After a nice chat with the man next door (who lives in Florida for 6 months and St. Boniface for 6 months in a very big motorhome) we took off. At Trois Rivieres we crossed the St. Lawrence River. This was the first time for Greg to cross it. It is impressive. We noticed trees still deep in water.
Saw a big Fruit d’Or factory- I am sure we have eaten their fruit leather. We waved at Quebec city as we passed by. Will stop on the way back. Lots of dairy farms south of Quebec; some were very large with lots of silos.
Surprisingly we didn’t see one cow but did see many semis carrying milk. As we decided a few days ago to count tombstones (since we were seeing more graveyards as opposed to animals) this was OK. Of course there were numerous places to purchase a variety of fresh cheeses where we will make a point of stopping on the way back. For the first time we stopped at a Full service centre for truckers. There were washing machines, showers, small kitchenette and lounge. Apparently if a person buys 300 L of fuel they can shower for free.
One of the towns I loved passing was St Louis de Ha! Ha!. Atlas Obscura records the following as the origin of the name: “The name is believed to be derived from the archaic French word “ha-ha”, which refers to an unexpected obstacle or ending of a path, such as a cul-de-sac. The obstruction, if this is the true origin, would be Lake Témiscouata just beyond the town. “Louis” is believed to refer to one of the town’s founders. Why the exclamation points were added is anybody’s guess”.
This is like many of the names of towns we pass. I wonder why so many Notre Dame de?? Greg and I have a book on the names of towns in Alberta and it is fascinating. We passed pulp and paper mills in Rimouski and before we knew it we were in NB. We stayed at a provincial camp ground near Edmundston that had just opened today (Parc provincial de la Republique). Delightful spot.
The park director – Burt- saw we had a ham radio so we had a great chat about repeaters, ham radio nets, and a big ham radio get together coming up soon. Later he dropped by with a list of repeater stations. Though windy it was about 18C so we walked a couple of Km for an ice-cream ( to a place recommended by Burt).
We got mediums and they were enormous. That will take care of the craving Greg had for ice-cream. Too bad it wasn’t grapenut ice-cream …can only get this in NB.
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Funny, we made the same observation about place names when we drove this stretch. Hard to fit some of them on the signs!
Sometimes what we thought were 3 separate names was actually one long one. P/S There is a special note for Will in the May 27th posting.