Canada 2012 Day 6

TWEET TWEET TWAT TWEET . . . TWEET TWEET TWAT TWEET . . . What the hell? A noisy bird woke us up, reminding us that we had chosen to spend the night in the forest. The sun shines and, outside of the rough awakening, this promises to be a good day. By now we are lean, mean biking machines (and the road is straight and flat like a railroad track), so the first 25 kilometers went without a hitch.

We stopped at Victoriaville, a charming town with a strong European flavor. It is Sunday, so everybody is out on the park bicycling, walking, or playing petanque (the French word for Bacci ball). Unfortunately that means that most restaurants open only for lunch, from 11 am to 1 pm. It happened to be 1 pm, so we had doors closed on our noses, figuratively speaking, more than once. We finally found an open bistro, where we could seat on the sidewalk, enjoying a beer and an ice-cold cider, and lunching on very fine sandwiches. We also had a great chat with a local high school teacher, who greatly enjoyed contrasting the Canadian educational system with Annie.

 
We got to Plessisville at about 5:30 pm. We had booked a hotel for this night, and were grateful to dump our stuff on the floor and head for the shower. Unfortunately we overestimated the shops in this little town, because when we went to look for something to eat, around 7 pm, we drew a monstrous blank. So dinner was a can of dolmas (rice wrapped in grape leaves) and a bag of chips bought at the nearby gas station. Alas, you cannot win them all!