Day Ten, Hawkesbury, ON to Quebec, QU, 220 miles

Monday, August 16, 2010

Bon Jour!

It would seem we are now in France, because everything is posted in French, which makes navigating interesting. Everyone speaks French, unlike the Provence of Ontario, where everything is printed in both languages, and most people speak both languages. Not so in the Province of Quebec. Very little English spoken here. Unfortunately, none of our travelers have any command of the French language. We're told that English will be prominent again when we reach Nova Scotia. What a confused country; they have no common language. This may not bode well for Southern California. Perhaps we'll also have freeway signs in two languages one day, English and Spanish, or maybe only one, Spanglish.

It was an easy ride today, only 220 miles, our shortest yet. We awoke this morning to guess what? More rain! We had a continental breakfast at the hotel, donned our rain gear and headed east toward Quebec City in the Provence of Quebec, via Montreal. We offer a special thanks to Bill today for getting us through the maze of freeways, detours, and road construction in Montreal with his new GPS.

Not much to report today, I'm afraid. We made one stop at Vision Harley-Davidson in Repentigny, a suburb of Montreal, where Steve reported that he had left his heated jacket thermostat in the storeroom where we changed out of our wet clothes yesterday during the thunderstorm. He called the gas station, offered up a credit card number, and they are going to mail it home for him. I guess nobody there has a heated Harley jacket that needs a thermostat.

While at the Harley dealer, we met Angie Hachey and Al Woodward of the Harley-Davidson Owner's Group of Canada, LTD., and saw their 18 wheeler full of new 2011 Harley-Davidsons. Angie gave the boys the 50 cent tour of the loaded semi. They tour around Canada from spring to fall showing off the new wares. They consented to a photo with the six California Wild Hogs, along with the guys from the dealership. It was a pleasure meeting and chatting with you.

Back on the road and more rain, all the way to Quebec City. Being Monday night, we didn't bother to make hotel reservations in advance as we usually do. We went directly downtown to the local Best Western hotel so that we could walk around old town and have some supper without riding. No vacancy! Great. An adjacent hotel would provide us with housing for $200 per night, plus $20 per day parking. No thank you! We were able to secure accommodations five miles from downtown at a Holiday Inn Express.

We opted for a cab/van to take us to supper at the Rascal Steak House just a few minutes away. Once again, the cabby had no English, and we had, well, you know what we didn't have. Apparently, the Rascal, as we pronounced it, is actually the "Raaaascaaaal" in French. Who knew--stupid Americans. Dinner was very good. I opted for a nice glass of Chardonnay to go with my grilled salmon, expecting a nice French wine. When I inquired, I was told they serve Ernest & Julio from California, probably out of a gallon bottle.

We walked back to the hotel just to make us believe we were actually getting some exercise and washed a couple of days of mud off the bikes. Some of us opted for a dip in the Jacuzzi while other chose to tinker on and BS around the bikes in the parking lot. We're sleeping in tomorrow. We have scheduled Day 11 as a lay-over day to relax and see the sights of old Quebec. We think we deserve it after ten straight days on the road without break. And, I am personally looking forward to getting to bed tonight before midnight. Yes!

Adeau.