Road Trippin' (Rimouski XII)

After about a month of planning...er one night of buckling down, we planned our big road trip, Friday, June 30- Monday, July 3, 2006. We rented a car and motels and packed our pylons. Most importantly, I prepared myself for shenanigans. Here is the plan for day 1.

Day 1: Friday, June 30
I get to Kit's at about 8:10am where the rental place was to pick us up. Alix was supposed to come too. The car guy gets there and we leave, sans Alix. After going waaaay to the other side of town, to rent the car, we head back to Kit's to pick up Alix, then to get Kollene...and off we go.


Road trip. LEAVING RIMOUSKI! Kit took the first shift of driving, so I took massive amounts of photos along the way, which boasted signs of a wave shooting up on the road and eating your car. We didn't manage to snap any photos though because we were dodging killer waves. Not really.


A fake shepard and his fake flock, Mont Joli.


The famous murals of Mont Joli. Moments later we realised that the funny sign that pointed right and straight for Route 132 E(a)st wasn't funny, it screwed us over and made us take a detour.

Back on the right path:


At about noon we stopped somewhere random for lunch.

Yum! Lunch. In case you were wondering, it was rainy and cold, like the rest of my summer.


(AP) The windmills near where we ate. Hurrah for alternative power sources!


That's me in front of a windmill blade (not a cannon! Lils!). I'm 5'7" so that gives you an idea of how big a windmill is.

After lunch, I took over driving until Gaspé, so less photos taken after I started driving.

(AP)It started raining stupidly hard, but the landscape was still amazing.


(AP)

Then we stopped in La Martre to see a lighthouse.

(AP) La Martre looks like a train set town.


See?

When we got there, we had just missed a tour, so we had to wait for a while before we could go up...the owner/lighthouse keeper told us to check out the exhibt at the church.


The town church.


Inside the town church...the exhibit was about the town and its people. Woohoo.


Some people who used to and still live in La Martre. Sucks to be you...err...


The rest of the church. We climbed up to that second floor and casually rung the bell. There wasn't a sign telling us not to...however at the entrance there is a huge sign telling us not to.


The anchor next to the lighthouse.


The lighthouse at La Martre.


Inside at the base of the lighthouse, they used to store food because the air was dry.


Old school lighthouse, still runs on pedulum type thing...and it sits on mercury. The tourguide (who was about 15) made us guess what the lamp sits on and seemed to think we were retarded that we couldn't guess it. Though my second guess was right...right-on nerdis.


I learned a lot about lighthouses, I'll spare you the details, since I find it interesting the rest of you will probably pass out bored.


Gears!


Outside on one of the balcony things. When I got home last week, I went to the computer room to find that my dad had printed this photo out with the intention of framing it and putting it up.


(KL) Near the top of the light house. Kit, Kollene, me (in 1983), Alix.


It was kind of high up.


Kollene and Alix (looking giantic).


(AP)Adult Video at the video store/convienence store/restaurant/café/bakery in Murdochville. It is in the middle of nowhere (see next photo). Murdochville used to be a copper mining town, now that the mines are closed, they have windmills and skiing and not much else.


(AP)From Murdochville to Gaspé, this is what you see for the most part. Trees and trees and trees. There were a few cars we passed and a few hidden cottages but that's it.

All right so we finally made it to Gaspé, the smallest town ever, or so we thought.

After we checked into our lovely motel (for real, it was really nice)...we went to dinner, where Kit learned some new words.


Where we ate dinner.


At the motel, we noticed this little notice on our toliet...it reads
"Warning to Customers!
The town of Gaspé is currently conducting road repairs which can cause water to be brown or muddy/murky.
We are sorry, this is out of our control.
There can also be loss of water pressure.
Thank you for your understanding.
The management."
Umm...ok.


Resting briefly (and looking hot!) after dinner...and then
after wandering around aimlessly for a while, we found some random bar in some other hotel...oh yeah, in eastern Quebec bars are at hotels.

Most refreshing beer ever. Frosted glass + frosty Moosehead = yummy, yum.


Me enjoying my beer. Also pictured, Kit.


(KL) Santé !


Live entertainment. Solo Karoke by this dude. He was playing guitar and had his laptop produce the rest of the necessary music+lyrics.

And so ends day 1 of our four day extravaganza.

See some of these in SLR. HERE.