Quebec City, Quebec – oui?

Leaving Niagara Falls on Sunday (Sept 28) we decided to make a big day driving and push past Toronto without stopping, though we picked up some fresh food at the Organic Garage on our way past. Driving in occasional rain, we stayed a little long on the road. We had a strong desire to stay at one of the beautiful Provincial Parks we’d heard so much about so pulled off the main highway and traveled another 10 miles north/inland to arrive at Charleston Lake Province Park. It was past dark so we really didn’t see much that night. Quickly arranging the camper for sleeping we drifted off to absolute silence that night. The next day we realized that we were only one of three campers in a very large section of the campsite. The silence was attributed to both the remoteness and the lack of other campers. Nearly everything was self-serve – registration, paying for fire wood, picking a camp spot. The remoteness also meant no cellular and very limited internet connections. Getting our bikes out, we decided to explore the few hundred site campground in the morning and do home schooling in the afternoon. Our bike ride took us to a beautiful lake shorefront. There we shared the beach with small flock of Canadian Geese frolicking in the water – preening and cleaning – assumedly in preparation for their long southern migration ahead. Fall colors were taking hold in the park and at one stage, during a quiet walk down the road, a light breeze sent a “rainfall” of leaves twirling and cascading to the ground around us sounding very much like normal rain. Eventually we spotted some other campers, said our greetings but mainly all the campers kept to themselves – enjoying the quiet and solitude. After completing our ride to another beach and a small dock (in search of elusive turtles) the girls spent some time playing on the Adventure Playground. Then home for lunch. That afternoon we were forced into the van due to heavy intermittent rain, where we stayed for the evening for the last day of September. Trying for an “early” start (the notion of “early” being somewhat relative), we were on the road by 10:30am on Wednesday (Oct 1) and heading toward Montreal. With the rain persisting we decided to make another long day of driving – in the hope of getting much closer to Quebec City -- but committed to being off the road by 5pm so that we had daylight to set up camp and prepare dinner. During the day we crossed the Ontario border into Quebec and stopped at a very helpful and efficient Quebec tourist office – picking up local maps and guidebooks. With barely a shred of French language understanding between us we still managed to interpret road sign meanings and read the guidebooks. This was the home of the Canadian French and no longer was there the luxury of having signs written in both English and French – it was all French now. We picked a campsite out of the guidebook based on our location at 4:30pmand pulled into a small 10-site campground, Camp Royal, right on the St Lawrence River around 5pm. The rain had been on and off all day but held off as we set up camp and got a fire going. The girls played croquet (loaned from the office) while dinner was prepared then we sat around the fire chatting before bed. Armed with more information from our campsite manager about what to do and where to stay in Quebec City, we noted that we’d managed to get within 70 miles of Quebec City so decided on a later start the next day and a drive all the way to our destination. Tonight we’re camped (more accurately, “parked”) at the Marina Basson Louise just outside the beautiful and charismatic, old walled city of Quebec which celebrates its 400th anniversary this year. It’s a regular parking lot down by the Marina but you can purchase a 24-hours pass ($45) so we pulled in alongside 2 other much larger RV’s beside the bike path. The city lights are visible from our van. And the walled part of the city is within easy walking distance to explore. Denise and the girls did preliminary reconnaissance (including dinner out) while Doug worked in the van for a few hours. We’ve planned to stay two nights here. After a torrential afternoon downpour we are hopeful that the rain will clear out for a while so we can enjoy a dry visit in this wonderful city.