Fah-fah-flowers (Rski XXI)

Friday, July 28


Kollene's little sister and her grandma came to visit her for a few days...We were going to meet them for drinks, so Alix and I decided we'd start planning next week's voyage and perhaps have a massive corona to kill some time.


We took Kollene's sister, Jen (? - let's just call her Jen anyway) to Sens Unique to show her local culture. Notice the five glasses of Stella.


Kit and Alix.


Kollene and Jen.

We had one drink before deciding to grab a table outside - when there was one finally free..we finished our drinks and then instead of basking in the glory of the terrace, which is always full and it's always dead inside, we headed over to the cantine for midnight snacks.

Saturday, July 29
The next morning, Alix came over, and we waited for the national car rental guys to come pick us up. The guy didn't say a word the whole time and then just stopped outside the rental place and waited until we got out. Friendly folk. We went inside and the other guy started processing the wrong rental, with his fly ridiculously open, and then it turns out we got a van...for the same price as a little car.

Anyway, so...the guy takes us around the car and shows us all the dings on the car. We get in the car and are about to drive away when we look back and notice no seats. So I had to go back inside to get seats. Then I realised that I wasn't sure what the after-hours return policy was...they got worried when I got in there the third time.


After getting Grandma, Jen, and Kollene, we headed over to Timmy's to pick up some lunch...and got on the 132.

We drove through Mont Joli...

Again.

Just over 45 minutes later, we got to the Reford Gardins/Jardins de Métis in Métis.

SLR VERSION (I recommend these!)


The gardens are still owned by the Reford family, this used to be their summer estate.

This is where the girls from Mont Joli worked, well all four worked there for half the summer before two of them went to work in the park they were supposed to originally work at.


Lots of pretty flowers.


Kollene's dad runs a tree farm and does a lot of landscaping, so between Kollene, Jen and Grandma, they were naming everything... it was pretty cool.
















Moss Art Project.








Royal Gardens.


We eventually made it to the house.


Upstairs there was an exhibit about the family...I don't know what this was about, but I have a great photo of it in the SLR version.

Then I went and met Mrs. Reford.

We became good friends quickly.


Mr. Reford had a darkroom where he developed photographs and films.


Whoever designed the exhibits clearly didn't think that having arms doing things without a body would be freaky. Shudder.




Photos of the estate.


Freaky bodiless arms arranging flowers.


Freaky bodiless arms mending a cloth.


So freaking scary.


Art...each of these had the texture of different bark.


I (heart) belevedres. (Look out points).


The house from the back/side.


Alix, Kollene, me (+SLR). Behind us... a steep, steep, cliff..and at the bottom of that? The St. Lawrence, perhaps.




You know that I'm not much for flowers, but this was just overwhelming and it just got better and better.


No idea what this was other than strange.


I bought seeds of this flower for my mommy.

After a long few hours of travelling through flowers, we hit the art part of the gardens...they have exhibits from a bunch of arts, about 10 from different countries.


Seed swing...every time you swing on that, seeds fly out the cannisters at the top. Unfortunately they were flax seeds or something and it stunk real good. Good work..Jen?


Me doing my part to help the environment.


Alix.


These tubes were all full of things from our environment... it was neat but not all that exciting.


The moon exhibit? I think those white rocks were supposed to be a golf course in space.


Jen testing out part of the exhibit.


Ditto for Alix.


We walked around to the other side.


There was this chalk board and chalk...so that's not Alix, err that's not her boyfriend's name. Just strange? Secret life perhaps?


I can't remember which one of us drew that.


My words of wisdom.. why didn't I write that in French?

We interrupt this chalkboard crap for..

Golf in space.


Jen's handiwork?


Kollene+chalk=good.


Clearly mine.


Leaving the golf course.


Sweet! another exhibit about asphault.


And rusted metal.


Always trying to be funny, yet never actually funny.


Giantic hand or enormous leaf? You be the judge.


Then we all had out of body experiences, and oddly enough ended up in the same place.


You know, I always thought an out of body experience would be more exciting.


More art. It was an interesting premise...they wanted it to feel like Vietnam. So they had orange trees everywhere...planted in the water too.


We had to walk in on those logs...ignore my blindingly white legs.


From the inside.


Orange tree!

Then we finished...so we headed back to Rimouski, in hopes of making it to the maritime museum.

On the way back we stopped at this place again:



The new guys.




See they're pretty big.


We got to Le Musée de la Mer (Sea Museum) but we got there too late for it be worth our while to pay...so the lady offered to give us passes so we could come back tomorrow..but since it's in East Rimouski, you can't get there without a car...remember, no buses.


The museum is about the Empress of Ireland, the second biggest ship to sink next to Titanic. It sank off the shores of Rimouski.

So instead, we called it a day and went grocery shopping. Alix and I went to return the car, with 99 km added...sweet no extra mileage... We were so hungry, we just went for dinner at Norman's which was a nice family restaurant. Then we met up with everyone at Alix's and watched some horrible movie that my co-worker Claude recommended to Kit. Surprise, surprise, I fell asleep.

Sunday, July 30
BIKES!

We finally took our bikes out for a spin because Kollene was with her family. It was kind of awkward when we ran into them downtown and it was clear that we were waiting for an opportunity to go bike riding together.


We headed to the park to watch a concert.


It was a free concert, they have them every Sunday in the park.


Poor puppy, it was SO hot.


This kid was not having any of it... he left with his hands covering his ears...we did the same shortly thereafter.


We biked through the park and set up shop and read for a while.

Kit needed some groceries, so we headed to the other Maxi which was quite up hill...then Kit headed home to drop off her groceries and met us at Les Halles for an afternoon treat (aka best date squares EVER).