Quebec – OldPlaidCamper

Thirsty? Guilty? Lost?

Huh?! Where could this one possibly be going? No idea! By the time this is posted, we’ll have set off for somewhere and already be happily lost for the third or fourth time (or more!) out on the backroads of NW Quebec and beyond. We’re taking our time on this trip, aiming to travel no more than six hours in any day, and often no more than four. A morning in the car is quite enough as temperatures warm up and we work up a thirst. Perhaps there’ll be a series of microbreweries we simply have to visit along the way, where we purchase something good to try later at a campground? Yeah, perhaps…

Before we left, my brother paid us a quick visit, keen to extend his knowledge of local ciders, leaving no apple unfermented. Or something. We spent a couple of (happy) hours in PubLeProjet, a wonderful old bar on Rue St. Jean that caters particularly well to cider and beer drinkers, and featuring a wide range of Quebec products. You won’t leave thirsty, but you might be a bit wobbly… taxi!

Or three or six – between the three of us, not each!

Brother OPC had stopped at a favourite cidrerie on the way up, and when he went home he forgot to take a couple of four packs he’d left in the fridge. So I tried one. I tried, I really did, but, nope, not for me. Mrs. PC didn’t mind his forgetfulness though!

I’m assured it is very good, but it’s not for me. The label is a winner for sure!

When we were out and about, instead of cider, I went absolutely nowhere outside of my comfort zone, predictably choosing and enjoying a couple of IPAs that were really, really good. Not too heavy, one hazy, one clear, and one happy OldPlaidCamper.

It wasn’t all beer and cider. We spent a couple of fun hours at the Plains of Abraham museum, and the exhibits and stories were very engaging. I wish I had photos I could share of my brother trying to shrug his way out of a rather snug replica military redcoat (younger?) visitors are encouraged to try. Chaps were smaller back then… There were lots of replica artefacts to handle, and plenty of interactive exhibits – if you’re ever looking for a rainy afternoon activity on the Plains, I’d recommend the museum.

Guilty! Was this before I tried the cider? Yup…

Models of cannons, replica muskets and swords, and a dressing up box? Goodness, each of our inner twelve year olds left the museum very happy. Let’s leave it here, with tastebuds and knowledge buds somewhat quenched after a busy weekend.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

(Over the next few weeks I’m not too sure how regularly I’ll be posting – it’ll mostly be determined by the reliability of coffee shop wifi and whether or not I find myself back in the stocks again. They’ll never find me since even we don’t quite know where we’ll be, other than contentedly lost…)

“Lost” paddling on a lake or river? One can hope!

By the river

Thunder? Heavy rain showers? Heat? Humidity? One or two bugs? Check, check, check, check and check!

But… almost constant birdsong, a musical river, freshly unfurled spring greenery, a distant farm dog barking, spells of warm sunshine and a remote campsite in the trees above a river? Yup! On balance, let’s just say “when can we go again?”

We had a splendid few days down by (or just above) the Etchemin. Two decent sized bug bites on my ankle (how? I was wearing boots!) had me temporarily renaming it the Itchyman River, but I got over it, and barely mentioned it at all out loud. I didn’t provide any insects a free lunch once I’d applied the bug repellent. Use it, OPC. Happens every start of camping season – when will you ever learn…?

Itchyman – are those clouds bubbling up? Maybe…

The trailer and bug screen performed as hoped for, the wood-store was well stocked and dry – one match got our fire lit every time, maintaining a pretty good run (he says, modestly) – and is there a better outdoor aroma than woodsmoke and coffee? Perhaps my hiking boots left outside and under the trailer? With that aroma, why do the bugs even approach my ankles?

We saw and heard geese, and I startled a pair of ducks as I leant over to snap a shot upriver, at which point a kingfisher scolded me, Scout shook her head, and Mrs. PC seemed happy enough I didn’t fall in.

Several mornings a hummingbird buzzed me as I was making coffee, darting to the side I wasn’t looking as I tried to spot her. I caught a blur of small brown bird as she buzzed into the trees, perhaps disappointed we don’t take nectar with our coffee.

The Etchemin flows through a lovely little valley of low wooded hills and patches of cleared farmland. Not much more than an hour south of Quebec City, it is a delightful spot to find a change of pace. Breathe in, breathe out, stretch, relax, repeat, and it’ll soon be beer o’ clock.

