The Road Home Is Always The Same

It's been 21 days of joy, but we're headed for home with a final 6 hour drive. We've had a fun time rehashing all our favourites - best playground,  best poutine,  best new stuffed animal, best sports car, best gas price, best animal encounter etc etc etc. 

It has been good for my soul to be on the road again. Even though there are some sad faces with today being the last day, it also means that tomorrow we get to start planning the next trip!!

A final picnic lunch on the St Lawrence river, which we have followed for 21 days. A final shoutout to our faithful driver, truck and home away from home - thanks for the memories!

Vieux Quebec

We spent our final day of sightseeing in Old Quebec City. Since tours were really the theme of this trip it will not come as a surprise that we started the day off with a Guided Tour of the Chateau Frontenac with our costumed interpreter Francois LeSomethingorOther.

Next we had a double decker bus tour of the highlights of Vieux Quebec.

The plan next was to wander the narrow alleys and soak in the ambiance of the 1700s era cobblestone streets. In reality we spent an equal amount of time soaking in the ambiance of T shirt shops and taking in local treats, but hey, when in Rome...

Barbe A Papa!

Crepes!

Ah, my favourite travel partners! Nobody wants to go home - a true sign of a great

Canyon Ste Anne

Visited an incredible gorge with John and Betty and Rowan just outside Ste Anne de Beaupre. 

We started with a seated zipline over the canyon that made my stomach flip. Here are Brendan and Betty looking cool, calm and collected. 

The gorge was surrounded by a really pretty trail and criss crossed by 3 progressively less stable feeling bridges.  Kona declined to cross halfway across yhe second one. 

Note the zipline passing overhead!

That's Rob in the middle,  carrying Kona.

After, Canyon Ste Anne we made our way to our final destination; Quebec City.

We finish the trip in camping opulence at a KOA, complete with double water slides, a hot tub and a store with Slush Puppies. Fighting the Ontario Provincial Park reservation system is looking pretty unappealing from now on...

Acropole des Draveurs - by the numbers

L'Acropole Des Draveurs - one of the most epic hikes in the Quebec Parks system. 

Elevation gain - 882 m of - thats higher than hiking Mont Tremblant as my brother unhelpfully pointed out the night before.

Distance - 11.2 km. A long hike, but not unmanageable for a family of hardy hikers. Except that Acropole is special.  Because it goes. Straight. Up. Could we do it? You bet. Because sometimes in life you have to do things just to prove you can. Or as Brendan less poetically summarized it "I can't believe we're doing all this for a view".

But what a view...

My new favourite family photo (:

As we rounded the final bend in the road leading into Parc De Hautes Gorges, my heart stopped. What had I gotten my family into? Harrison asked, "Is that the mountain we're summiting"?? I didn't know, but I sure hoped not. It was (essentially, technically the wall of rock continues to wrap all along the rivers edge, so we didn't hike this fave, but a wooded face around the corner).

Going up...

A nice gentle section of incline. These were rare...

The first summit. No lie, we started from the level of the river at the bottom of this valley!

The trail continues to summit #2 - the peak ahead in this picture. Im not usually afraid of heights, but my stomach did NOT care for this section. 

Made it!

Lunch on top of the world!

I'm so proud of my crew and so glad they all helped me check off this of my bucket list. #Justawalkinthepark, Ha!

Family Time!!

John and Betty and Rowan joined us last night in Malbaie for the next 3 days of sightseeing! 

We really packed it in today, with 3 museums/exhibitions technically!! 

We started at a neat Papeterie (paper making workshop), where we had a chance to learn how to use a quill pen!

Then we spent the morning touring the really interesting Maritime Museum of Charlevoix and learned all about shipbuilding and what an industry of wooden sailboats there were in the mid 20th century in the St Lawrence and climbing all over schooners and a tugboat!

This movie about the life of a boat was shown inside the hold of one of the cargo ships, and was narrated by the boat herself.

After lunch we explored the grounds. I think more museums should have wooded obstacle  courses!

After a bit of gift shopping, we hit a chocolaterie in Les Eboulements. Rowan is a chocolate shop expert, so it seemed a fitting destination. And wow,wowat an experience. You could get chocolate dipped soft serve, but the chocolate dip was genuine, thick, melted chocolate in no less than 10 flavours. I chose Guyana sourced milk chocolate; it was phenomenal !

We went back to the campsite for a rest and to play with poor bored Kona and then headed back out for 1 more museum (I've only got 4 days left,  I've gotta squeeze as much out of this trip as I can!!)

The Charlevoix area was shaped by a giant meteorite impact 400 million years ago and a tiny museum in the middle of the Fairmont Richelieu golf course puts on a presentation at 4 pm each day in English explaining it, animating it on a 3D topographical map and letting you snuggle with real meteorites! So cool!!

Then back to the campsite for dinner and to plan our next trip.

Hiking At The Speed Of Light

We started our 3 days in La Malbaie with a hike that left from the Fairmont Manoir Richelieu.

It was a scale model of the solar system; 3 km long, with each stride being the equivalent of 1,500,000,000 steps. We moved at approximately 2.6 x the speed of light the informational plaques said!

Here we are at the sun...

This is Mercury (you can see the sun, fuzzy in the background)...

 We got to Mars in no time. We were still on the front lawn of the hotel, but it is a big hotel...

The outer reaches of the solar system felt pretty dang hot today, but we made it!

Every good hike deserves a Boulangerie! The kids tried Macarons. So did Kona, after the wind blew one off the table 🤦‍♀️

We took muddy dog for a frolic on the low tide beach. This dog loves chasing birds. He saw a sea gull and took off so far and so fast we nearly lost sight of him.

In a totally unrelated note, our next door neighbours new chickens are now large enough that they tell us they're roaming the yard free. This should be interesting...

Then we headed to our campground for a little frolicking of our own. This place is party central! Loud salsa music by the pool, mini golf, bouncy castle, splash pad, bike pump track, mini farm, giant bouncy pillow and a kick butt waterslide. What a change of pace!