DAY 52 : August 28/22 Sunday. Paradis Marin to Bois et Berges, Val Brillant QC

 DAY 52 : August 28/22 Sunday.  Paradis Marin to Bois et Berges, Val Brillant, QC

Last night was chilly and we had the furnace set to come on at 60F and it came on at least twice in the early morning house (we were plugged in). Woke up to the sun beaming in through the front windshield over the shimmering water. Bright sunny morning! 

Yesterday I had tried calling the Ferry services to see if we could get a reservation on the Escoumín ferry, but the office had already closed early on the weekend and opened again at 8am. The online bookings only allowed for cars/bikes/pedestrians anyhow, and they showed to be quite full. I had sent an email last night and then called at 8am this morning. Again using my bon Français, I asked about ferry reservations for this afternoon but it was all booked up until tomorrow at 4pm Or we could book for the 4:30am ferry (yikes). She recommended the Ste Siméon Ferry back across the tiny ferry we took a couple days ago as it was first-come-first-serve there. As beautiful as it was here, we felt like we were ready to move along, and despite the disappointment of not being able to drive a bit farther up the shoreline to the Escoumin ferry that would take us across to Trois-Pistoles… a more convenient route to get over to NB for us, we decided we’d bite the bullet and drive back to Ste Siméon and catch that ferry. 

Packed up pretty quickly while the kiddos nested away up in the bunk making a very cozy retreat. Then had an egg breakfast before we did the final load up. On the way out, we stopped at the little kayak rental to return Oliver’s wetsuit. It was closed so we just left it on a hanger with the others. Jonathan stopped and emptied the Sani on the way out.

Back down the coast with 110292km on the odometer, we were on the 10:10am little ferry at Tadoussac to Baie Ste Catherine and by 11am we were at Ste Siméon in the line up well in advance of the 2pm ferry (the next sailing). We got our info from the ferry worker that he’d measure the vehicle and get us a boarding ticket sometime before 1:30pm, so we walked up the hill to a little bistro and enjoyed smoked salmon sandwiches, grilled veg sandwiches, and a taste citrôn and yummy coffees. (Correction, my latte was delicious. Jonathan’s American was average, lol). After lunch, we walked a bit farther up to the post box to mail all my postcards, then back down to the ferry line up around 12:15pm. The Kiddos were pretty tired and hot, and we decided to pull out the RV movie theatre on the back bed and watch Toy Story 4 on the Nexus tablet until it was boarding time. 

Caught the 2:30pm ferry ($240) over to Rivère du Loup. Not a huge ferry, but you had to leave the car decks and sit upstairs. I found a little desk area with a plug where I could sit and type out some blog stuff. Jonathan read his book, and the kids wandered the tiny boat then came and sat with me and played Wordscapes for a bit on my phone to pass the time. I managed to get 2.5 days typed out… I’m so far behind on typing and posting. I keep scrappy notes in an old UBC coil bound notebook, and the type them up when I have time and energy, then copy and paste them into the Blogger program when I finally get some wifi. Hence the late postings and how some don’t have photos for awhile after. 

Onto the Hwy #20 east, we reached Amqui around 5:30pm and pulled into the IGA parking lot. Jay and Amelia went in for supplies, while I took Oliver to the McDonald’s next door for some fries. By this point I was feeling pretty tired of speaking French and ordering fries seemed monumental, haha. Ollie and ate some in the rig and then decided to sneak up on A & J in the IGA. We did pretty well tailing them without them knowing, but Meems spied me at the end of an aisle. They bought a 1KG bag of marshmallows for $7.49… the same bag I saw back in Beaupre and didn’t buy because, hey… 1KG???? C’mon. It was the only marshmallow option in the whole store. 

• Side note… I like how each little town in Quebec has a church with a tall steeple. Many of which seem to be clad in silver coloured metal. 

Around 6pm we found ourselves at the Bois et Berges Campground (Woods and Riverbanks) in Val Brilliant. The office was closed but had a cell number taped up in the window. When we called, a super nice guy answered and said he’d be right over… he was on his break. He got us checked into a cute little site #32 in the woods just up from the river bank. We had already unloaded the kids bikes and sent them off exploring the playground we passed as we approached the site. When we got to the site, Jonathan hopped on his bike to go find them, worried because we had said we’d stay by the office. He found them eventually… they had gone to the playground, and back to the office. 

Our campsite was nestled in the trees and each site had the CUTEST fire pit… metal welded sculpture shaped like a cowboy with a cowboy hat, and arms stuck out holding the fire poker, and the fire pit area was his torso/belly, with a door on the front. Super cute. We decided that we should buy firewood to burn tonight. 

We ate pasta and “meat”balls for dinner and had a cozy fire in the little potbelly cowboy. Roasted some of our 1K of marshmallows, then tucked in to watch the last few minutes left of Toy Story 4 on the tablet inside before bed.