Days Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen

Right, ok. So, Hurricane done, more or less. The roads were dry (or drying) but the wind was still carrying on its harangue. I had about 25 miles of flats ahead of me before I got to Dégelis, which is where I’d meant to stop after Sinclair.

But since I’d by-passed Sinclair the day before yesterday in an effort to get ahead of the hurricane, and to keep as close to my schedule as possible, I figured I’d do the same with Dégelis and push on to Rivière-du-Loup, on the shore of the St. Lawrence Seaway. It made sense, although I wasn’t thrilled about the distance (it would prove to be nearly 90 miles) nor the long steady incline past Dégelis up to Demers or Saint-Honoré (about 20 miles or so). This wasn’t the ride I’d planned, but it was the ride ahead of me, so … saddle up.

Sure enough, though the first part of the route was flat, the still-gusting wind was an added challenge. Mostly crushed cinder and small rocks, the trail was also slower than a paved trail or hardpack dirt, which meant that I’d have to dig a little into each pedal stroke.

When I got to Dégelis, the real beauty of this section opened up. I found myself riding past B&B’s and municipal parks, with a well-maintained route that, if not paved, was made of such well-trodden dirt that it may as well have been. Clearly this part of the route - part of Canada’s “Route Verte” (Green Route) - was utilized regularly by local residents for dog-walking, jogging, and short recreational bike rides. Little rest-stop pavilions  with picnic tables popped up here and there and,  something I’ve not seen on a bike route before, outhouses. And not ramshackle porta-johns but clean, wooden structures with all the necessaries. Also always with a trash receptacle & recycling option that was similarly clean and always recently emptied. A beautiful path. (And a reassurance that bears were simply not going to be an issue in these parts.)

Later on, though, when I was past all the grand, sweeping vistas of Lake Temiscouata, and all the manicured lawns of the lakeside homes and tony B&B’s, the trail got rougher and rougher - then it eventually stopped outright. I mean, the trail continued, normally, but it was closed due to construction. And it wasn’t just roped off - there are gates in front of the trail which were closed an locked. There actually would have been a way around it, and often times I’ve run across trail construction that’s minimal, even though the trail is closed - but in this case, there was enough in the way of construction tape and official orange signs declaring “fermé” and “barré” that, were something to happen or were the way to become truly dangerous, I’d look like a real Yankee asshat if I’d ignored all that and just forged ahead.

So I doubled back a bit and started improvising a route along the road. There weren’t a lot of options (as there just weren’t a lot of roads, period) but I was certainly not going to take the freeway that ran to my left, a major vehicular artery from the Southern border to the sea. Instead, I started winding from side road to side road. Until … even the side roads stopped. Dead. I was right near another section of the trail, which still seemed to be closed, but there was really no other option. So I rode along a bit of it until I got to the other end of the closure. Detour done.

Or so I thought. A few miles later, another closure. And this time, my side road-routing took me to another road construction area. I rolled along dirt roads, past orange, reflective cones for a bit until the road seemed to stop completely, turning into dirt paths forged by the excavators parked in front of me. It was a smooth dirt path, but clearly not somewhere that motorized vehicles were meant to go. Here was where some of the real off-road capabilities of my gravel bike would come into play, I reasoned, as I carefully set out. Along what was starting to feel a bit like the Donner Pass.

Ultimately, the only reason I was able to go through this route was that it was a Sunday. This was a completely desolate construction zone. For better or worse, I suppose. Had there been workers there, I’m sure they would have waved me off. Instead, I rolled up & down what felt like a BMX trail for about 3 miles, sometimes on flat dirt, sometimes very rocky gravel, always keeping an eye out for anyone who might have a particular dislike of this route I’d chosen, scanning the road ahead for sharp drop-offs or shifting skree, and all the while thinking that if any of the drivers along the freeway 1,000 yards to my left were to glance over and see this lone cyclist riding alone through a Martian landscape of construction, they’d probably do a double take. Amidst all the wasteland and earth-moving machinery, I was an anomaly, to be sure. (I don’t have any photos of this area, btw. I’m afraid I had other things on my mind…)

Eventually, I made it back to solid, open trail. It had been a good 4 miles of up and down, back and forth, and as I cleared past the  cones and tape and “Route Fermé” & “Detour Barré” signs, I breathed a bit easier. And as I was now, according to the map, cresting the mountain, I should have a much easier time of it heading down to the water’s edge.

