Quebec

by

On the Shores of Lake Champlain

Yesterday (Saturday), I met up with my sister and her family at Camping Plage [Beach] Kirkland, in Venise-en-Québec along the shores of Lake Champlain, for a day of frolicking in sand and surf. I decided to spend the night so that I could visit a nearby attraction today.

The last time I played on a Lake Champlain beach was in the early 1990s when my dad rented a cottage in the area for our summer holidays. My sister doesn’t remember this, but I do because it’s the only time I remember my father taking us on a proper summer vacation.

With taxes, a dry spot in the campground was $30, an average amount for this part of the province. It would have given me access to the beach till 1PM today, but I left at 9 to give my planned activity, subject of my next post, all the time it would need.

Lake Champlain

Lake Champlain

Lake Champlain

Lake Champlain

fun on the water

fun on the water

the water was VERY shallow; you had to wade all the way out to the boat moorings to get enough depth for swimming

the water was VERY shallow; you had to wade all the way out to the boat moorings to get enough depth for swimming

Entrance to the Kirkland beach campground

Entrance to the Kirkland beach campground

This little guy is wearing a flotation vest!

This little guy is wearing a flotation vest!

Not a bad spot (nice and big), but it needed shade!!! It was only 7:30 this morning that the sun was already beating down through the driver's side window, cooking me in my bunk!

Not a bad spot (nice and big), but it needed shade!!! It was only 7:30 this morning that the sun was already beating down through the driver’s side window, cooking me in my bunk!

IMGP3823

I was on my own by about 5:30 Saturday evening, so I decided to get the truck bed set up for sleeping and then head out in search of dinner. It was really hot in the truck, but the outside temps were going down steadily. I cracked open the windows, set up the curtains, and then took off on foot to explore the dining options.

To my surprise, there aren’t many restaurants in Venise-en-Québec despite it being a very hot tourist location. To the left of the campground, I found a snack bar offering poutine, hot dogs, smoked meat, and the like. To the right, there are a few ice cream parlors and the only real dining option, Papa Suzie Pizzeria. Besides pizza, it offers fast food items like hot dogs and poutine, but also some sandwiches and full dinner options like pasta, fish and chips, and chicken. Nothing gourmet, but definitely a step up from a snack bar.

I ordered the chicken breast dinner. It was modeled after the meals served by Quebec’s quintessential St-Hubert restaurants, an absurdly popular rotisserie offering insipid yet strangely addictive food. So that meant I got a quarter all-white meat chicken, French fries, colesaw, half of a toasted hamburger bun, and gravy.

The chicken was moist and flavourful (St-Hubert’s is dry and bland), the fries were brown and sweet (St-Hubert’s are frozen, what?!), the coleslaw was okay (St-Hubert offers an oil and vinegar slaw that is more to my liking than the kind with mayo), the hamburger bun was of better quality, and the gravy was thicker. I wasn’t able to finish everything and the bill came to less than $15 with tip!

It was going on 7:00 when I got back to the truck and the interior was nice and cool. I laid down with the iPad and wiled away the evening playing games and reading.

The night was very comfortable, but without shade, the truck became an oven very early this morning. Note to self: park in the shade when the temperatures promise to be torrid!

While the campground was adequate for my needs in the truck, I would not have wanted to drive through its narrow streets with Miranda. This is the second campground I’ve visited this summer where people are packed in really tightly. I don’t know if that’s the norm out here or if it just happens at the primarily seasonal campgrounds, but I would not find a stay there too relaxing.

My sister and her boyfriend are thinking of moving their travel trailer to this campground next summer. Like many other Quebecers, they use their trailer as a cottage set on a seasonal lot in a campground, probably because, as in Alberta, registration on a towable RV is a one-time fee. So this option is much cheaper than owning a cottage and you can move the trailer when you get bored with the scenery (or get annoyed with the neighbours!).

I enjoyed my time on the shores of Lake Champlain this weekend. Let me get some sleep and I will move on to my adventures on the Richelieu River in my next post.

by

Au Pied de la Chute Restaurant, Richelieu

Today, my uncle treated my grand-mother and us to lunch at the charming Au pied de la chute restaurant in Richelieu. It is so named ‘at the foot of the falls’ because it is on the banks of the Richelieu River right across from the dam. It’s a fine dining establishment that favours local products (produits du terroir).

We ate out on the terrace, so I did not see the interior, which must have been charming since the restaurant is set in a traditional Quebec home made of field stone.

Au pied de la chute

The very affordable lunch menu includes soup or salad with your meal, bread, and a hot beverage. The potage (smooth vegetable soup without cream) was apparently very good, but I opted for a lovely salad with a dressing that apparently smelled Japanese.

For the main course, my mother opted for the deer and Brie burger with frites while the rest of us all went for the lightly breaded perch with rice and roasted vegetables. Very, very delicious! There wasn’t that much on the lunch menu that had inspired me (the rest was red meat or mussels with curry or a pasta dish with artichokes and sun dried tomatoes that sounded good), but I don’t need much choice when something stands out so obviously! I especially liked the leek confit served over the fish.

We all had the German chocolate cake for dessert, a sliver of goodness served with some fruit pieces ($2!). The coffee was delicious.

Needless to say, I was very impressed with Au pied de la chute!

by

Running Around and Not Getting Much Done

I went out this morning to look for a tailgate handle for my Ranger. The scrap yard could have had a used one for me in a couple of days for $35 plus tax. The Ford dealership in Richelieu could have had a new one in the same amount of time for $75 plus tax. I bought a new handle on eBay from a surplus supplier for $19.75 including shipping and taxes. It’ll be a few more days, but why spend the extra money?

