The honeymoon is over, again.
10:18 p.m.
We left Chicoutimi at about 10:00 this morning after a delightful breakfast with our friends of variously flavoured croissants. We had such a wonderful time with them I was loathe to leave. The weather was absolutely beautiful, sunny, breezy, not hot at all, and we had good driving until we hit rushhour in Quebec City. We drove along the Saguenay River, which is actually a fjord (more on that later) and stopped at the town of Rivi�re d��ternit� to look at the enormous cr�ches on display. They range from tacky to disturbing, Hubby�s favourite being one where the figures of Mary, Joseph and a shepherd were elongated in the style of Modigliani. The little baby Jesus was barely visible as a bundle at Mary�s waist. My personal favourite was very abstract, pine logs with pine slices attached to represent faces. Inside the church, where we did not venture, there were supposed to be 250 more. A workman was busily building an abri over one of the holy families, and we chatted with him briefly. His accent was so thick that we barely understood his French at all. But he was friendly, and wished us a pleasant journey.
We stopped at the town of Petit Saguenay where there is a quay built out into the bay. It was very windy and quite chilly, but the views along the fjord were beautiful. The magnificent cliffs, the improbable pines clinging to the rocks, and the lines of spume in the water that never seem to change position are all images I tried to burn into my memory. We stopped again just beyond the town to buy a basket of wild blueberries. The woman selling them had a couple of branches laden with berries to offer to customers as a �temptation�, and she ended up handing a whole branch to Hubby through the car window before we headed off. The inland trip from Petit Saguenay to Saint-Sim�on was speckled with ooh-and-aah sightings of lakes, cliffs and boulder-strewn streams.
Our approach to Saint-Sim�on was absolutely breathtaking as we caught sight of the St. Lawrence through the cleft in the rocks made by the roadway. We stopped there for a quick lunch of �grille cheese� sandwiches which we ate at a table outside overlooking the dock where a ferry had just left taking a load of passengers with their cars across the mighty fleuve to Rivi�re du Loup on the south shore. The girl at the casse cro�te told me that it�s not uncommon for pods of beluga whales to come that far down the river after the fish they feed on. We continued down to the road to Port au Persil where we bought a butter dish at the famous poterie there. I was sorely tempted to go wild with my credit card, but Hubby wisely kept me to the minimum.
From there we continued west along the north shore of the St. Lawrence, taking the scenic route (it was all scenic, believe me) along the water through towns with names like Les �boulements, Saint-Ir�n�e, and Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive. The approach to the latter was another breathtaking descent along a twisty road (my ears were popping) with the water spread out ahead, and the shape of �le-aux-Coudres a short ferry ride away. We almost ended up on the ferry, turning at the last minute into a parking lot, almost colliding with another vehicle on its way out. The town turned out to be a dead end, which meant we had to retrace our steps back to the highway, but it was well worth it just for the approach.
The sideroad joined the main highway just after Baie Saint-Paul where we stopped for a coffee, since we were both getting sleepy with the bright sunshine pouring in on us. The rest of the drive to Quebec City was quicker, but no less beautiful. We arrived at the provincial capital just in time for rushhour and inched our way through the downtown to reach the Pi�rre-Laporte bridge and cross to the south shore where we took Hwy. 20 west and then Hwy. 55 south the rest of the way home. Tomorrow I�ll consult my notes and try to write some kind of coherent description of the rest of our trip. Suffice it to say that it was a perfect anniversary getaway.
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