Which I did, all things being equal. I was still riding through crushed cinder and gravel, and I was still dodging routes, so it was still a bit like riding in sand, but I was on a proper trail and able to build up a rhythm on the descent. My only concern was that I still hadn’t secured lodging, nor had I found anywhere to stop for lunch, so it’d be Clif Bars and pedal-pounding until I got to Rivière-du-Loup.

Heading into town, I stopped at the first rest-stop I came across & downed a sandwich while I scrolled through hotel options on my phone. The two Warmshowers contacts for the area had both fallen through, camping wouldn’t be an option as there weren’t any campgrounds around & it was a suburban neighborhood that didn’t seem like the kind of place you knock on someone’s door and ask (in a foreign language, by the way) if you can set up a tent in their yard, and it was probably still going to be a bit wet and cool tonight.

But I was able to find a good deal at a nice place down near the shore and rode there, smelling the sea air blowing in off the St. Lawrence Seaway. The hotel was nice enough, in fact, that they asked me to leave my bike in a broom closet downstairs. It was a bit tough, leaving my constant companion for the last couple weeks, even if only for a few hours, but I felt better when I locked it to the shelf and headed up for the nightly routine of shower, laundry, and dinner.

Waking up early the next morning, I was under a new time imperative. There was yet another storm headed my way. I had 125 miles to go to Québec, and at 69 miles away, the quiet, seasonal town of L’Islet-Sur-Mer would be a good stopover spot. Rain was forecast to hit there by 6pm. It was also supposed to be the hardest downpour yet on this trip, so I didn’t want to be late.

I got on the road early and soon was heading down a wide-shouldered, county road with a mountainous edge on my left and a marshy barrier between me and the Seaway on my right. Traffic was minimal, and the cool air & grey skies of impending rain encouraged me not to tarry too often for photos, much against my instincts.

It became pastoral very quickly as I rode out of town. Wide swaths of farmlands also lay around me, particularly fertile from the groundwater, I’d expect. The horizon widened and I saw islands in the waterway that sloped gently out of, and back into, the water like humpback whales stuck in the middle of breaching.

The clouds and sun played tag as shadows and fog both came and went. And my route often took me away from the larger road to side roads through residential sections that felt a bit like a seaside English neighborhood - modest but manicured, simply apportioned but with beautiful gardens and misty views and surf.

Everywhere there was evidence of maritime culture, be it docks and harbors or buoys and widows walks. Driftwood sculptures sat beside park benches placed on the side of the road with no other view than the water in front of them.

Another common sight was public art. And by that, I mean not necessarily art that is publicly owned but which is publicly accessible. Religious statues and such, certainly (many towns in this area are named after saints, such as Honoré, Agatha, Jean, Denis), but also just expressions of a creative aesthetic. Hand-carved totems. Sculptures built of cornstalks and river weed. Designs in metal or tile.

It’s always gratifying to see people making things not for sale or official sanction but simply because they’re cool. I have often thought the primary goal of including the arts in education, for instance, is not to produce artists. It’s to produce an appreciation for art, to sharpen an artistic vocabulary. (Artists will grow out of that, of course. Some will make money at it, and some will even make a living. But the commercial impact from art shouldn’t be the primary motivating factor for arts education any more than should a nation of professional athletes be the goal for a school phys ed department. It’s a self-evident value, something that’s good for its own sake & just makes life more rewarding to live.)

On & on continued the weaving from highway to byway to bog road and back. Having gotten such an early start, I hadn’t had breakfast or even coffee. And I was having a hard time finding a convenience store. I stopped at a grocery store but it was only larger quantities. I just wanted a sandwich. (Coming out, an older local cyclist had seen my bike and wanted to stop & talk shop - he had a lot of questions about my luggage setup & wanted to talk about tech & such. His English was far better than my French, but we both did a lot of pantomiming about gears & internal cabling.)

