Day 95- Nice bicycle paths but lost in Quebec City

Day 95 Wednesday, August 11, 2010 Distance 100.67 km. Time 5 hr. 27 min. Total so far 6735.65 km. We woke up at 5:30 and I finished writing the journal from yesterday. There was a clear sky, the sun was up and we were on the road by 7:30. The first stop was just down the street at a ship museum. We took several photos there of the Earnest Lapointe, an ice breaker, the B'ras d'Or a submarine detector, and a sailboat, Je Bernier 11. Hooray , the wind was on our back today. We went quickly past Cap St. Ignace. We met Paul on a recumbent bicycle. He is travelling across the country and actually bicycled with Ania and Kasia and James who we met in Hartland, NB., when they were in Saskatchewan. He is a computer programmer but lost his job when his company was taken over by a company from India. he has bicycled all over the world and loves the recumbent style. We arrived in Montmagny shortly after 1 hour. We stopped at the tourist center where the man spoke English pretty well. We got our route established for the next while. We will cross the St. Lawrence at Levis and go on the north side on Hwy 138 and then take Hwy 158 to go north of Montreal. We took a bicycle path through the town past the town garden plots to IGA. When we were loading our bicycles with the groceries, a lady came up to us and we tried to have a conversation with both parties not understanding completely. Her name was Marcelle and she lives in Berthier-sur-Mer. At first, I thought she lived on the other side of the river. We think she was trying to invite us to stay in one of her chalets and I was trying to explain to her that since the wind was on our back, we wanted to get to Quebec city today. But boy, if I had been alone, I would have stayed with her for as long as she would have me. I felt badly to decline. We left, motoring along real nicely with the St. Lawrence on our right starting to get narrower. We passed by St. Vallier. At St. Michel de Bellechasse, we rode into town looking for a store with chocolate milk. We only found an ice cream store so we bought a milkshake to drink with our usual sandwiches. While eating, we talked to Marian and her husband, Hans. Marian is originally from Quebec but has lived in the USA for over 20 years and then France. Hans is from Germany. They moved back to the center of Quebec City a few months ago and were out for a little drive and a picnic. Ten km. later we entered Levis and after being on bumpy St. Joseph Street were finally able to get on a brand new, beautiful and very busy bike path all the way across town to the ferry. We paid 3 dollars each, could get on right away and only had to wait 10 min. for departure. Our bikes wouldn’t fit in the racks due to the front panniers so we walked them to the front of the ferry and leaned them against the railing. A group of 6 people came over to talk to us to see where we had been and where we were from. One man took our photo and I also took a photo of the Chateau Frontenac. The flags really attract everyone’s attention. Apparently it was fun day in Old Quebec City and many were coming over with their bicycles for a few hours. After we disembarked, we headed west on the busy bicycle path. It is called Le Corridor du Littoral, the urban pathway for the bicyclists of Quebec City. Again, many heads turned our way. We followed it to it’s end. It was very busy with walkers, bicyclists and roller bladers. At the end was a viewing tower and the security guard helped us with directions and a map. We are naïve little Sault Ste. Marie folks and thought we could find a campground or motel here. Ha! Ha! We are in Quebec City- St. Foy section. It is a CITY. We made our way to an information center. She helped us get a room in the cheapest hotel that would take 2 bicycles. That was the Hotel Gouveneur at $116 plus tax but the Best Western was $189. We got very lost trying to find it and it was getting on 5 o’clock and 100 km. on our computers. When we got there, Dave was upset because the room for the bicycles was down a whole bunch of steps. I told the girl that I couldn’t carry my bicycle like that and asked what floor we would be on. When she said the first, I asked if there were any stairs and she said no SO we wheeled Silver and Blackie through the front lobby, through the hallway by the restaurant, through some doors and down several corridors before we found Room 1020 in the bowels of the building. Thank you, Lord. That saved a lot of work. We had thought we would be camping so we had no buns or meat so we went down the street to Burger King for supper. I blogged all evening and we talked to Melissa and Sarah who is now with Tryne at Melissa’s house for a few weeks before returning to Ottawa. She just returned from the rowing regatta in St. Catherine’s and Chris got a gold medal in men's heavyweight quad and his brother Kent got 2 gold medals in the under 23 races. Congratulations, guys. Way to go!