7/31/09: Rt 132 east on the south side of the St. Lawrence River. Matane, Quebec to Sainte-Anne-des-Monts; 57 miles http://www.4thehealthofit.net/segment_htmls/Segment71.html
So after we had gotten the hotel on the beach – our most exotic of the trip I might add - Barney used my pack to go and get some of those wonderful Quebec micro brews (you guys probably thing we’re bloody problem drinkers by now what with all the beer talk). He came back as I was skyping Judy, and we were breaking them out pronto. I had one with a devil kind of logo on it – 9% alcohol. Now these are all beers with sediment on the bottom. Barney claims that the stuff probably wouldn’t even be legal in BC because they’re not pasteurized. Tell you what……you can take that pasturization and put it where the sun don’t shine. This stuff is beyond good. As Tony the Tiger would say: “They’re GRRRRRRRREAT!” Barney and I just keep on trucking with the Quebec microbrews, and Ryan watches TV and laughs at us every once in a while, because he can tell that at least I am getting the buzz on rather quickly with these potent microbrews. Barney? Not seen him big time buzzed yet, so the jury is out.
And all of a sudden we’d gone through 9 beers out of the twelve. And I started to feel this intense urge to just crash head first right down onto my computer and the table it was sitting on. Bang. Now I didn’t, but wow, I mean felt like I got smacked in the head with Maxwell’s Silver Hammer (more retro stuff that Ryan has never heard about). Could have been not having had nothing in my stomach since that amazing sandwich in downtown Matane? Yea, you do the math! We needed to get dinner and quick. So we both pulled it together, me more than Barney, quite blogging and doing computer work, and get our arses down to the restaurant next door. Ryan had already gone over solo as we were doing the blogging. So we see him coming back as we’re about to go in, and he recommends the Seafood Chowder. Now I was half in the bag, more so than at any point on this trip. I mean that stuff was like Newfie Skreech!
We get in, sit down, and again, I feel like I’m going to do a head plant into the table. I’m tired, buzzing and a bit silly from the Quebec fire water. We each order the seafood chowder. Let me tell you, I’m like a chowderholic, and I love to taste any and all chowders anywhere I can find them. This stuff was grade A. Awesome! That took some of the zing out of the Quebec micro firewater, and stepped on the buzz like a size 13 shoe on an ant. Next up……the scallops and rice. Again, home run. The food out here is just amazing. It’s truly a gastronomic paradise. And for a guy who’s been eating his way across Canada on Subway for the past 9 weeks, this week of eating is just blowing me away. I want to try any and everything that’s foreign and exotic. We finished with the desert of the day, which was a kind of chocolate cake. Magnifique!
Now I had intended, back when we got the room, to eat dinner and then go back to the room, shower, do some client workout work on the computer, and kind of veg for a bit, but I semi-stumbled back there from the restaurant and just about did a face plant into the bed. Goodnight world!
Got up at 5:30am this morning, because of three things, Ryan, the human alarm clock who needs coffee in his veins asap in the morning, Barney’s snoring (only Ryan can tell whose the worst here – I vote for Barney), and the fact that the sun rises so early out here you’d think you were above the arctic circle for God’s sake. So I did my client work on the computer, did my emailing, and took my shower. No hangover thank you, but I did about slip in the shower and just about 86’ed myself for the rest of the trip. I actually fell on my ass. THAT would have been something I’d have never lived down!
We were pretty casual about getting on the road seeing that we only had about 90-100K to ride today, so we all kind of took our time. Ryan arrived back from his T. Horton pee house run, while Barney and I brewed up some hotel coffee in the Mr. Coffee on top of the dresser. Then I put on my damp cloths that I sink washed and then slept with to try to dry. That’s a wonderful feeling first thing in the morning – damp socks, cycling shorts and top. We geared it all up and were finally on the road by 8:30am. No breakky first thing. We all decided to ride a bit before hitting somewhere for breakfast. Having been up here just 2 years ago with Judy, when she got hit by a car 2 weeks before our vacation, I kind of told the guys that I thought that there were some long climbs today, but nothing out of hand. Well, I did that in a car, and my memory is not the greatest. There was a good bit of climbing in just the first 1:20 hours of riding.