Finally, I found a place for lunch and refueled. Back on the road, the mist in the air thickened. At a roadside stop, it turned to proper drizzle. I hunkered under a pavilion at a picnic table waiting for it to pass, but after about 20 minutes it didn’t show any signs of letting up, so I pulled out my rain gear and got on my way. I was 5 miles from L’Islet-Sur-Mer and didn’t want to get caught in a downpour.

Eventually I got to the AirBNB, just as the rain started to intensify. I showered, did laundry, and went to sort out the dinner situation. My two Clif Bars and a bottle of Gatorade weren’t going to last until Wednesday morning, when the storm would let up. Being a seasonal vacation village, there weren’t any restaurants in town that were open on a Monday. None that I could find, anyway. I found a grocery store 3 miles away, but I didn’t want to ride in the rain, in twilight, in cooling temps. Luckily I found a taxi service which was actually just a guy with a cell phone. A plan was forming.

I studied French in high school for a language requirement, but I never imagined I’d retain enough over twenty years to get directions and order concert tickets while on a trip to Paris with my then-girlfriend (later my wife). I never imagined I’d retain enough over forty years to give an address and directions over the phone to a taxi driver to the AirBNB where I was staying, or to ask a grocery store clerk where I could find canned soup or a loaf of bread, or that these four items which I brought to the checkout line I’d since decided I didn’t need.

David Sedaris has a lot of very funny material about him learning to speak French. A smoker, he tells a funny story in Me Talk Pretty One Day in which he sought to get a light by saying the French equivalent of, “Excuse me, but do you know where I could purchase a device with which one might make fire for the purpose of breathing smoke into my lungs?” I imagine my requests were not entirely dissimilar, thought I doubt they were nearly as funny. Nevertheless, I soon returned safe and dry with two days’ worth of groceries and a little less fear of the language barrier.

As I write this, I sit in my AirBNB as I have been here most of the day, listened to the movie-set storm pounding the roof and streets outside. I did venture out for a ten-minute walk to a local bike shop; I didn’t need anything, really, though I could use a small tube of chamois butter and a valve adapter, maybe a couple of meal bars if they had them. It was really just to break the monotony of staying inside all day; and I’ve gotten into the habit of visiting bike shops on my travels. I dunno - it’s comforting to be in the presence of some manner of like-mindedness for awhile, I guess.

Again with my Franglais, I got my request across to the shop owner. He asked where I was from and seemed impressed when I said New York City. I didn’t bother to disabuse him of the notion that I’d actually biked all the way from NYC; such an attempt would have had to include enough language-fumbling to bore us both, and it would only be for the purpose of a level clarity which didn’t really matter in the long run.  “Oui,” I said, “un gran voyage.”

Then I asked him, “Avez-vous un ‘sticker’ for ce magasin?” He smiled, because he totally got that I was souvenier hunting. He went to the back and came out with a sheet of little stickers they use for labeling their products, and he cut one off for me. “Bon, parfait. Merci bien,” I said. “Mais bien sûr,” he replied.

Coming back, the wind bent the trees and the rain drove at my back. I passed by the local maritime museum (closed until tomorrow) and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” came to mind. I got in and made another bowl of soup & finished the cheese & crackers. Tomorrow looks like it’s going to be beautiful. 55 miles to Québec. A little hard to believe that this trip is almost over. But I’m looking forward to one more good, hard ride ahead. You can imagine that a trip like this leads to all manner of philosophizing over all the miles. I’ll spare you most of it. With the exception that it has reminded me of something we all know - that we can only ever live in the here and now. Even if we could predict the future with some measure of accuracy (something at which we usually fail horribly), we can’t live it until it’s here. And while the past is something we can recall, it’s not always something we can interpret correctly. So its value is constantly changing.

Which is why tonight I choose to forget that this journey ends tomorrow. Because it won’t. Because it can’t. Because it hasn’t yet. And even when it has, like high school French, I may not know its full value for a very long time.