It’s beer o’clock already? Well alrighty…

A very welcome break from the noise and nonsense that can be hard to avoid in the wider world. Spring this year hasn’t been all that it could have been, but a few more trips like this as we edge towards summer and maybe all will be well, with equilibrium maintained…

More about this trip next week – the river, the rain (yup!), the microbrewery and hiking trails nearby.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

May!

Hooray! I said I’d share the first green blades of grass when they appeared, so here we go, from earlier this week:

Ok, so we had to look hard, but it was there! Since then, with a morning of sunshine and a few more heavy showers, it has been greening up nicely. Spring! Boing! May! Phew!

Finding and fixing a puncture – the bike would be enormous!

Now our thoughts can turn to camping, so much so, I finally repaired a puncture in the inflatable tent yesterday, and next week we’ll be uncovering the trailer and seeing if any small critters need rehousing before giving it all a general spring airing. A riverside site in mid May is booked and beckons… Yup, it’s May! Hooray!

Short this week, rather like the stretch of sunny spring days so far… Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Small moments…

… of joy. An unexpected gift (thank you, Mrs. PC!) arrived in the post the other day, “A Thousand Feasts” by Nigel Slater. As the cover blurb describes it, this is a memoir of sorts, and, if the first few chapters are any indication, an utter delight.

I really enjoy reading Slater even if he can (sometimes) come across as slightly fussy. I prefer to think he is simply being particular. I would say that, as I’m certainly particular about particular issues. But never fussy, oh no…

Can we all agree that strong, black coffee should be just that, and if a warmed croissant isn’t served with an offering of apricot jam on the side (ok, or strawberry at a pinch) then it probably isn’t (another) sign of end times? No need to fuss. Although, if we are going to hell in a hand basket at ever increasing speeds, surely apricot jam isn’t too much to ask? Anyway, I’m not fussy, oh no…

Small cups for a small moment, and just right! Not that I’m fussy…

Back to small moments of joy. I often recall a favourite breakfast we shared with friends on the road many years ago. We’d taken the overnight boat to France, and (some of us, no names) had probably explored the outer limits of how many pints a person should consume in a ferry bar on a choppy cross-channel trip.

Designated drivers aside, we were feeling a little worse for wear as we rolled up to a small railway station cafe somewhere in Picardy. It was just as you might imagine – wicker cafe chairs, red check cloth covered tables, and a dapper waiter. The waiter was poised in every sense, happy to take our breakfast order, and never mind our mangled French.

Rural QC, not rural France, but just as one might hope?

Petit déjeuner? All the essentials – strong dark roast coffee, chewy country bread with a firm crust, and warm flaky croissants. Oh those croissants! I get warm and flaky just thinking about them. (And yup, for the children, they were served with apricot or strawberry jam on the side!) How I enjoyed that restorative spring sunshine breakfast – nothing fancy, and a perfect meal!

Right, enough with the reminiscing, I’ve got to go make a cup of strong coffee and get back to reading “A Thousand Feasts” – both are recommended! I’ll finish by saying this is a splendid book if you enjoy wonderfully descriptive writing on people, places and cuisine. It’s often amusing, very observant and it celebrates the joy found, home or away, in small moments. For me, that’s most welcome in these broadly troubling times!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Vernal

If we’re looking ahead with a sense of optimism, then in terms of light and dark we’ve tipped towards the former having passed the vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere. Spring has arrived!

Well, sort of… Scout and I enjoyed a lazy hour with that all important second cup of coffee on a sunny deck yesterday morning. Birds were singing, we could hear the tapping of a busy woodpecker in the nearby woods, a fly or two buzzed past, and there was the steady drip, trickle and gurgle of snowmelt from roof tops down drainpipes and along pathways. So, it is spring then – why only sort of, OPC?

*Could that woodpecker keep it down? Some of us are drowsy…*

The deck may be clear (for now) but the grassy parts of our back yard are yet to reveal themselves, and the medium range forecast suggests another bout or three of snow. Still, until those last blasts of northern winter arrive, we’ll take a sunny almost spring morning each time we’re treated to one! Vernal if not yet verdant, with our glass, oops, too early, I mean coffee cup half full and all that. Onwards!

Oh spring, you tease us with this glimpse of grass (all three blades!)

