Letter 20: Quebec
Wednesday, July 1 we headed to Canada—on Canada Day. First we had to get our phone/internet service squared away. Our air card for the internet had been showing roaming when we opened it, so we figured we were going to be charged some Canadian air time, even though we weren’t in Canada. When we called they said, “Yes, $299!” After a lot of talking they agreed to give us credit for that time and it should show up with the next bill. How can you be happy about paying Canadian roaming charges when you were in the USA?
Since we will be in Canada when that bill arrives we will have to depend on Angie (bless her heart!) to check that bill and see if the credit happened. If not, maybe Teenya, who also has Sprint can take care of it for us. Let us know girls, what happens.
The border crossing where we hoped to cross was closed by an Indian Reservation in New York. They were concerned about the Canadian initiative to arm border agents, and since the New York side was on their reservation, they closed it. There are several small roads crossing the border along this stretch of New York so we chose the next one east, BUT we missed the turn so went to the next one at Trout River, NY. No line. What a change from Niagara, where it took more than 30 minutes.
Fred was not excited about crossing the border. We were over the allowable limit for several items. Who knows what we exceeded without knowing about it. When we stopped at the checkpoint we were the only one at the border. We answered truthfully about cigarettes and liquor. He told us it was much more than allowed, but he asked to see inside our trailer to see the packaging for himself. We guided him inside and after inspecting some of the two items, he reluctantly said, OK, and let us go. No check for meats, fruit, vegetable or anything else. We know they must balance import law, personal judgment (as to our intentions) and the desire to increase tourism. They are very powerful and their actions can cause misery, even if legal. We were very happy!
The next step was to find a Quebec map then find our targeted campground. Our nice neighbor (from Quebec) in Wellesley Island had given us a guide to Camping in Quebec, which helped a great deal. Reading French road signs was a challenge, but we managed to arrive safely. We cooked a hot meal and cleaned house. That’s the way we celebrated Canada Day on our first day here—no disrespect intended!
In western Canada last year we were told Canadian signs were bi-lingual. We saw evidence last year. Signs were in both English and French. Fred expected French and English sign in Quebec, but here they are all French. No English signs.
Thursday, July 2, we gathered the laundry and when we asked the campground host where a big laundry was, she started telling, then said, I will lead you. She also lead us to her bank and used her ID card so we could get a better rate of exchange. Canadian money is $336.03 for our $300. Never would we have found the buanderie, oops we mean laundromat, without our guide. She was extra nice to us. When the snows come, she and her husband close the campground and move to their property in Mission, Texas for the Canadian winter.
Next, we stopped at an Information Canada store and stocked up on Canadian information. They also let us call Giannina (Genni,) our friend who was expecting us for dinner, on their office phone to confirm our arrival. Then we stopped at a multipurpose store which had a post office and we asked how to have our mail sent general delivery in Canada. That was a huge questions, the lady had to call Ottawa to find out. In the end she said to go online and get the post office address. This store also had a Bell Canada phone concession and he told us to get the Sprint phone service, that Bell and Sprint use the same towers.
Although we had never met them, Genie’s girls were just as excited as she was about our visit and were very helpful to her
in the kitchen. Karina, 18, had just had her long hair cut 12” and was still excited but shocked at her appearance. She looked like a grown up lady. Shahla 13, 
is an aspiring chef and prepared the risotto (with saffron) which is very time consuming and tedious. It was delicious. They had all gone way over and above to treat us.
They started with brochette topped with tomatoes, then soup, salmon cooked with maple syrup and pistachios, salad and risotto. Dessert was Shahla's lemon bon bons rolled in Persian pistachio nuts. And to top that off Genni treated us to Limoncino Evangelista from Sorrento. It is kept in the freezer and served that cold. It doesn’t freeze because it has so much alcohol in it. Genni’s husband Djavad is a family practice doctor and has a very active practice. Originally he is from Iran. They told us about a trip to his home country last year. The girls had to wear the robes and cover everything but their eyes, and were not exactly happy about it. The pistachios they served were from Iran.
