the becon was last seen in our fridge last night after being transferred from the freezer to the fridge and some how went missing after that . They searched high and low for it , when Erin got up we checked there fridge ( which is kept locked so we don’t raid it ) and still no bacon . It was getting funnier and funnier , eventually it was decided to use the leftover perrogies ( that we had cooked two nights ago ) and eggs. The mystery was eventually solved when Mat got up , he had thrown the bacon in the garbage as it had been twice defrosted now and he was worried the bacon might be bad . We had a good laugh ( except for the cooking crew )

Today was a great day on the road , only Ed , Janice and myself today as Bob and Murray were on cook crew , they were going to try and catch us up during one of our stops and would have done so if it had not been for a wrong turn they took that added about 30 km to there trip . Most of us at one point or another miss a turn , yesterday I missed the campsite and it added about 3 km of hard ridding against the wind to get back.

It was a very scenic ride today, first following the Richelieu river, lovely houses along its banks for a long time then farm land , well kept farms a pleasure to see !!! . We went through many small villages all pretty and well kept also , the sound of french made it seem at time that you were in Europe and not here, I must say this part of Quebec has been one of the nicest segments we have ridden.

Our first stop was a Bistro were we had omelets again and Janice a fine looking creep that left me wishing I had ordered it too. We did well between our little french and the waitresses little english, we waited as long as we could for Bob and Murray but left as we wanted to find a restaurant that sold croissants and stop again.

The countryside continued being stunning and the dairy farms started to appear , there smells bringing back memories of my childhood on the farm, which added to the magic of todays ride. The farm were all in good condition nicely painted the grass along the roadways cut back up to the corn fields , very very neat!!

We came to a turn that required us to cross a bridge that was not in use , when we got to it the bridge was actually down and we ended up crossing the river on the near by railroad bridge , we met up at that point with thy youngsters and continued together for a while until we rounded a corner and spotted a gem of a store , it was a converted museum that had been a general store and now again being turned back into a very magical general store on “ The Kings Highway “ (the oldest road in the area and a scenic drive and cyclist route also ) There was music playing , a mix of new artists, south american folk, 20s music , it all blended into the setting and we sat on old iron chairs on the verandah and enjoyed coffee and muffins as cars and cyclists went by, the new owners had only opened the place 2 months ago , are converting the upstairs to be able to hold live music events. Adding to the ambiance was a kitten that as the owner told us was from the horse farm across the road but instead of hunting mice preferred to come over and eat muffins that costumers would feed it , the atmosphere was so relaxing that we found it hard to leave.

It was a very easy day on the bicycle as the wind gods were in our favor today, no hills to climb and just very scenic countryside to look at , one of the best days on the road we have had .

About 20 minutes after we rode into camp , Bob and Murray , Jaques rode in and told us of there error and extra km ridden .

And to top it all off we had beef bourguignon for dinner , cook crew # 1 outdid themselves once again , they are the best !!!!!. We are camped a few km from Trois Rivieres nice quiet campground so will sleep well tonight again . Tomorrow we arrive in Quebec City .

(I am adding a few pictures to yesterdays blog entry)

Total ridden today: 138.2 - Average speed : 23.1 - Ridding time: 5 58