It’s Saturday evening, July 16, here in a sparely populated stretch of Mont Carmel, Quebec. The past two days were not pretty, with my Covid basically fatiguing me to the point where I just needed to mostly stay in bed – at a basic motel in Riviere Verte.
Quite the logistical quagmire what with having pre-booked my stays until two days from now. It’s meant riding to towns where there’s cab service and hoping for the best. This morning was another good example. I was at the Motel Express in Riviere-Verte, about 10 km north of Riviere-Du-Loup. The motel room was small but clean and next to a Tim’s. That’s where I bought my lunch and a chicken salad for dinner tonight, knowing I’d be back in the boonies far from cuisine.
After waiting a half hour for my food – the place was mobbed, being near a highway – I called the local taxi. For the second time in two days I was told I couldn’t get to where I needed to be from there. So I mounted my bike and rode into Riviere Du Loup, a beautiful small city, population 20,118, on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River. There’s a hospital here, and a really charming downtown section with privately owned shops and restaurants. Would have loved to stay longer.
As I sat on a park bench in that downtown section, looking up taxis, a cab pulled up to the stop sign right next to me.
It was empty and even had a bike rack on back! I jumped up and used my basic French to request a ride. The cabbie spoke pretty good English and we worked out a suitable route and fee.
He dropped me aout 55 km west, at highway 287. I was now about 20km north of my AirBnB.
However the terrain turned out to be major ups and downs, head-windy, and I just didn’t have the leg power to make it all the way. I called the BnB owner, and he so nicely offered to come pick me up in Mont Carmel. Interesting guy: retired fire firefighter, truck driver, and working at a power plant.
His home is on a spread of land and is mostly built out of wood. My bedroom is large with many windows. Great place! There’s a couple from Quebec and one from Germany staying here too. We had a nice chat, multilingual. 🙂
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