Rivière-Ouelle to Oakland

 Today is our big travel day, from rural Rivière-Ouelle back home to Oakland. After breakfast and a final cleanup, we go downstairs to the shop to give the owner the keys. I bought a nice pair of earrings for Madeleine, headed down the river road. It was about 90 minutes to Quebec-Ville, with a few drops of rain now and then. We found a nice spot on the river walk for a picnic lunch and watched some boats going by. It was a quiet peaceful spot yet only 20 minutes from downtown. On the way to dro to off the car, we found a little post office in a pharmacy so w could mail the postcards to family in the US. The return of the car went very smoothly … quite different than when the Hilton was the media center for the Pope’s visit a few days before, when it was filled with media and security.

We walked to the #11 bus and took it to the train station. We had plenty of time, and boarded the train for Montreal, and again there was some rain. At the Montreal station, our friend Matt picked us up with his partner Jacqueline. They had scoped out a restaurant near our budget airport hotel where we’d be for a grand total of of12 hours. The Italian restaurant was decent, great, but most important was having the time to talk and also to meet Jacqueline. It turned out that he knew the fellow with the beautiful dog who we met in Kamouraska, through public policy work … truly a small world. Back to the el, which was fill3 with kids staying there during a soccer tournament. For some reason, there was a security guard on the second floor at all hours, near the door …a little unusual. I tried to check in online, got Barney his seat but then the section was full and I could. Get a seat. After 30 minutes on some sort of chat with a person who kept saying she could not do anything and refused to get me to a supervisor, I called and got the same run around, except this time the person at least said I could fix it at the airport.

We rose early, had a simple breakfast downstairs (standard budget hotel style) and got a cab to the airport. We gave him a nice tip, and Barney pulled all the Canadian coins from his pocket and gave him those as well. Check-in was fine and security was smooth, but we were told we could not get my seat there, we had to do it in Newark. Grrr. We went through customs there, and we were so lucky to have the Global Entry cards. We went right through and on to our gate. The hundreds of other folks were in an hours-long line, about  100 per line and it snaked back and forth at least 12 times. I’ve never seen so many people running for their flights, it must have been a terrible backup. Relatively small plane, there was a bird strike so a bit of delay, otherwise fine, and we headed right for the United Club. The one in that part of the terminal was huge .. you could walk for five minutes end to end. We found a table, had some late lunch, and found some nice chairs to relax while we had a 4-hour layover.

Exactly 90 minutes before the flight we left the club for the gate to get my seat. 15 minutes later the agent showed up, I explained to him that when the flight time was changed my prior reserved seats were removed, and now my husband had a seat and I did not. He almost moved us to business class but instead moved someone else and we were back together in Premium economy or whatever it is called. It was a backed flight and they were offering cash to folks to take a later flight, we were already getting home late so did not want to delay further. The flight was fine (we stayed masked on both flights) arrived early, we got our stuff and got a Bart train home. Walking home in the dark we were both tired … it was more like 12:30am since we adjusted to East coast time. And it was a little sad walk in the door, no sweet doggies to greet us. We are still so sad thinking about the loss of Bucky and Anna. Tomorrow we are back to work, then unpack and do laundry. We are fortunate to have had the chance to take this wonderful trip, and stay healthy while traveling.

Rivière-Ouelle Day 3

Our last full day in Rivière-Ouelle and Kamouraska was planned to be for the Fil Rouge, the Red Circuit which included a specific mini-tour for the Levesque family.

One of the interesting things we both noticed is that, for many of the houses here, the front steps lead to grass or maybe gravel, never to a concrete walkway to the sidewalk or street. Is this because people now always enter from the back where they park their cars? It seems off to see a lovely front porch with steps that just lead to grass. And the driveways are often gravel or grass, not asphalt, making me wonder how they manage to plow them in the winters?

We head out on the circuit to St-Pâcome, where we encountered the beautiful Riviere Saumon, and a lovely old restored mill. There is a tree nearby which rustles so loudly in the wind!

We go to the outskirts of Rivière-Ouelle, and finally get to the huge area of land that belonged to Robert Levesque and a Jeanne Chevalier. Truly a shiver moment, to see that this enormous expanse of land was theirs and they farmed this using simple plows. Their land stretched all the way to the river, as was typical for these concessions of lands.

We had a tour of the Petite École by a young local woman. The school was active 1931-1965, built by local families, and used until the yellow school bushes meant centralizing students in larger schools. This one was grades 1-7, after which children either went to work or went to secondary schools. The second teacher at the school was actually a student when she was younger, with her older sister a teacher, and she herself became the new teacher at age 16! The teacher lived in two tiny rooms on the side of the schoolroom.

Then we went back to the Quai de La Chapelle and out to the wharf area. It was less dramatic than yesterday when a storm was coming in, but still quite windy. We had our picnic lunch at a nice table, where a small path had been cut through the shrubs for the table to ensure a good view. We stopped at the community center, formerly a church, to watch some short documentaries from the 30s, 40s, and 50s, by a local priest.

Finally, we continued on to Pocatiere, the last stop on their the circuit. We saw the large and imposing St Anne’s College, which was designed by Pierre Levesque, one of the largest buildings we’ve seen in the area.

Finally we went back to the Pointe de Rivière-Ouelle, right out where the Rivière-Ouelle meets the St. Lawrence River. We took a walk along the beach, marveling at the large waves and big wind, watching a dad and his son playing soccer on the beach. The driftwood was piled everywhere in artful arrangements by chance, and the grass undulated with the wind … it was quite beautiful.

Then back to the main part of Rivière-Ouelle for dinner. We went over to the school to see the photo exhibit, which had wonderful photos dating back to the 1880s of work and family and school life, truly interesting. We got the Levesque hat for Larry, and headed over to the tent. We saw folks leaving with large styrofoam containers which seemed odd, as we thought it would be dinner in the tent. No, it was indeed a takeout of barbecued chicken, so we lined up and got our two dinners and headed back to Kamouraska.

We decided to walk down to the river’s edge where we had walked two nights ago, and have dinner there. On the way, we walked along the same street which had the house with the four putting greens, and saw a man come out with a dog who seemed to be Atlas’s double. We said hello and how beautiful his dog was, he spoke English well and we had a great chat while he threw the ball to his dog, named Ulysses. His dog was very friendly, with light brown eyes like Atlas, and the same kind of coarse fur. The man said he was a Lab-golden retriever-husky mix, and he had the same curled tail like Atlas’, and the same friendly personality. It made us both a little sad. We asked him about the putting greens, and he said it was a par-3 course, with flags for Quebec, Canada, Ireland, and Barbados, where one of his ancestors was from. He asked if we wanted to see the house, as it was somewhat historic. We jumped at the chance, and walked into a beautifully restored house originally built in the 1880s by his great-great-grandparents. After a fire it was rebuilt per the original with a few changes. It still has a dumbwaiter inside, some historic furniture, and lots of historic photos. He said he did a lot of genealogy and offered to help with our research. He plays hockey during the winter and golf in the summer, he is a retired journalist who had lived and worked all over the world, as his wife was a diplomat. She seemed not surprised as he brought us into the house and introduced us. They had incredible views of the river, and the fact that it has been in the family a long time is so interesting. He noted that he was on the town council and the board of the Kamouraska Museum as a well. We finally parted as the mosquitos started biting. We went back to the gite and had our BBQ chicken dinner which was huge and delicious, with plenty of leftovers for our travel lunch tomorrow.we packed up and got ready to leave in the morning.