Claudia and I were out at 9:10 and got in about 6:00. This was one long day! First of all, the road was about a 40-45 Mph road, even though it was marked at 90 km/hr (55 Mph). It was really rough and it rained the whole damn way. Secondly, the Trip Log sucked! There were several turns that were not in the log but most everyone just stayed on 132 and got here. Third through ninth were a few problems ranging from an accident, to a broken jack, to a blown tire, to failed windshield wipers and two minor mechanical problems. I will be busy tomorrow. Hope it doesn’t rain but it doesn’t look good right now. I had a four-finger drink and a glass of wine with dinner and now feel much better. I’m going to bed. Goodnight!
Contrary to previous indications, the day broke sunny and clear…a perfect Fourth of July! I made the rounds of our travel victims and resolved all the problems except the broken jacks and the windshield wipers. Today, we are going down the road a piece to sniff some flowers at a famous flower garden. Truthfully, that doesn’t register too high on my “Whoopie-o-meter” but I have been told it is interesting and well worth seeing. We shall see.
Well…not bad! It wasn’t just all flowers. There were some flowers there, but there were also “exhibits”. Several artists, companies, colleges and the like made up exhibits that tended to be environmentalistic and good for nature. One I especially liked was a root cellar full of potatoes on shelves. Each potato had wires stuck in each end and all were connected in series. The whole bunch was wired into a buzzer and small diode (light). Every few seconds, the buzzer would go off and the diode would light up. There were about a dozen racks so there was a constant ring of buzzer tones and small lights going off. We later walked by some of the flowers. I did bend over and look at them closely, but did not sniff! There was a bird feeding exhibit but a pair of squirrels had found a way to climb the pole and take over the feeder.
After the flower garden, we drove to Grand-Metis for lunch. Claudia had salmon and I had a bowl of steamed mussels. We then returned to the park to get ready for our Fourth of July evening.
It started raining about 6:00 but, no matter! The evening’s festivities are inside the activities center so we will be dry and toasty. The ladies baked up a bunch of cupcakes that are now decorated with red, white and blue icing. The plan is to party hearty, do a travel briefing and then retire to get ready for an early pull-out tomorrow morning. We all have to drive 68 miles and arrive at a “windmill farm”, as in electrical wind generators, by 9:15 for a tour at 9:30. I’m looking forward to this one. Hope nobody breaks down.
We all made it…barely! We just had time to park the rig when the bus stopped beside us to take us to the presentation. It was really an interesting tour. I’ve always wondered how those wind generators worked and now I know. They have a prototype of a vertical-axis generator and it’s the only one in the world.
I’m not going to bore you with a dissertation on the generation of electricity using the power of wind but catch me one-on-one with a drink and I’ll ‘splain it to you.
Following Highway 132, we headed for Gaspé and our campground at Cap-aux-Os. We followed the water all the way. The shoreline reminded us of Southern California below Santa Barbara and the Mexican shoreline down by Mulege. The homes all along the route were the typical Canadian homes…small, cute and brightly painted with sharply contrasting trim.
Pulling into the campground, we found it to be all grass and terraced so everyone had a great view of the water. We soon found out that there were problems. The area had received rain for something like 25 consecutive days. Remember I said the sites were all grass? When I pulled onto the site, the tires sunk about 3” into the ground. We put our jack boards down. These are pieces of 1” plywood about 14” square, normally quite adequate to keep the jacks from sinking. I started to level the rig as Claudia watched. The boards were being pushed down into the soft ground. I had to stop and add more wood which the park provided. My front jacks now have 4” of extra wood under them and it’s still not enough. We are resolved to sit here quite nose-down, uncomfortable but do-able. We had also been warned of low power. After setting up, I checked the power. I had a whole 100 volts of unusable power. I quickly unplugged. We would just use the generator instead. So, we are here in a beautiful spot with a beautiful view with a not-beautiful angle to the floor of the rig and another not-beautiful zero on the power meter. We are flexible! We shall persevere!
Flexible got bent a bit last night. It feels like the front jacks sunk in a few more inches. I do believe we are going to have to re-position and re-level “Godzilla”. Today is a “Free Day” so we slept in late…6:30. Claudia touched up her hair and gave me a haircut. I then vacuumed the rig while she took a shower. Yes guys, I do (some) housework even though my primary duties fall into the Engineering Department. After we re-level and re-position, we are going to jump in the car and do a tour of the Parc national du Canada Forillon (Forillon National Park of Canada). We must not leave until 11:00 however, as the young lady who runs this campground has a very good friend who is a lobster fisherman. He is scheduled to arrive at the dock about 11:00 and I am going to “help” him carry some lobsters to his vehicle to take them to the wholesaler. I do, however, have a very short memory sometimes and might forget what his vehicle looks like and get a few of the bugs into some other vehicle by accident…like MINE!
This is a GREAT day! The park manager just brought us 22 pounds of lobster for $132. That’s $6.00 a pound and the bugs are 2.75 pounds each. That’s four lobster dinners (for two) for $16.50! That’s $8.25 a dinner! Yowsuh! We are thinking of applying for a Workamper job here. Right now, we are going to go “parking” and drive around Forillon. After that, I will break out my propane burner and large pot and give my four lobsters a nice hot bath. Tonight , we will dine on fresh hot lobster with all the trimmings. Gotta go make sure we have enough butter. Bye!
We put all eight bugs in Barry and Terry’s shower and dumped ice on them to keep them happy while we went off exploring the area. The first place we went to was the lighthouse at Cape Gaspé. It was about a four mile, very scenic walk (round trip) but there was a lot of up and down in it.
While we were on the trail, we heard a bear was at the lighthouse in the picnic area. When we got there, no bear. It had wandered back into the bush about five minutes before we got there. He did leave his “calling card” though.
We returned to the car and drove over to the Interpretive Center for a short movie and more scenery. On the way, we came upon a car stopped on the road. We found out they were looking at two baby raccoons, apparently abandoned by the side of the road.
We pulled alongside of them just as two park rangers showed up. The babies were just in the grass and were looking at us and sniffing the air, trying to figure out what kind of varmint we were. We took a picture and left the babies for the rangers to deal with.
As soon as we got to the rig, I broke out the propane tank, burner and pot. I drew a nice pot of bath water for the bugs and soon had it to a nice rolling boil. Barry brought the guests of honor over and we cooked them up two by two.
As soon as we got to the rig, I broke out the propane tank, burner and pot. I drew a nice pot of bath water for the bugs and soon had it to a nice rolling boil. Barry brought the guests of honor over and we cooked them up two by two.
My pot wouldn’t hold more than two of them at a time. When the first two were done, they joined us at the table for diner. We had a great salad, fresh bread and rice. Cracking the shells was a joke. Barry had a small wooden crab mallet. No way would that break the bug’s shell, no matter how hard we hit them. It was time to get serious. I broke out my 5# sledge hammer. That did it! After cracking all the claws, we proceeded to gorge ourselves. The meal was magnificent! Life is good! Now for a good cup of coffee, a little TV, a sipping shot of Southern Comfort and it will soon be bedtime. Tomorrow is a travel day to Perce.
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