Day 99- Celine Dion, Denise and John

Day 99 Sunday, August, 15, 2010 Distance 108.50 km. Time 6 hr. 18 min. Total so far 7087.19 km. We were up at 5:40 and out of the tent at about 6 am. As we were dismantling the tent, with the sun popping up for the day, I looked over 2 sites down and there was the biggest skunk that I’ve ever seen! Normally we hang our food but last night we put it in the vestibule of the tent and I reminded Dave that we will NOT do that again! I'm glad he found someone else's food to tamper with. Almost right away we arrived in St. Sulpice. There were two windmills, or moulins, to photograph. Later we came to Repentigny and got lost trying to find Hwy 344. We stopped and I asked Yves for help. He was unloading his car. He called out his wife, Ginette, and between them and all of Yves’ maps we found our way. We were actually exactly on the road but the problem was that the Hwy. in the city, has a name (Rue Notre Dame) and we were searching for Hwy 344. A few kilometres later we passed through Charlemagne, which is where Celine Dion grew up! There was a big world structure with her name on it and a street Rue Celine Dion. We followed a bicycle path in Terrebonne and had a break for a snack by a garden park and the river, Riviere De Mille Islets, which is very low right now. One lone fisherman was out fishing between the rocks. Denise, a very friendly, inquisitive lady came by and we chatted for a while. I practiced my limited French with her. We were able to have a discussion about our faith in the Lord. We both believed our meeting each other that day at that moment was part of God’s plan. We then went past L’ile-des-Moulins, a tourist attraction but Dave did not want to stop as it was busy with tourists. We headed back to Hwy 344. It was quite busy but most of the time there was some type of bicycle lane. Dave is sorry we listened to the tourist boy the other day and came this close to Montreal. He thinks we should have stayed way higher on Hwy. 158 which was our original plan. It was still hot and humid today and at the next stop for Gatorade for me and cold pop for Dave, Dave got to talking to John, an outgoing fellow in his 40s, who moved here from Nova Scotia. Maybe he could smell Dave because he invited us to shower at his place but we said we were okay as we had showered the night before. I was standing at a distance and heard him compliment my strong legs so I went over and took his picture. As he said goodbye, he kissed my hand. He said real Frenchmen do that. Dave needs some lessons. Maybe we should stay in Quebec a little longer! We passed through Rosemere and had lunch in Parc Dubois in Boisbriand. In Saint-Eustache, Dave manoeuvred us, using the GPS, to Hwy 148 from Hwy 344 because it was too busy. I wanted to stop at this point but there really weren’t any places. It started to drizzle and then rain but we opted not to wear our rain gear because it was so hot. We would have been just as wet if we had worn our rain gear. We continued 20 km more to Lachute and Hotel Lorraine. After discovering we could not connect to the internet in our first room at the back, we were moved to a nicer room with internet closer to the office! Dave went across the street to the IGA to get groceries while I did two blogs. We’ll see what happens tomorrow with the weather because it poured rain all evening and into the night.