Let’s keep this short but happy enough, like a first false spring before the real thing. Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Glitterball

Let’s start with a thank you to Scout for taking up the reins last week. Moving on, we’ll continue with a health warning – this post is full of self pity and eyebrow-raising medical stuff. Ok, I think we’re ready to get to it.

I’ve been feeling somewhat under the weather recently, most likely because we’re (I’m) enduring the most boring (northern hemisphere) time of the year. Fall is done and proper winter, as I see it, isn’t quite here. There has been the occasional flake – and a few snow flurries as well, haha – but nothing you could call real winter.

We’ve had our annual flu/COVID shots – the pharmacy was out of bleach and the pharmacist wasn’t a flat-earther type (or TV medical “personality” about to assume responsibilities for which they are enormously unqualified), so no hydroxychloroquine or horse medicines either – and the jabs have left us (me) a little groggy. Goodness, someone sounds a little sore here, and I don’t mean his upper arm…

Yeah, yeah, boohoo, OldPlaidCamper, invisible Canadian problems – what do you mean “glitterball”? Sounds painful. Is it a medical issue for you? “Hi, Doc, this is a tad embarrassing, but the old glitterball has flared up again. Can I get a prescription?”

*“He’s walking with a slight limp – the glitterball again?”*

Huh?! Honestly, where is your mind at? No, I’m not suffering from glitterball, and wouldn’t tell you even if I was. We were down in the old town last week, pre-vaccine shots, carousing with friends, and came across the following:

Yup, the truck has been turned into a disco ball (or glitterball because I like the word)

Pretty amusing, or so we thought. Anyway, here’s another wave of invented fatigue, so I think I’ll wrap it up for now. I’m off to hide under a blanket until I feel recovered and/or winter arrives. I imagine that you’re wishing Scout was back in charge of the blog after this drug-induced nonsense?

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Down to the river…

…not to pray, at least not in the conventional sense, but perhaps an unspoken word or two of thanks was offered up, a recognition of a special space and place.

We were very happy to be down by the Etchemin River once again. We were also very happy to enjoy mild temperatures, if not quite as warm as our previous visit. Signs of early fall were all around, from the sharp snap in the air first thing, to the dry leaves shaken loose by sudden brisk breezes and seesaw floating to the ground.

A highlight of the week was the daily flyby of several skeins of geese at dawn and dusk, their honking and wing beats tracing the path of the river. Each time they flew over, sometimes up high, other times almost touching the treetops, I tried and failed to get a clear and closeup photograph. Splendid sights and sounds, and a reminder the current season is moving on and warm weather camping might be almost over for another year.

We have one more longish camping trip to come. By the time this is posted we’ll be somewhere in the Gaspésie, having traced our own journey several hundreds of kilometres east along the southern shore of the mighty St. Lawrence river. We’ll be huddled over a fire beneath the low mountains and amongst the tall pines, hoping the days are warm even if the nights are cool. More on that another time.

I’ll wind up for this week with another religion adjacent observation – we’ve developed quite the fondness for a smoked blue cheese produced at the Saint-Benoit-du-Lac monastery over the river and to the southwest of Quebec City. It’ll be in amongst our picnic items for the coming week. Try it if you can find it – simply delicious! Inspired by a higher power? I don’t know, but the fromage bleu fumé reveals/provokes almost divine levels of devotion…

“No smoked blue for me? Ok, whatever, not sulking…”

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Grains de folie!

Maybe if you spend too long in the woods with nothing but your thoughts, strange things start to occur?

You’re sitting in your chair – finally, you’ve found just the right camping chair, both sturdy and supportive and with a little pocket for your favourite woodsy beverage – and you start to nod off. A day/days of strenuous inactivity can cause pleasant drowsiness, so when you come to with a slight start, you ask, what was that?

Was it the porcupine returning to the scene of his earlier encounter with Mrs. PC and Scout? (A non-spiky encounter – good news on all sides!) Nope, doesn’t seem so.

Maybe the crows have returned, believing they hadn’t done enough previously in their attempts to disturb the peace? Nope, no crows.

Must have been an industrious woodpecker, drilling for something tasty up in the higher reaches? Nope, nothing like that.

So, why am I suddenly on alert? Haven’t seen or heard a raccoon, the chattering squirrels aren’t about, but something has intruded, gotten into my empty head. Good thing Scout would warn us if an unwelcome whatever was approaching. No, scratch that. This is the same Scout that didn’t even blink last time a bear wandered through our backyard. A crow, deer or squirrel, then yeah, she’ll let us know. Scout’s many wonderful things, but being a reliable guard, no, not so much.

