Sunday, June 21, 2009 – Day 24

We started our Sunday morning in a small church outside of Québec City. It was lots of fun to go to a Sunday service in French. While there were people there to help translate for my other family members who are not yet fluent in French, we had a great opportunity to immerse ourselves in Canada’s second official language. Following the church services, I asked some locals for some great activity ideas for families on a Sunday afternoon. As they looked at my monstrous RV they shook their heads and said, “Whatever you do, don’t take that massive thing into the centre of the old city of Québec, you’ll never get it out!” (albeit they said it in French).

While one person suggested a suspension bridge park on the opposite side of the St. Lawrence River, another reminded us that the centre of Canada’s History in Old Québec cannot be missed.

I decided that I would have to be brave enough to attempt the streets of this ancient (by Canadian standards) city. Québec after all is the only walled City in North America with a rich history of British, American and French settlements and wars.

My first stop was at the Tourist Office at the Plains of Abraham to get my bearings on where to stay the night and where we could get the best look at the history of this historic city. Beside the Tourist Office was a bus parking lot perfect for our motorhome. They allow for 30 minutes of Free Parking and so we wandered around the Plains of Abraham (named after an early settler to the area in the 1700’s). We could see the Citadel with its cliff walls dropping down from the hills above that we were climbing on. We continued on to the viewpoint over the St. Lawrence river while avoiding the personnel setting up for the stage for the St. Jean Baptiste Provincial Holiday concert in the same park (largest celebration of the year in Québec, bigger than Canada Day).

We saw a great boardwalk trail along the St. Lawrence river that continued on to the famous Château Frontenac Hotel (the most photographed hotel in the world I am told) but I had to get back to my car by this point as time was running out on our parking. I sent my family along as the blustery wind pushed them along the path. I had decided to pick them up at the Chateau so they would not have to walk back. It was so windy that the summer air was not as warm as we expected.

Unfortunately my family was not yet in front of the Chateau when I went to pick them up after driving through the main street of Old Québec. Due to the extra vigilant NO-stopping/parking attendants that waved me on, this meant that I would have to circle my RV through the city one more time. When I returned 8 minutes later after maneuvering through the city with a few tight left hand turns, I saw two of my kids waiting for me. They hopped in the van but as the attendant moved us on again they had them jump out to collect the others. Once again I reluctantly moved on and told my son Dailin to have everyone waiting when I returned. After my third scenic drive through the old village I was finally able to pick up my family who was finally all gathered together and waiting.

We decided to take a scenic drive through the old city. As we looked down a steep road that was barely big enough for a small car to drive down, my kids jokingly said “Drive down their Dad!.” Kirsten was quick to say, “No! Don’t you dare.” I was only too happy to agree… that is until I went down a seemingly harmless street which started to get narrower and narrower until we reached a point where someone was blocking the road as he tried to jump start a car that was parked to the side of the already narrow street. I could not even back up. After a minute of no luck starting his car, they moved the car from the middle of the road and waved me on… but the road got even narrower so that the cars parked on the side of the road had little room for me between them and the building to the drivers side.

That’s when the oncoming vehicle came. Someone in their little car wanted to pass and I honestly did not know how we were going to do it. Instead of drive down a side street perpendicular to us, he wanted to go where I was coming from. That’s when he started yelling at the crazy RV driver that was taking such a beast of a vehicle on his small street. Lets just say I do understand French and the basic message on what he had to say was that he didn’t think I should be on such a small street with my RV and that I should find another place to drive my vehicle. He managed to squeeze by me with less than a few inches on either side. It was at that point that I decided to look for the quickest exit from this quickly narrowing street. I took the first (even smaller) one way road I could and after backing up a few times to make the turn to fit down this old narrow street, we were out and on our way to find a camp site.

We found a beautiful riverside Municipal Campsite on the outskirts of Québec about 15 minutes from the city. After driving in to the beautiful treed sites my boys were only too happy to hook up our RV to water and get a campfire going. As we set out to hook up our septic we did discover that the valve was still not closing and that it was a problem that would require a repair person at the next possible opportunity to avoid more smelly situations.

Camping that evening was exciting as we all huddled around a roaring campfire to roast some sticky Marshmallows. Each of the kids were happy to get out of the RV where there was plenty of room to run around, explore and collect scraps of wood to burn. I do have to say that I no longer need to be the one to light fires as my boys are only too happy to put their scouting skills to work in building and starting the fire on their own. After a late night dinner and smores for desert, we were ready for a great nights sleep.