Hotdogs and Watermelon Break

Just a quick line here while we enjoy hotdogs and watermelon by the St. Lawrence. The view from this sunroom encompasses flowers, lush trees, and ferns that divide the freshly mown lawn from the rocky beach shore. The St. Lawrence River laps at the shore with salt, wait for it, water. Oh yeah! An hour before we arrived here Neal and I let out simultaneous yells of at first puzzlement and then excitement as our noses first breathed in that long lost salty smell. We are hanging out with Stuart and Amanda and some of her family here in Notre Dame Du Portage at Chulec cottage. Last week they saw some whales out in the river! But hold on a minute...why didn't Patrick let out a yell? Had he fallen asleep? Was he too interested in a passing GBH or something? Sadly, Patrick is no longer with us. He started to feel ill while in Montreal. His skin began turning red and pussing. Saying goodbye to our dear departed friend was a something we did not want to do. Let's not focus on the negative though. He had a good last few days. Let's think about those days.

Oh holy crap we saw the Fleet Foxes! It was absolutely amazing. The place was buzzing with electricity when we arrived. Immediately we make incredi-key purchases and get killer T-shirts. Man, we look so good. Early 20s boy squad! Mario, Tall guy, the Blondstashio'd one. Dungen, from Sweedan, played a wicked opening set. I highly recommend them. They had wicked long jams that included lots of distortion, groves, quite acoustics and flute. I ended up picking up their latest album. I can't wait to listen to it when I get home. Then Fleet Foxes came on. The crowd went crazy, obviously. They opened with a vocal song with their beautiful harmonies. The set was wicked. They played so many awesome songs. All their new songs were incredible as well. Robin Pecknold, the lead singer, had a giant smile on his face the whole night. He told us repeatedly that he was having the best time, that he did not want to be anywhere else but there playing for us, that Dungen are his favourite band, that we were a wicked crowd. The show was so awesome and we were so lucky and happy to see them, obviously. Neal is sure that it was actually a religious experience rather than just a show.

Our stay at Scott and Sam's ended Tuesday morning. I should probably slip another Thank you in there, as we definitely stayed well past when we had intended too. We had a fairly nice riding day to Trois Riviere. I don't think too much out of the ordinary happened. As we were about to bike out of Trois Riviere to find a spot to camp for the night the sky opens. Pouring from the crack in the sky(e) was a tidal wave of water complete with many a flashes, bolts, and thunders. We hid under a gas station shelter and asked for camp sites in town. Of course...none. Right beside us was a little park area so we found the gate, looked around, the coast was clear, and then set up camp. Terrible nights sleep. The next morning we wake up and Patrick is feeling worse and decided to just go home from Trois Riviere rather than push to Quebec City and make his condition worse. It was a scramble during breakfast (except not our eggs, they were over easy) to find Pat a way home. Train did not stop in Trois Riviere and was booked solid anyway. No flights from there either. But we found a bus station and everything was OK. Neal and I gave Patrick a bunch of our gear to take home with him. Neal got rid of two bags and I sent the BOB home. Dear sweet BOB. I will miss your best features: conversation piece, parking skills, lots of room.

Well, we thought we were light weight before. Turns out....we can bike easily with a lot less gear. We now have just two back paniers and a few things strapped on to the back of our bikes each. It is pretty sweet.

Quebec City was wicked. I can't believe how key the location of the condo was. We were on Rue Garneau, which, and I checked, is exactly a stones toss from the Chateau Frontenac. We spent our day off there exploring old Quebec. There were so many people walking about. There was a lot to see. We saw the Chateau, the citadel, the plains of Abraham and a lot of really cool streets. We had some delicious baking and poutine. Alison, who I need to thank a lot for letting us use the wicked condo, recommended a bring your own wine Moroccan restaurant. We went. The food was great. But. It was during that meal that I mentioned how nice our lovely date was going. It was far too romantic for our liking. Three people is far less date like than just the two of us. Oh Patrick, where art thou? After lamb couscous we watched some buskers. The buskers were bilingual and spent all their time in French ripping on the anglophones. We slept yesterday and then packed and left. We stopped at MEC on the way out because my first day with paniers one of them decided to fly off and get injured. The clips broke so I biked to QC with an elaborate mess of bungees. I got a replacement set for under $10 and screwed them on. We took the ferry to Levee. Around 4:00 we leave Levee to begin our "day" of biking. We made it to Montmagne and camped. Now that Pat is gone we are just hopeless party animals. I don't think we went into the tent to sleep until 9:00 pm! We got up early today and had an incredible biking day to here. We had a tail wind and it was flat and it was sunny. Now we must use the wind and bust on. Riviere du Loup is just around the corner and then I know some of you now what lays just around the bend from there.

See you all soon. Love Willem, Neal and Patrick, where-ever he may be.

PS. Patrick will be ok. He just got a really bad case of poison ivy. And he was planning on leaving early, from QC, to go sailing with his parents before he has to go back to school. Ha, school. This biking business is far too cool for school.