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Thinking about you all and having a great time.

Vistas from the heights of old Quebec (Vieux-Quebec) are awesome.  It is obvious why the American revolutionaries wanted to capture this British Fort in 1775 to prevent English troops from using the Saint Laurence river to attack from behind.  Benedict Arnold was sent by George Washington up the Kennebec river in the fall of 1775 to do just that.  The mission was a major failure and likely led to Arnold’s ultimate defection from the revolutionary cause. 

Whenever I start to think I’m suffering on this trip, I remember Arnold’s troops.  They left Portsmouth, Maine in the fall of 1775 in boats called batards that had been hurridly made from green lumber, weighed over 400 pounds leaked continuously and carried nearly a ton of cargo, plus the men.  When they reached “the place of the big carry” (la Grande Portage), they carried the boats and all the cargo more than ten miles over a mountain ridge, up 1000 feet of elevation and entered the Dead River in order to avoid dangerous rapids over about 25 miles of river on their way to Quebec.  Oh, yea, and their support crew abandoned them, taking the provisions and going home because it got too late in the year and the weather was getting bad.

I have it easy.  Thinking about you all and having a great time.  More later.

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Pardonnez moi, parlez vois anglais?

Comment dites-vous le nom de votre ville?

These two questions, plus thank you (merci) and please (s’il-vous plait) are very necessary when traveling in Quebec.  It is beautiful country, the small villages I visited were so much like I remember from Europe and the history is amazing.  I kept seeing buildings with construction dates from the early 18th century.  The people have been friendly, gracious, and patient.  Oh, the first question is, “Pardon me, do you speak English?”  The second is, “How do you say the name of your town/village/city?”  Here’s the best part, it’s pronounced, “cama, dzits zay vou, lay nom day votra veal?”

I have encountered some challenging weather, riding through strong rain storms on two occasions, and my riding suit is not proving waterproof.  Montreal has the worst traffic I have ever experienced in my life.  Every road I travelled, and I’m not exagerating, every road, is under repair.  I had to stop for electronic flaggers in the middle of the countryside twice because crews were repairing pipe lines and had to dig a huge hole where the road was!  In the city, it was not unusual to move in stop-and-go for several miles while 5 lanes of expressway traffic merged into one for a distance of 100 yards and then do it all over again a mile later.  Trying to leave the Montreal to head toward Quebec city, it took more than one hour to travel less than 2 miles because the approaches to the Pont Champlain (big bridge named after Mssr. Samuel de Champlain) were being rebuilt after five years of debate over the need to do so.

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Where in the world is Pastor David?

Motorcycle David

A new episode of the on-going motorbike adventures of our intrepid priest begins Labor Day weekend.

David is heading east to visit Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Montreal, and the Erie Canal.  He’ll be blogging along the way and would love to read your comments.  You can follow the adventure right here.

 

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Soup’s On!

Camping on a motorcycle can be a little challenging because there’s a limit to what you can carry.  Since my luggage boxes David Campinghold a lot, however, I have everything I need.  I don’t always get to park the bike this close to the tent, but when I can, it makes unpacking and repacking much quicker.  Since I’ll be traveling a lot at first, I don’t expect to be very particular about campsites, but once I’m in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, I hope to keep a site for a couple days while I travel around the area exploring.

All the cooking gear fits nicely in the green army surplus tanker tool bag.  The hatchet comes from my great-grandfather’s old tool box.  I made a sheath for it that allows the hammer head to be used for stubborn tent stakes.

Looks like the water is boiling.  gotta go.

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