Day 18, Tuesday, September 6, Camp Paradis in Port Cartier, Quebec.

Day 18, Tuesday, September 6,  Camp Paradis in Port Cartier, Quebec.

Yesterday and today were light driving days, about 150 miles each day. I decided to cut back on the driving each day now that I have no ship to catch and pay attention to the little chores that tend to demand time each day like tying my shoes, making breakfast for myself.  The dogs have it made as the first thing I do after pitching the tent at a new campsite is to make their dinner.  And the first thing I do after taking my morning walk with them is make their breakfast.  

Last night was the first time I had to set up a tent in the rain, in all the trips I've been on.  While I hate doing that as much as I hate taking down a tent in the rain, it is tolerable, and I guess if I like sleeping in a tent in the rain, I have to accept the good with the bad.  And what I  never cease to be amazed at is how comfortable a wet tent can become very quickly with a little extra work beyond the normal routine.  That is why I did not hesitate to take a bunch of towels with us, although they are  quickly recycled when we hit a camp with a laundry.

While the rain was a pleasant anodyne to the usual strain of a day on the road, a bunch of what sounded like kids screaming  and crying kept me awake until 10 or so last night.  And here I thought there were  no kids in the camp since there were only two other campers and school started today in Canada.  Oh, well, kids have to have fun (or cry) too.

The  whole escape benefit of the trip was interrupted today when I spent a couple of hours working on a condo matter and emailing the results tomsome owners.  It was my own fault, though, since my involvement was discretionary.  But it drove home for me the need to escape like this to reassess my priorities  even not  knowing I'm doing that.

After a walk on the beach with the dogs in the rain, I checked out of the camp. When I did, I asked the manager what the lovely little forested, heavily mossed, fenced in plot of land was in back of my campsite.  She told me that  it was a graveyard for ten children who died of chicken pox over a hundred years ago.  After they died, the townspeople burned down the entire town, on the spot were the camp is located.  

The escape benefit of the trip was also unexpectedly interrupted again in a place called Sept Iles (seven islands).  For the last several weeks, heavy traffic meant a car every hour or  more, and all of a sudden I am in traffic and a main highway filled with car dealers, a WalMart, a macdonalds, and a PFK, the Canadian equivalent of KFC. I used the opportunity of the interruption to restock for another 7 days.

It seems that most of the parks in this part of the world close around Labor Day, which Canada observes.  I knew this was going to happen which is why my original plan called for getting out of this neck of the woods by Labor Day, but that was not meant to be.  Since the major attraction of this next leg of the trip through Quebec and Ontario was going to be the spectacular provincial parks there, I may have to reassess my plans in a week or so.  I do not intend to spend hours each day looking for boring bivouac sites or Campinging next to some big RV whose occupants are intent  on watching every show on TV, for which they run their generators.  And they call that getting back to nature? You ought to see some of the rigs these people own.

Tomorrow we head down the St Lawrence (or whatever this body of water is we are following - it changes names every day) and pull into Baie Comeau, which is where the Labrador loop really started, so I guess loop officially ends there. But there was quite a contrast between driving these last several days on pavement versus dirt and gravel. And it felt strange pulling into a new town every 50 milesmor so instead of every 150 or more. Back to civilization as I knewmit, I guess. 

Nine years ago, about 40 miles or so after finishing the dirt and gravel Labrador highway, I saw the only other Defender I came across the entire trip, a white Defender 110 heading in the opposite direction. (Defenders were never sold in Canada.)  Yesterday, about the same number of road miles after finishing the dirt and gravel roads in Labrador this year, what do I come across but a white Defender 110 heading n the opposite direction.  Maybe it was my guardian angel returning to the Trans Labrador Highway to protect someone else.  Well, at least now we know what kind of cars Jesus's angels drive. 

On that note, I want to find out what that strange noise was that I  just heard outside the tent.  Even Erde stirred when she heard it, but Leben just slept right through it. 

Ed