Friday, July 3 we departed Montreal and drove north east along the St Lawrence river to the
Notre- Dame-du-Cap Shrine and the
camper parking lot for pilgrims.
is an aspiring chef and prepared the risotto (with saffron) which is very time consuming and tedious. It was delicious. They had all gone way over and above to treat us.
They started with brochette topped with tomatoes, then soup, salmon cooked with maple syrup and pistachios, salad and risotto. Dessert was Shahla's lemon bon bons rolled in Persian pistachio nuts. And to top that off Genni treated us to Limoncino Evangelista from Sorrento. It is kept in the freezer and served that cold. It doesn’t freeze because it has so much alcohol in it. Genni’s husband Djavad is a family practice doctor and has a very active practice. Originally he is from Iran. They told us about a trip to his home country last year. The girls had to wear the robes and cover everything but their eyes, and were not exactly happy about it. The pistachios they served were from Iran.Friday, July 3 we departed Montreal and drove north east along the St Lawrence river to the
Notre- Dame-du-Cap Shrine and the camper parking lot for pilgrims.The Canadians we met in SC told us of this place. This is quite an experience. There is no charge but they accept donations. They do have fresh water available and a dump. It is very close together parking 
(6 meters wide) and we are right on the St Lawrence. See the river between the 
trailers at the end of the row and across the street from us. We found three people here who speak English, all others French. We are definitely in French speaking territory. Everyone is friendly when pressed, but don’t talk to us, unless we approach them. We really wished for Jean Paul, Sonny & Elaine! We knew Sonny and Elaine are on their way to Alaska, but watched for Jean Paul's motorhome.
Shortly after our arrival, Fred surveyed the license plates and counted the rigs. There were 71 occupied spots out of 96. Of the 71 rigs, 70 were from Quebec, one from Texas. Each RV has two people—we saw no children. That’s 142 people. We found 140 spoke French, two spoke Texan. One hundred forty were Catholic, two were Methodist. Of the 140 who spoke French, about 10 also spoke English and another 40 thought they could, but couldn’t. They are all friendly, but we are not in the loop and its hard to make friends due to our lack of French.
This Shrine is the Canadian National Shrine to Our Blessed Mother. The original stone parish church, now known as the Little Old Shrine, was opened for worship in 1720. It is the oldest church preserved in its integrity in all of Canada.
Saturday, July 4 and here we are in Canada, not celebrating the 4th of July. We explored Trois Rivieres and found a trailer supply business to obtain a new shelf for the broken one on our refrigerator door. We toured the Basilica and purchased a Rosary for Olivia's friend and Teen Court Coordinator in McAllen, Diana Ramos.
We also visited the library for our internet fix. We miss not having an air-card. We were able to activate one of our phones for use in Canada. Three dollars per month, plus 20 cents per minute. As of Tuesday, we haven’t used it and only plan to use it for emergencies.
Sunday, July 5, first thing in the morning when Olivia tried to heat her coffee on the stove the burner wouldn’t stay lit. Oops! Out of propane, so off we go in a hurry because that also means the refrigerator wasn’t working. Fred knew we were low, but not that low! We finally found a place that was open on Sunday and filled both tanks. Since we didn’t have a Methodist Church to go to and this Shrine is French speaking we decided to do our grocery buying. At the first grocery store we were unable to find several things on our list so here we went Wal-Mart. We still weren’t completely successful but close enough.
Back at the church they had a 4:00 pm English service of
“Mary’s steps of the cross”, so we attended and walked in the garden with a tour group from Toronto. We had heard about this Catholic service and it was very moving. The tour started and ended at their
miracle bridge, named after an event in 1879 when they were attempting to build a new Basilica with granite from the south side of the St Lawrence. In late March, they said their rosaries and a miracle happened. The river formed a frozen bridge and they were able to slide the stones across the river and build what is now their
old basilica. This was later named the miracle of the Rosary Bridge.
This was the second day with temperatures below 70.
Monday, July 6 we vegged. We were in the waiting stage for our 17 year old granddaughter from Rockport, Blaire to arrive on Sunday in Quebec City. We were about 90 miles and six days away. Maybe you noticed we sometimes say “Quebec (city)” and sometimes say “Quebec City.” We are in the Province of Quebec. Within this province there is a city named Quebec. It can be confusing. Many people say Quebec City to avoid confusion.
