GP Day 25 — Sunshine & Bleuets

Métabetchouan–Albanel, 60.6 miles, 1723 ft of climbing.

Early morning again trying to beat rain. (Foreshadowing: It didn’t work! Oh, I guess foreshadowing is supposed to be more subtle than that.) Up at 5:30, snoozed once but the crows wouldn’t have it, so I started breaking camp and then went in to use the bathroom. Patrick made coffee for us and we made some toast from his homemade bread, finished packing and hit the road about 6:45.

The only way to describe it was that it was a beautiful morning. A bit on the cool side so we both had on jackets, and I even used my fancy-dancy gloves (see pics). That lasted for 45 or so miles, as did the nice, mostly flat Veloroute des Bleuets (Blueberry Bicycle Route). We did hit 3 patches of rain where we scrambled to put our phones away and don our rain jackets, but all-in-all, it wasn’t that bad. We stopped at our favorite food source, an IGA, had lunch and stocked up for dinner and breakfast, and waited for the next break in the weather. The last five miles to our next warm showers host, Stephanie, was all sunny again.

Along the way, we passed through Mashteuiatsh which is home to the Pekuakamiulnuatsh First Nation. There are pics below of the memorials along Lac Ste-Jean (Piekuakamu).

Stephanie was delightful. There was a bus from a local festival that passed by every half hour or so and she rolled her eyes, “The same song, four days in a row! There’s a video below of just how annoying it was.

She offered us beer or gin and after she ran an errand, made a fire and we sat outside and talked until it started to rain. She’s HR at a local pulp mill, so we had something in common to talk about (pulp) from my days working for Measurex at Hammermill Papers.

A couple beers later and I’m ready for bed. Tomorrow we head to another national park on our way back to Saguenay.