There it is, I can hear it now, a distinct rustling in the undergrowth behind me. Did anyone else hear it? No?! I’ll settle down then, must be an overactive imagination. Take another sip of the rather wonderful bottle conditioned saison from the Bercée microbrasserie we visited earlier. Mmm, excellent. Grains de folie!

There! I knew I wasn’t losing it! Look what’s come out of the woods to greet us. No, not him, he’s not real. The second one.

“*Are you calling me an unwelcome whatever*? *Not real?! Sure, have another sip, enjoy it, and maybe I’ll be along later to have a word?”*

“*What ya drinkin’? Looks good! Don’t mind me, don’t be startled, I’m just out on patrol! Watch out for that beardy little fella – come to think of it, he looks a bit like you, doesn’t he?*”

Huh? What’s going on? Maybe I’ll keep the other bottle for when we get home, lock the doors, and drink it inside? I love it up in the Saguenay – wonderful lakes and woods, and a great place to sit and let your thoughts drift – but maybe don’t drift too far? You might end up a touch Kenogamachiche here on Lac Kénogami…

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

“*Gotta go – see if I can track down that other strange little beardy fella* – *see ya next time!”*

Last days of summer…

…and we’ve been making the most of the blue skies and pleasant temperatures. The past week has been enjoyable, spending a few days with friends visiting from Calgary. They hadn’t been to Quebec City before, and they’ve found it different. This fella soaking up a few rays was noteworthy. Not too sure what it’s all about, but I had to smile:

Keeping it brief as we look forward to the long weekend. We’re heading out to camp for a few days, and hoping the sunshine sticks around.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful long weekend!

A sleepy river and a time out

Or less a time out and more time well spent?

Yeah, the latter! We went down to the Chaudière-Appalaches region, an area just to the south and east of Quebec City to camp at a quiet spot on the Etchemin River. The days were warm and dry but not hot, something of a relief after a particularly stormy and humid spell.

The Etchemin is not a mighty river but it is mighty cool, both to sit alongside and to dip a foot or two into the water. Not so deep in dryish high summer, and navigable by canoe if you don’t mind a bump or two. We chatted to a family of four who successfully paddled stretches of the Etchemin without drama, and that was with two youngsters under ten and a dog. It’s got us thinking about giving it a paddle another time…

We saw a couple head down to fish for an hour or two. I don’t know if they caught anything, but did they ever look happy just to be there! A sleepy river? No, not really, more of a tranquil space, one where plenty was happening.

I’m reading “A River Never Sleeps” by Roderick L. Haig-Brown, and thoroughly enjoying it. An account of his fishing life, I’ve only read the opening chapters so far, and what a dry wit he has. The section on mythic fish is tale telling at its best. I know almost nothing about fishing, having barely any experience, but Haig-Brown’s enthusiasm is catching. His descriptions of rivers he loved on Vancouver Island are wonderful. A new title to me, and highly recommended if it’s a new title to you!

Each day we’d sit by the bubbling and chuckling river, the water sparkling in the bright sun. So much to see! We observed several large eagles climbing in circles, higher and higher to reach a certain height, then swoop down in long and graceful glides. Small birds chattered in the bushes and trees lining the river, with some seeming keen to make a start on the ripening berries. It was a delight to watch a heron across from us, moving with that slow and steady wing beat, an almost lazy, effortless flight upriver and away.

The wider region is a patchwork of wooded hills and pockets of cleared farmland, with many, many small streams and rivers. There’s the bustle and busyness of productive agriculture, and in such pretty surroundings the pace seems bearable. It’s easy to romanticize farming life on gentle summer afternoons if you’re not the one on the tractor or in barns and sheds, tending to crops and livestock…

A visit to Frampton Brasse is never a waste of time, and we couldn’t miss the opportunity to try what is produced so locally! Blue skies, a light breeze, long views, excellent beer and a camping spot down by the river afterwards – nope, it’s not time out, and definitely time well spent! How you spend your days is how you live your life and all that. I think we’re beginning to figure out this retirement lark.

It was hard to drag ourselves away, but the approaching remnants of tropical storm Debby got us packing up and heading home before the worst of the deluge. The Etchemin will be running high as a result, and likely more navigable by canoe than ever? Hmm…

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

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