The dealership also did not have touch up paint but directed me to a place that could get me some. I decided to wait for that.

The post title says ‘much done’ implying that I did have some success with my errands today. I had casually mentioned the other day that I have been wanting to get a good pepper mill for ages but they are way out of my price range. Well, my step-mother learned that the kitchen supply store Ares is having an amazing deal on Peugeot mills (THE name in pepper mills) this week, $40 down from $70. Too good a deal to pass up so I got one this morning!

by

Converting My Pickup Truck Into a Camper

My mother is like MacGyver. I am not being facetious but stating a fact. She sees a problem, looks at what she has available to her, and comes up with a solution. This is why I was adamant about not putting any money into converted the bed of my pickup truck into a camper until she’d put in her two cents about the project.

Before we could do much brainstorming today, we had to measure the truck bed. Can you believe that this was the moment when my tailgate handle decided to break?!  We lost nearly a half hour trying to get the tailgate down! My mother says there is a scrap yard nearby and to try there for a new handle before going to the Ford dealership in Richelieu.

First off the window coverings. She noticed that all the windows have a lip around the frame. Please keep in mind that the following picture is a prototype. I am going to go buy sheets or other material to replace the drop cloth. 🙂

Can you see what she did there? She cut a length of elastic long enough to run around the window and hold the coverings in place. Brilliant.

Next, a bed base. We were going to build something with legs and then she had a better idea. I wanted to store bins under the bed, right? Hmm. Her neighbour moved back home to France and she collected some wine crates from him. Two each at the head and foot, one in the middle in conjunction with the wheel to hold a sheet of plywood:

As for the sheet of plywood, she had a scrap piece that was exactly the size we needed! When I want to reclaim my truck bed to haul stuff, I can stack my crates and stand up the plywood.

But before we could come up with dimensions for the bed, I needed a mattress. She has two folding foam mattresses that are perfect length and width. The only problem, she bought them at Costco and Costco has a big stock turnover. After lunch, my step-mother went out to see if they might still have some. Yup!!! And with a cover that is more to my liking than theirs!

The mattress has several seams in it, so it folds into a thick block. Notice the head? This is the most brilliant part of the design. There is a small piece of foam that folds up to act as a pillow. I like two pillows at night and only bought one of for the truck, so now I have the height I want. Plus, it makes the mattress the exact length I need to fit in the truck bed; the air mattress had been a little too long.

My mother then handed me a small pail that fits under the bed to act as a chamber pot. Bedroom and bathroom done!

This will be sufficient for me to go camping next weekend. But we still have two more projects. The first will be to set up some sort of recliner and surface next to the bunk. I will be sitting on my butt on the floor; there isn’t enough height to sit up straight. So that means that I can forget working on transcription in the truck bed unless I get a taller canopy, which is probably not going to happen.

My mother’s initial idea was that I would set up my temporary office in the cab, behind the driver’s seat. But there was no obvious way to do that. Then she came up with the obvious solution. Transcription is comparable to driving. So she’s going to make me a little table for the passenger seat and I will sit there if I ever have to transcribe while living in the toad. I don’t plan to put in long days there; it will be an available solution if I ever take off for an extended period of time.

I do plan to eventually get a 12V and 120V electrical system into the truck and would like to buy a canopy shelter for cooking and daily living for when I go stay at a campground for several days, but once I get the window coverings, I’ll be good to go next weekend. I can’t wait!

As we were finishing up, she saw her neighbor, who does automotive body work, so she asked him to come back to give me an estimate on dealing with Moya’s rust spots. He says that I would ideally need to do a full body paint job ($3,000, so forget it!), but that if I’m willing to accept some spots with uneven colour and finish, I could get away with having only the driver’s side rear wing (truck bed) redone, which will add a couple of years to my truck. He quoted me $500, which sounds reasonable, so we made tentative plans to have that done in late August or early September. I will be getting some paint from Ford to do the touch ups where there is no rust yet. I don’t need to have a perfect paint job, but with the little amount of mileage on my truck, there is a good chance that it will rust out before it fails mechanically. So it’s worth putting some money and time into the finish to get it to hold out a bit.

by

Projects of the Feline Variety

There has been a lot of concern in comments and emails about my cats living in my mother’s garage while Miranda is in the shop. I don’t know if I should be happy about the amount of concern my readers have for my babies or be insulted that anyone would think I am capable of putting them in any sort of danger.

In the last 37 years, my mother has had cats for all but at most a month. She loves cats and understands them. She has an outdoor cat to reduce the amount of dander in the house because her partner is severely allergic. Moreover, they have nice furniture and Tabitha has claws. So two cats living full time in the house is simply out of the question.

The garage is very cool and there is a window that has been left open. We set up a perch by it. So the cats can look out and see the birds and other critters in the yard while getting fresh air.

To make sure that they have plenty of light and a day/night cycle, my mother installed a lamp on a timer. She also made toys for them and set up plenty of cubbies for hiding at different heights.

With all three of us making a concerted effort to go into the garage at least six times total per day, they have had plenty of human interaction for the last two weeks and would have been fine for another one. But now that we know that the repairs could take longer and that we would be working on my truck, my mother hatched a plan to give the cats and I more together time while opening up their world a tad.

So before starting on the truck projects this morning, my mother and I completed a project that she had been meaning to do for the last 10 years. It’ll benefit the cats and then she will still be able to use the item when she works in the garage. We made a giant screen for the garage door:

So now, they can watch people pass by on the street, get even more fresh air, and I can chat with them when I’m working on the truck. Hanging out in the garage with them is going to be so much more pleasant now, too.

Next up, progress on the truck!