TUESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2005
QUEBEC CITY, QUEBEC

We awoke this morning, a departure from the rosy fingers of dawn, for a gentle rain washing away the exterior residue of highway dust bunnies from our silver studio apartments on wheels. It poured. If we were in Arizona, they would probably tell us this was a "dry rain". In Quebec, it's wet.

Boarding the bus for the city tour

Yesterday we took the predictable, but so delightful, tour into the old city. The tours provide everyone with a blueprint for later self exploration. Each city we have visited seems more lovely than the last, but this is only an illusion. Old Quebec is charming, much smaller than Montreal, genuinely historic, architecturally distinct, and so European it seems to be in a foreign country. (hey, this IS a foreign country). I must retract everything negative I've ever said or felt abooot the French Canadiens....without exception, everyone has treated us as royals.

Lynn and I elected to drive to the Ile d'Orleans for the afternoon and evening hours. The island is sequestered in the middle of the St. Lawrence, a short drive, but a world away from the city. A time warp of not less than fifty years, enchanting, sans the normal overdose of "cutesy". The perimeter drive of 40+ miles is a surprise at every turn through six distinct parishes. At one stop we enjoyed a fresh steamed


A couple on the I'le. She was crying. I wanted so much to know the cause, but couldn't ask.




corn-on-the-cob as an appetizer, then hot cheese samples at another, an outdoor patio dinner at a third, and finally, fresh french ice cream at the last. For caravanners, this is a mandatory behavior pattern, as modest to moderate obesity is like Ford....job one. No one will return home defying gravity.

Typical farm scene on the I'le d'Orleans

Monday was spent window shopping in the old city, or in French, 'faire du leche vitrines', which literally means, 'licking the windows'. Side note, in the 1955 edition of Trailer Topics magazine it said that the city was 92% French catholic and that there were three women for every man. Sadly, that proportion no longer exists, but the influence of women here is profound....they were referred to as the filles du roi , or to the anglos, the foremothers.

A young musician in the art gallery at the Chateau Frontenac. Lovely, but acrylic on canvas, and not very talkative.

A very special ice cream shop in the village of Levis, " Les Chocolats Favoris & La Glacierie europeene", has become a favorite stop. On the I'le de la Cite in Paris, a similar shop, the Berthillon is the equal.From l-r, Sandy & Carl Nunn, Carole & Dave Keller, trying very hard to overcome their anorexia by visiting the chocolat shop.

Returning to our campground, encircling the periphery of the old city, the steady refrain of Janis Joplins', "Bobby McGee" ran through my soul and I hummed along internally:
Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waitin' for the train,
And I's feelin' near faded as my jeans,
Bobby thumbed a diesel down just before it rained,
It rode us all the way to New Orleans,

" Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose....."