Back to Canada, 2023: Let's keep on Rolling

Sixty-two miles with no real hills didn't seem like quite enough, so I added an additional 16 miles to the ride at the end of the day. We are going down the St. Lawrence on the same roads we rode two weeks ago, so today's ride, while lovely, wasn't too exciting. Fortunately, the winds were much lighter today than gusts behind us when we rode up. A 40 mph tailwind is one thing, a 40 mph headwind quite another. We did have a bit of breeze coming at us, but not more than about 10 mph, so we were fine.

When we arrived at our day's destination, St. Jean Port Jolie, I checked the distance to the next town and rolled on to L'Islet, where there is an interesting maritime museum which had been recommended. The woman at the desk there was sufficiently impressed with my long ride today to set me up with a special tour of a hydrofoil which had been built during the Cold War to look for Soviet submarines. I learned that Alexander Graham Bell invented the hydrofoil, but this boat was the first military application. It looked horrendously uncomfortable inside, and for the sake of the sailors, I was glad to learn that it was abandoned after just 3 years. I was more interested in the exhibit inside the museum, which described navigation and navigators on the St. Lawrence over the years. There were many wonderfully crafted artifacts used on boats over the past centuries. Although I didn't see a mention of pirates, there was even a peg leg, carved from what looked to me to be ebony.

One a food note, I bought a pint of raspberries this morning. We ate some them with our mid-morning snack of strawberry rhubarb tart, and I carefully put the rest of them in my pannier to share at lunch. The day was warm, the sun was hot, and we had baked raspberries, which tasted like raspberry pie without the crust. Yum!