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We bid farewell to the Auberge des îles, Lac St Jean on Saturday morning and are headed home with an overnight stay in Cornwall. Our original plans were to meet up with some Austin friends in Quebec City, Mark & Charlsa were at the tail end of an Atlantic cruise, but Mark had a mishap on a hike and they have had to hot tail it home. So we're on our own with some flexiblity. We had talked about getting to Montreal and spending some time there. But we're more keen to get home than spend another night in some expensive hotel. We're trying to get home quickly.
There are some interesting routes one might take back. I had originally thought we'd head back to the north shore where we had arrived several days ago. But that would have been a dumb idea. There are a couple of more direct routes. The one would take us to Trois Riviere (between Quebec City and Montreal), the other is somewhat shorter and more direct to Quebec City.
This direct route on 169/175 turned out to be a very good route. While there some pretty good farmland around Lac St Jean most of the route is through the rocks and trees of the Laurentide Wildlife Reserve with very few sparse settlements along the way. There are a few pictures of some stops we made. The weather was lovely, clear and bright. The forests were changing colors and probably at their peak. The road was in very good condition (unlike our alternate route through NB) and fast with regular passing lanes.
One thing I learned on this trip is that cell coverage in the wilds of Quebec and NB is going to be spotty at best. I found that if I downloaded the route map ahead of time that Google maps worked pretty well.
Speaking of Google maps, as we approached Quebec City we made a decision that we should stop at Montmorency Falls. We had a bit of a view of the falls from the cruise we had taken on the St Lawrence when we were last in Quebec City. I had some vague understanding that it was nearby, it's actually very near by. Anyways, Kate found it on her phone and Google maps navigated us to "Haut Parc Montmorency Chute" which is at the Haut/top of the falls. This would have involved some walking around (some interesting walking around) but we weren't up for it so we turned around heading to "Bas Parc Montmorency Chute". We had expected a pull over by the side of the road. It's much more impressive than that. Kate and I did a bit of hiking together, she hung out at the gift shop and I walked to the base of the falls on the left in the picture above. We didn't ride the cable car back to the top or dine at the better restaurant up top. We really didn't do the park justice, but then we aren't as young as we once were. One should allocate a full day there to take it all in.
Onward to the south shore, past Montreal and on to Cornwall where we stayed at the Ramada Inn. It's part of the Wyndham Group like the Motel 8 where we stayed on the way out. We like it a little better, have stayed before, it's only a little more expensive, and we finally smartened up enough to pre-book a ground floor room. We had slugged luggage up stairs far too many times.
We had dinner at the Kelsey's Road House across the street. I had a steak .... when you live with a pescetarian you take your opportunities where you find them.
Sunday is another lovely day and we're home to St Marys by end of day where Chandel has been tending the home and the critters.
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