Day 15 - Kingston to Quebec - June 25, 2009
I'm starting to realize that waking up inside of a house is a cool thing. And staying at the house of a fellow mechanics fidler is even better! After getting ready, I take stuff out to start loading the bike and Wes has already cleaned the kickstand switch, checked the chain and who knows what else. He might've had the valves done had I left the key out! lol
Once I get the key we (the royal we) take the tank off to look for the problem with my cigarette lighter. We quickly discover that the problem is me and my wire routing skills. The wire was going just in front of the head tube and was being crushed when the bars were straight. We fixed the damaged wires and rerouted them to a safer location. Eveything should be alright with that now. While the tank was off we tightened the pinch bolts on the triple tree.
I finally got loaded up and we took off towards work for Wes and the highway for me. Being the generous person that he is, Wes lead me on a route that is a 2/10 versus the 1/10 road that's easiest to get to from his house. I was not disappointed. ;) Actually, the ride was nice with good scenery and an old swinging bridge and lock system.
As I progressed east towards Quebec city the humidity increased and I felt my energy draining pretty quickly. I stopped a couple of times to cool off then trudged along.
Making my way from the Ontario province into the Quebec province was eye opening. In all the western provinces there are hints of the French language with the dual road signs and such but nothing too major. As soon as you reach the border into Quebec all English has vanished. All signs are in French, everybody that I meet speaks mainly French, and when I speak English I get sort of an evil look from everyone. With my VERY limited French I had to get used to that look.
Once into the city I stopped at a visitor center and found a campground to stay at for the night. Making my way out there I was actually happy to be back into city traffic (that was flowing). At the campground, I got stuck out in the overflow section out in the boonies and a lengthy walk to the bathrooms/showers. I set up tent and noticed some dark clouds and heard thunder in the west. Figuring that the storms came in from the ocean I wasn't worried. Off I go to take a lovely, FREE shower. When I left the shower building the skies had opened up and it was pouring rain. Running back to my tent I jumped in being only moderately drier than when I was just in the shower. This sucks.
Sitting in the tent getting ready for sleep I was further disappointed to find that the rain intensified and with it brought strong winds, amazingly loud thunder, and extremely bright lightning. My tent was caving in to about half its normal size due to the wind so I was sitting against the windward wall trying to prevent damage to it. In this position the rain felt like BBs being shot at my back and somehow the rain was making it's way through the waterproof rain fly and soaking me.
Pictures
Camping in Quebec Video
Second Guessing Camping in Quebec Video
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