Now something more pleasant. Last weekend, we went to St. Joseph-de-Beauce, a beautiful idyllic small town in the Beauce region of Québec, an hour south of Québec City. There, it is lush green everywhere, with your small church steeples sticking out from the trees, wild flowers were dotted neatly along the road, and the river flowed calmly from one town to the next. R had a trailer there in the municipal campground year round, same as about 20 other campground residents who spend much of the summer there. The campground is located next to a waterfall and creek. Her site was next to a calmer section of the river, but we still fall asleep to the sound of moving water at night.
When we arrived on Friday afternoon, I did not want to do anything except read and study French. Z went on a long bike ride and R and I spent 2 long and productive hours studying French. We constantly made fire, even before nightfall, because the air that day was not as warm as we expected. By 10PM, I could not keep my eyes open by the fire, and began dozing off.
The following day was beautiful, but we still built a small fire in the morning for breakfast. Because we were camping, I woke up promptly by 7AM while Z continued sleeping for another hour. I read by the morning dew, relishing the relaxation I have not sensed in a long time. Over the course of the long weekend, I read half of my book and am nearly done with it! Once I returned to Montreal however, I no longer read because all my time was devoted to studying French!
Shortly after breakfast, Z and I biked to the town tennis court and played tennis for nearly 2 hours. The sun, by then, was beating down on us in a muggy, heavy, and uncomfortable kind of way. Nevertheless, we were happy that the sun showed its face that day. We need to pick up our game of tennis. It's difficult to practice in a city that charges $10 per hour for its tennis court. Because we were also running low on wine, fruit, and dinner material, we shopped at the local grocery store and carried everything back in our bike baskets and backpack. We ate a late lunch. Time seemed to have stopped while we were camping. everything moves so slowly that all we wanted to do was take naps and read books.
When I had enough of relaxing, I hurried Z along for a 2 hour bike ride towards Vallée Jonction and Ste. Marie, which were two town over from where we were. Much of the road was paved and pleasant to ride on, but for a good section there, the road was so poorly maintained that I was hanging onto the bike for fear of being thrown off. Just crossing over St. Joe, we saw the pig slaughterhouse in Vallée Jonction, which elicited much lunch discussion earlier. The road was hilly as well, but a pleasant type of hilly, one that I was able to maneuver on my bike with ease. We imagined the Cabot trail and concluded that it is probably not much different except that the hills are longer and the wind is stronger. Definitely would need a new bike for that.
We returned from the bike ride soaked in sweat while parts of our body were covered in salt, dried from the heat. Time for a swim! R invited us to swim in her swimming hole next to her campsite, but the water was too shallow to enjoy swimming. We went to the covered bridge next to the campground and searched for the perfect swimming hole. Not far, there was a 25 feet tall waterfall, occupied by another family. We waited in another part, only to discover the moss-covered rocks were far too slippery for us to frolic in. The clammering over rocks and feeling our way from one end of the stream to another reminded me much of our misadventure in Mt. Washington, where any misstep could result in serious injury or death. Despite the enticing waterfall, we decided to leave it for the morbidly obese boy, a screaming husky, and a brother who jumps from the edge into the waterfall at a frequency far too much for us to enjoy swimming without worrying about being splashed or disturbed.
Eventually, we found our water hole, a secret no one else shared with us at the time. It was too perfect, the rocks, the easy edge to slip into, the waterfall, the depth, all just what we wanted to get out of a swim. We swim from one end to another, feeling our way with feet, occasionally bumping into slimy rocks that were too shallow and too dark for us to notice. The water hole was in fact located just at the foot of the tent campers' site. So when we climbed out onto solid ground, we found 10 pairs of eyes staring at our dripping wet bodies.
It was a good day and we rested well. Even though we went to bed later than the previous night, but the fire felt so good we did not want to leave. The following morning it began to rain on and off. After breakfast, all three of us rode our bikes in the opposite direction towards Beauceville. I found that to be a much nicer ride than the previous day. The humidity was still in the air and we were anticipating a shower at any moment. Finally, on our way back passing by abandoned farm houses, animals, and farms, the rain found us and decided to give us a good shower. We changed out of our dirty went cloths when we reached the campground and I put the bundle of wild flowers in a glass in the center of the table. We wanted to leave as soon as possible, but M, R's campground friend returned with his truck and giant 5-wheeler from a 2 nights out with his friends. It was difficult to watch this 79-year-old man attempting to back into his camp site with a monster of a truck. Even Z took about 30 minutes to get everything right on the dot, and parked the trailer in an exact spot marked by the old man.
We were back on the road after some pie and ice cream only to be in a steady traffic all the back to Montreal. Good bye relaxing country life!
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