Day 60

Sunday, August 22nd
Quebec City to Riviere Ouelle
141km

Another WONDERFUL day of cycling. 

My friend Jeremy (who rode across the country last year...alone!) told me that Quebec was a great place to cycle...and I certainly agree.  The sun was out, but the day was nice and cool.  There was a good tail wind, mostly good roads, and lots of great scenery and cute little towns to ride through.  The day flew by.

From the university, there was a long, steep downhill (with a few ignored stopsigns) down to the river.  We took a short ferry trip across the river, which gave us one last look at the Chateau Frontinac, before riding on route 132 for the rest of the day.

(As a side note, our tour guide yesterday said that the Chateau Frontinac was “the most photographed building in the world.”. Can this possible be true?  I suppose that there's no way to measure it, but surely there are more likely candidates.)

Tonight, our cooking crew reprived our chicken thai curry dish.  It took a really long time to make because the gas elements kept burning out in the wind, but tasted good.  In the end, we cooked and cleaned from 4pm to 8pm...which felt like an eternity.  The mosquitos came back in full force this evening too...which made dish time that much more enjoyable.

Finally, I  neglected to mention the (false) fire alarm that happened in Point-du-Lac...at the nunery place.  Everyone was sound asleep when the ringing bells had us up and out of bed.  After 4 years in residence, I have seen my fair share of fire alarms...but this one was a bit different. 

As soon as we established that nothing was actually burning, people became very grumpy.  I actually thought to myself, “It was probably punk kids.  Why would anyone be so cruel as to wake us all up at...10:30pm.”  The loud bells had been ringing for about 4 minutes before Lorne got a little wrench from his bike and removed all of the metal bells from the walls.  In the end, the bells were shut off (by the proper authorities) and the abundant flies near the detectors were blamed for the whole ordeal.
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Daniel Longo
CIBC Corporate Development
(416) 956-3831