Nice quiet rest after gorging ourselves on a half of an IGA roasted chicken each, potato salad, and Pilsner, and donuts for dessert. A nice touring side benefit: calories don’t need to be counted, only consumed. It’s a lot of work hauling your own butt and the bike and bags. I’ve already lost 10 lbs and will probably lose 20 before I’m done.
We got up at 4:45 to take advantage of both the early sunrises here and to get to Sainte-Anne-des-Mont (yes, finally a woman saint!) before the rains we’re to hit. We were on the road by 6 am. 57 miles today and 2700 ft of climbing with a light headwind that got stronger as the day went on. 3 pm was the projected time for the thunderstorms to hit, but its 4:17 now and no rain yet.
Our host’s name is Samantha and we are parked in her house but she’s not been here yet. Thus is the nature of the warm showers network. Hosts can see your ratings and we can see theirs. Word gets around if you are any trouble so there is a good deal of trust in the scheme. What we do know about Samantha so far is from her profile that she’s toured in Guatemala and Cuba, and from the equipment around the house, kite surfs, wind surfs, dives, snowboards, climbs, and skateboards. And probably more. Will be interesting to meet her.
The house is on a small bluff overlooking the St. Lawrence. We have a great viewpoint while we wait. Oh, and now it’s 4:30 and it’s raining hard! Yeah! Get it over with before tomorrow!
Samantha came home from a biking & swimming excursion (very cold swimming), showered, and joined us for exchanging of stories and to show us our sleeping quarters. Energetic would be an understatement. We did ask her about just letting us in when she wasn’t here and she said she trusts Warm Showers as it’s such a small community. I have to say the same and it’s been great for us on this trip. Oh, and she rides motocross bikes, downhill skis and in between all that, she’s a doctor at the local hospital.
On the way here, we passed a wind farm with multiple turbines, but a unique vertical axis turbine. From a web blurb: “…experimental energy plant, of unique design, built in the 1980s and shut down since 1993. It is the largest wind turbine of its time and to date the tallest vertical axis wind turbine in the world.” No more deets other than it’s very large and the whole complex of turbines in the countryside is impressive. There is also a pic below of an unattended light system where construction limits passage to one lane. The nice feature I haven’t seen on any system in PA was the countdown timer at the bottom telling you how much time there was to the green light. John looked at the opposite one was passed and we cleared the area with 20 seconds left. Works for us!
Tomorrow’s forecast isn’t great, but then none of them have been and we’ve had some great days. We’ll check early and make adjustments or continue our plan to go 66 miles to Grand-Vallée for another hotel stay — no WS hosts in the area. If we complete that ride, then we are another 65 or so mile to the town of Gaspé and very close to the eastern most point of the peninsula.
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