The temperature rose to 75, then late in the day clouds rolled in and the temperature fell back into the 60s. Except for showers, the weather had been wonderful.
Many of the rigs left the camp ground. At one point in the day we counted only 25 occupied spots. People come and go here all day long. Still all Quebec license plates, except for us.
Just before we left a sailing ship went by.
This day we thought of the Stokers, our Waxahachie friends. They left for a camping trip to California. They will visit many of the placed we visited and liked so well last year. We hoped “happy traveling” for them.
Tuesday, July 7 we moved closer to Quebec (city) to Pont Rouge and the commercial campground Air d’ete, or Summer Camp. On the way we drove along the St Lawrence on Hwy 138 and saw many little villages, houses on the river, pretty fields and lots of flowers. Close to Pont Rouge we passed people picking strawberries.
We set up camp and it started raining AGAIN! This time it was a good soaking rain and lasted quite a while. This campground has full hookups, so Olivia hit the computer, put on a pot of potato soup and went to the office to connect to their internet.
Thursday, July 8 we drove north to the National (Quebec) Park Jacques Cartier and checked out their camp grounds. We found a lot of spots we could fit into with electricity. Their price was a bit expensive and we could not see the beautiful river from the campground. We drove up the valley and saw
canoers and 
kayakers enjoying the river.
On the way back to the campground we stopped to pick strawberries.
As you can see we ate as many as we picked.
Friday, July 10 we prepared ourselves, the trailer and the car for Blaire. We washed, cleaned the awning and rearranged so she would have a place to put her stuff. We met a couple of fulltimers from England and shared information about campgrounds. We are going where they have been and visa versa. They also told us about the performance of Cirque du Soleil in Quebec City and it was free. We investigated and went. This performance is a gift to his home city of Quebec from the originator Guy Laliberte’. He is now a multimillionaire and is scheduled to visit the Space Station for one week. This is the 25th anniversary year of Cirque du Soleil (roughly Circus of the sun) and this exclusive performance titled Les Chemins Invisibles, will run for five years during the summers. It is held outside, under two highway bridges and the audience stands (no chairs allowed) beside the stage and runway and up the embankment for the bridge. We arrived at 9 pm and the show started at 9:15. We should have been there earlier. Maybe we could have had a better view. The show started on three small stages, that we couldn’t see, then moved to the runway and stage. It was still hard to see, but what we could see was stunning. The costuming, choreography, talent and grace of the artists were outstanding. Despite having to stand, even Fred was impressed. For more information go to Cirque du Soleil—Quebec City Tourism.
Saturday, July 13, we cleaned house and made final preparations for Blaire, then moved to Saint Anne du Beaupre’. The huge church is built a lot like Notre Dame in Paris and across the street is another parking lot for campers. This one is larger and has some trees. It was up to us to chose a spot, there were no designated camping spots. People were parked every which way. There was more space between campers which was nice. We backed up to the river which is split by a huge island. The ship channel is on the other sided of the Isle d’ Orleans. This side isn’t as pretty and the campground is further from the bank than the last church campground. We walked over to the church. It is outstanding. It reminds us of some of the huge churches in Europe. The interior is filled with 1” mosaic tiles both on the floor and ceiling. There are lots of gold tiles creating a multitude of pictures. Saint Anne was the Mother of Mary and her statues and pictures are everywhere. In one area is a Pieta’, an exact replica of the original sculpture by Michelangelo, which is found at Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
Sunday, July 12 we woke up to rain, again! Then it cleared to puffy clouds and very strong winds. We watched the clock and thought of Blaire’s flight.