The scenery is breathtaking, as you’re riding along the road with the Gulf on your left hand side. The road goes up into the foothills several hundred feet above the Gulf, and then descends down to the little towns and cities on the water. So it’s pretty much up and down from one town to the next. And these were big ring, middle ring, and little ring climbs. Some I could power over out of the saddle in the big and middle rings, others, way too steep to do that so it was a matter of using the little cookie and just spinning in the saddle. We’re in a spot now on the Peninsula where there are small mountain ranges – the Chic Choc’s – and these help to make the shoreline pretty dramatic in spots, with capes, cliffs, and smaller peninsulas. So pretty much the MO now is descend into a town/ascend out of a town. One pretty much goes with the other.
It’s funny too, because there’s been a point at every new area in the trip where I say to myself, “ok just get through this gnarly section of climbing and you’re home free.” Said it in the Rockies, said it for the north shore of Lake Superior, said it for the Shield of Eastern Ontario, and now I’m saying that about this Eastern Gaspe Peninsula. And I’ll probably say it for Nova Scotia. And I’ll probably say it for Newfoundland. I guess it’s my way of compartmentalizing this thing into manageable chunks of time so it all does not become so overwhelming if taken in its entirety. I’ve always looked at the trip as one section at a time, and it’s worked well for me mentally to think of it in these terms. So I guess I’ll just continue to view it this way.
Well, we were all getting kind of hungry about 1:30 hrs in, and began looking for places to eat. Barney found this little hole in the wall that I had passed. I had looked back, and he was gone. So went back up the road and him and Ryan had already gotten inside and were seated. Everything is in French, and what’s more there are many people up here who do not speak a lick of English. Luckily Barney has pulled his French speaking abilities out of the attic, and he’d doing really great. So Barney is making these leaps and bounds in his French after about a week in the province. Again, he translates some of the menu, and helps us with ordering from the waitress. We all order the house biggie, the king of breakfasts, the appetite crusher - two eggs, toast, patte, sausage, bacon, ham, home fries, fruit and coffee. The belly buster. And just like yesterday, though just a couple notches down on the WOW factor, this was excellent. I mean after 2 months of gas station coffee and factory-made Danish and Ho-Ho’s, this French cuisine dining is just spoiling me something silly. And since we’re not hammering like freaking zombies out there all day, having a fairly full belly post breakfast is not so uncomfortable as it could be with a few more mph’s added to the odometer. I’m getting pretty used to these “French Canadian” brekky’s, that’s for sure.
Got done and off to climb some more, and more, and more. We hit some nice climbs to, some taking us up several hundred feet off of the Gulf at a time. I had pulled off my now infamous, formally white and now a rusty brown, formally form-fitting and now a sagging piece of cloth, long sleeved UnderArmor because of the humidity. I’d top out of climbs just totally soaked, wiping sweat off of my face and temples like a bloody windshield wiper. If not for the cool breeze coming off of the Gulf, I’d have been a total sodden mess. The cool breeze was a great temp control for my usual affliction to riding – and CRACKING - in high humidity situations. But every time I had to stop, I’d have to put my jersey back on.
The weather……pretty iffy, with a lot of clouds, some menacing looking, and a stiff wind out of the west. Our tailwind continued for at least aonther day. By the time we reached Cap –Chat, the terrain really flattened out, and we were doing most all of our riding right down along the Gulf, with the water no more than 50-80 meters off of our shoulders. Did a quick coke and candybar stop in the western outskirts of Cap-Chat, and then we were off again, trying to beat what looked like some real rain potential coming out of the south. Got to Saint-Anne-des-Monts about 1:30pm. Found an info center, found a campground, and found all the important places in town – the bakery, the fish store, the restaurants, and the pubs.
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