Life is a highway , no , life is the open road !!!: Day 54 - A long hot ride along the Saint Lawrence.

August 19

Woke up to thick fog this morning as the temperature when down to 11 degrees from the 30+ of yesterday , had to wear an outer shell for the first time in a long time to start the ride today. Luckily the fog burned out quickly and we were able to enjoy the north shore of the Saint Lawrence as we followed it east all day. We have seen some big rivers along the way but this one is BIG !!!, big ships going up and down emphases its breadth.

First stop of the day was the cathedral at Notre-Dame-du-Cap , quite an impressive building , not as warm inside as others as very little wood is used inside , outside the grounds were spectacular with bronze statues everywhere ( brought here from France ).

Initially the scenery was just plane houses and river and no good shots where posible , but as we rode on and neared Quebec City it changed back to enjoyable little towns and green productive farm land , of interest is how the built up areas are , most villages are along the road just one house deep and then the corn fields start, just a small section of the center of the village will go deeper , and dairy farms and cottage style hoses exist side by side.

The day quickly turned hot today low 30s and humid making it a bit of a tough day. Around the 112 mark we were in for a treat as a two veterans from last years ride ( Silvia and Rene ) and some friends had a corn roast on the go for us and cold water!!! , the corn was delicious and hit the spot right on giving us that boost for the last part of the ride.

We are once again staying indoors tonight at Laval university with a rest day tomorrow. We had found out that “Cirque du Soleil” give a free performance every evening here in the city so after eating we headed out to find it. Initially five of us where going to take a taxi down to the old city but as he were heading out we joined about twenty fellow TdC’ers that were heading the same way except they where taking the bus , as the bus arrived a mad scramble started to have the exact change needed ( $2.60 ) and we all piled into the bus filling it and not knowing were we had to get off , Marc the only french speaker among us started quizzing fellow passengers and eventually we figured out were and got off right in front of the venue which was the underside of the freeway overpass. We got there early but already there was a line up which we joined and about 20 min later were let it , it was standing only and we got a ok spot , music slowly started and lights and at 9 all of a sudden performers started appearing all over the place , on stage , behind us , beside us it was amazing !!! , the show lasted 70 min and was great !! I will definitely go see a performance next time they are in town.

From there we headed for a pub for a beer and snack but found out they only had chips at this place so we drank our beer and then headed to another pub that did have food and had another beer and some nachos and calamari, eventually getting back to the university around midnight after a spectacular taxi ride back that was a mix of roller-coaster ride and bumper cars, good thing we stopped at two beer if not it could have been messy !!!

Total ridden today: 145.8 - Average speed : 22.3 - Ridding time : 6.32