Blaire arrived
safe and sound about six pm. We ate a sandwich in the car then found a grocery store for her needs, minus refrigerator items because it would be near midnight before we returned to the trailer. Rain was predicted, but the weather was holding, so we drove into downtown and parked about 2 blocks from the stage area. We were early but there was already a long line to get into Cirque du Soleil. We were able to get much better standing room on the embankment and while we waited we made acquaintance with three Canadians, one of which spoke good English. Blaire enjoyed chatting with her and asking how to say things in French. This lady later interpreted some of the songs and statements made during the performance. We enjoyed the show and costumes until the last 15 minutes of the performance when it started raining. Then we had the problem of finding our way out of downtown to the trailer. Traffic police wouldn’t let us turn left and we kept getting further away. We couldn’t read the road signs, streets were wet and we didn’t know where we were going. Finally it all worked out. We were about 30 minutes away from the trailer and Blaire crashed.
Monday, July 13 we slept late, then around noon we walked over to
St Anne’s basilica and walked 
through enjoying the 
lavish decorations. Everywhere you 
looked was beautiful. In the basement was a replica of 
Michelangelo’s Pieta’.
We drove toward Quebec city on the
old road overlooking 
St Anne’s and the campground. We are in the back right corner of the campground. Just before reaching Quebec we crossed this side of the St Lawrence to the Isle of Orleans and drove all around it, enjoying the little communities, flowers, fields of potatoes, 
mustard and strawberries.
Along the way Blaire climbed a lookout tower,
see her at the top!, at a roadside park with a 
hot dog stand in an old trailer.
We enjoyed the drive seeing
interesting houses and 
street scenes.
Tuesday, July 14 we drove into Quebec City and passed
Montmorency water falls. We parked and walked into the old walled city 
enjoying the 
small streets and 
pretty flowers.
(6 meters wide) and we are right on the St Lawrence. See the river between the 
trailers at the end of the row and across the street from us. We found three people here who speak English, all others French. We are definitely in French speaking territory. Everyone is friendly when pressed, but don’t talk to us, unless we approach them. We really wished for Jean Paul, Sonny & Elaine! We knew Sonny and Elaine are on their way to Alaska, but watched for Jean Paul's motorhome.Shortly after our arrival, Fred surveyed the license plates and counted the rigs. There were 71 occupied spots out of 96. Of the 71 rigs, 70 were from Quebec, one from Texas. Each RV has two people—we saw no children. That’s 142 people. We found 140 spoke French, two spoke Texan. One hundred forty were Catholic, two were Methodist. Of the 140 who spoke French, about 10 also spoke English and another 40 thought they could, but couldn’t. They are all friendly, but we are not in the loop and its hard to make friends due to our lack of French.
This Shrine is the Canadian National Shrine to Our Blessed Mother. The original stone parish church, now known as the Little Old Shrine, was opened for worship in 1720. It is the oldest church preserved in its integrity in all of Canada.
Saturday, July 4 and here we are in Canada, not celebrating the 4th of July. We explored Trois Rivieres and found a trailer supply business to obtain a new shelf for the broken one on our refrigerator door. We toured the Basilica and purchased a Rosary for Olivia's friend and Teen Court Coordinator in McAllen, Diana Ramos.
We also visited the library for our internet fix. We miss not having an air-card. We were able to activate one of our phones for use in Canada. Three dollars per month, plus 20 cents per minute. As of Tuesday, we haven’t used it and only plan to use it for emergencies.
Sunday, July 5, first thing in the morning when Olivia tried to heat her coffee on the stove the burner wouldn’t stay lit. Oops! Out of propane, so off we go in a hurry because that also means the refrigerator wasn’t working. Fred knew we were low, but not that low! We finally found a place that was open on Sunday and filled both tanks. Since we didn’t have a Methodist Church to go to and this Shrine is French speaking we decided to do our grocery buying. At the first grocery store we were unable to find several things on our list so here we went Wal-Mart. We still weren’t completely successful but close enough.
Back at the church they had a 4:00 pm English service of
“Mary’s steps of the cross”, so we attended and walked in the garden with a tour group from Toronto. We had heard about this Catholic service and it was very moving. The tour started and ended at their
miracle bridge, named after an event in 1879 when they were attempting to build a new Basilica with granite from the south side of the St Lawrence. In late March, they said their rosaries and a miracle happened. The river formed a frozen bridge and they were able to slide the stones across the river and build what is now their
old basilica. This was later named the miracle of the Rosary Bridge.This was the second day with temperatures below 70.
Monday, July 6 we vegged. We were in the waiting stage for our 17 year old granddaughter from Rockport, Blaire to arrive on Sunday in Quebec City. We were about 90 miles and six days away. Maybe you noticed we sometimes say “Quebec (city)” and sometimes say “Quebec City.” We are in the Province of Quebec. Within this province there is a city named Quebec. It can be confusing. Many people say Quebec City to avoid confusion.
The temperature rose to 75, then late in the day clouds rolled in and the temperature fell back into the 60s. Except for showers, the weather had been wonderful.
Many of the rigs left the camp ground. At one point in the day we counted only 25 occupied spots. People come and go here all day long. Still all Quebec license plates, except for us.
Just before we left a sailing ship went by.This day we thought of the Stokers, our Waxahachie friends. They left for a camping trip to California. They will visit many of the placed we visited and liked so well last year. We hoped “happy traveling” for them.
Tuesday, July 7 we moved closer to Quebec (city) to Pont Rouge and the commercial campground Air d’ete, or Summer Camp. On the way we drove along the St Lawrence on Hwy 138 and saw many little villages, houses on the river, pretty fields and lots of flowers. Close to Pont Rouge we passed people picking strawberries.
We set up camp and it started raining AGAIN! This time it was a good soaking rain and lasted quite a while. This campground has full hookups, so Olivia hit the computer, put on a pot of potato soup and went to the office to connect to their internet.
Thursday, July 8 we drove north to the National (Quebec) Park Jacques Cartier and checked out their camp grounds. We found a lot of spots we could fit into with electricity. Their price was a bit expensive and we could not see the beautiful river from the campground. We drove up the valley and saw
canoers and 
kayakers enjoying the river.On the way back to the campground we stopped to pick strawberries.
As you can see we ate as many as we picked.Friday, July 10 we prepared ourselves, the trailer and the car for Blaire. We washed, cleaned the awning and rearranged so she would have a place to put her stuff. We met a couple of fulltimers from England and shared information about campgrounds. We are going where they have been and visa versa. They also told us about the performance of Cirque du Soleil in Quebec City and it was free. We investigated and went. This performance is a gift to his home city of Quebec from the originator Guy Laliberte’. He is now a multimillionaire and is scheduled to visit the Space Station for one week. This is the 25th anniversary year of Cirque du Soleil (roughly Circus of the sun) and this exclusive performance titled Les Chemins Invisibles, will run for five years during the summers. It is held outside, under two highway bridges and the audience stands (no chairs allowed) beside the stage and runway and up the embankment for the bridge. We arrived at 9 pm and the show started at 9:15. We should have been there earlier. Maybe we could have had a better view. The show started on three small stages, that we couldn’t see, then moved to the runway and stage. It was still hard to see, but what we could see was stunning. The costuming, choreography, talent and grace of the artists were outstanding. Despite having to stand, even Fred was impressed. For more information go to Cirque du Soleil—Quebec City Tourism.
Saturday, July 13, we cleaned house and made final preparations for Blaire, then moved to Saint Anne du Beaupre’. The huge church is built a lot like Notre Dame in Paris and across the street is another parking lot for campers. This one is larger and has some trees. It was up to us to chose a spot, there were no designated camping spots. People were parked every which way. There was more space between campers which was nice. We backed up to the river which is split by a huge island. The ship channel is on the other sided of the Isle d’ Orleans. This side isn’t as pretty and the campground is further from the bank than the last church campground. We walked over to the church. It is outstanding. It reminds us of some of the huge churches in Europe. The interior is filled with 1” mosaic tiles both on the floor and ceiling. There are lots of gold tiles creating a multitude of pictures. Saint Anne was the Mother of Mary and her statues and pictures are everywhere. In one area is a Pieta’, an exact replica of the original sculpture by Michelangelo, which is found at Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
Sunday, July 12 we woke up to rain, again! Then it cleared to puffy clouds and very strong winds. We watched the clock and thought of Blaire’s flight.
Blaire arrived
safe and sound about six pm. We ate a sandwich in the car then found a grocery store for her needs, minus refrigerator items because it would be near midnight before we returned to the trailer. Rain was predicted, but the weather was holding, so we drove into downtown and parked about 2 blocks from the stage area. We were early but there was already a long line to get into Cirque du Soleil. We were able to get much better standing room on the embankment and while we waited we made acquaintance with three Canadians, one of which spoke good English. Blaire enjoyed chatting with her and asking how to say things in French. This lady later interpreted some of the songs and statements made during the performance. We enjoyed the show and costumes until the last 15 minutes of the performance when it started raining. Then we had the problem of finding our way out of downtown to the trailer. Traffic police wouldn’t let us turn left and we kept getting further away. We couldn’t read the road signs, streets were wet and we didn’t know where we were going. Finally it all worked out. We were about 30 minutes away from the trailer and Blaire crashed.Monday, July 13 we slept late, then around noon we walked over to
St Anne’s basilica and walked 
through enjoying the 
lavish decorations. Everywhere you 
looked was beautiful. In the basement was a replica of 
Michelangelo’s Pieta’.We drove toward Quebec city on the
old road overlooking 
St Anne’s and the campground. We are in the back right corner of the campground. Just before reaching Quebec we crossed this side of the St Lawrence to the Isle of Orleans and drove all around it, enjoying the little communities, flowers, fields of potatoes, 
mustard and strawberries.Along the way Blaire climbed a lookout tower,
see her at the top!, at a roadside park with a 
hot dog stand in an old trailer.We enjoyed the drive seeing
interesting houses and 
street scenes.Tuesday, July 14 we drove into Quebec City and passed
Montmorency water falls. We parked and walked into the old walled city 
enjoying the 
small streets and pretty flowers. We even passed someone hanging from the 
roof trying to repair a gutter with his feet
In front of the Chateau Frontenac Hotel we saw our first
street show. It was held beside an 
archalogical dig of the old city. We looked over the railing to the 
lower city as we walked 
along their 
boardwalk. We walked slowly and with some effort up the hill to the 
Citadelle.
The guards were
standing at attention inside the old moat (or is it mote?) Walking away from the Citadelle we saw 
Porte Kent. Down the hill we passed close knit houses and between two was 
a spiral sculpture. We discovered a second show at the Place de Hotel-de-Ville and watched two characters 
perform a tumbling, juggling and 
cycling show. The street performers are a highlight and a “must see” in Quebec.
Four children
enjoyed the third show of acrobatics ending with a 
hoop show. Blaire went back to a booth of a jeweler who created porcelain where she 
bought a surprise for her mother. Walking back to the car we traversed an 
artist alley which would really be neat in Waxahachie. By one of the museums were 
two floral pillars. Back at the trailer we crashed and prepared to leave this fair city.
We love hearing from you so email us at Olivia@bobheck.com or fredharrington@yahoo.com
Next chaper: The Gaspe Pennisula.
roof trying to repair a gutter with his feetIn front of the Chateau Frontenac Hotel we saw our first
street show. It was held beside an 
archalogical dig of the old city. We looked over the railing to the 
lower city as we walked 
along their 
boardwalk. We walked slowly and with some effort up the hill to the 
Citadelle.The guards were
standing at attention inside the old moat (or is it mote?) Walking away from the Citadelle we saw 
Porte Kent. Down the hill we passed close knit houses and between two was 
a spiral sculpture. We discovered a second show at the Place de Hotel-de-Ville and watched two characters 
perform a tumbling, juggling and 
cycling show. The street performers are a highlight and a “must see” in Quebec.Four children
enjoyed the third show of acrobatics ending with a 
hoop show. Blaire went back to a booth of a jeweler who created porcelain where she 
bought a surprise for her mother. Walking back to the car we traversed an 
artist alley which would really be neat in Waxahachie. By one of the museums were 
two floral pillars. Back at the trailer we crashed and prepared to leave this fair city.We love hearing from you so email us at Olivia@bobheck.com or fredharrington@yahoo.com
Next chaper: The Gaspe Pennisula.
