Day 1 – Gaspe Trip 2008 – August 2

P1070432, originally uploaded by palm0014.

Mom and Dad arrived Friday night with a gift in tow for my birthday…a tent for Vero and I to use! I was pretty pumped. I had a good laugh when I took a look at it and it was an 8 person tent! We decided to haul it out of the box to see how big it was and it took up the entire backyard! Dad and I didn’t bother assembling it as we knew very well that it was way too big for our needs. The thing was large enough to park the Mazda inside! It even had a front porch! We did end up returning it that night and Vero and I will find another one in the future (perhaps there are sales on at this time of year?).

Before I forget, Vero got me an excellent Chuck Norris t-shirt as well as Monty Python and the Holy Grail (which, unfortunately for her, I already had, but I appreciated the thought!). Once I returned from vacation, she gave me a more personalized gift in the form of a collage of the Top 30 Facial Expressions put on by me. It was quite hilarious as she labeled each one with names such as “The “I Need to Pee” Look” or the “I am the front man for AC/DC” look. I shall have to take a picture and post it up some day soon. I wonder where I can put this amazing photo in my house? It shall not be buried in some arcane spot.

Saturday morning, we arose and headed out on the road. Dad had said we would wake up around 6AM but I believe he woke me up at 5:15AM, that bugger! However, I got to sleep until Montreal which was fine. We were towing a trailer with an ATV on it this time around so it was quite the load and the gas consumption wasn’t our friend. I could literally see the gas meter going down as I drove down the highway.

One of the highlights for me was to stop in at Trois-Riveres (or was it Riveres-des-Loups) for some St-Hubert. I love St-Hubert and I learned to love it after many summer holidays to Gaspe. We pulled into the parking lot and ordered ourselves three quarter chicken meals. Let it be noted that one should always look at the menu for any special deals when at St-Hubert. For example, our meals came out to $30+. There was a family meal deal which was essentially the same thing we ordered and it was $23. Then there was also a lunchtime meal deal (The Chef’s Special) which is $6 for a quarter chicken meal but the chicken is a surprise (as in, it’s the Chef’s choice whether you get a leg, breast, etc.) so for the three of us, it would have come out to $18. Caveat Emptor people! We ended up eating on the trunk of the car as we felt waiting in the restaurant would take too long for our 12 hour trip, plus it let us keep an eye on the trailer! We had a good laugh about eating out in the parking lot but I’m glad to be amongst a family who doesn’t mind doing that sort of thing!

The ride down was quite foggy all the way. It was quite surreal. I read through Benoit’s copy of “The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told: Volume 2” which was interesting. I never grew up on Batman so this was my first introduction to him. The stories were the older variety and were quite campy in that in some stories you have Batman battling aliens! We listened to Johnny Cash, the Beach Boys, CCR. I managed to smuggle in some Sam Roberts and Matt Mays while I drove during the last part of the trip. The ride through Murdochville was windy road heaven and was an interesting experience while towing the trailer, with thoughts of it snapping off and the ATV going down a cliff. Actually, it wasn’t that bad at all. The Honda Accord has some balls to it and wasn’t too hard to manage.

We pulled off the road right before the cottage so I could hop on top of the ATV while it was in the trailer. It was quite funny and we all had a good laugh when everyone in the cottage looked out the door to see me being towed into town. Pictures are always available within the Flickr site if you want to see the daily happenings.

I got to see Uncle Fred, Aunt Judy, Kelly, Aunt Lois, Keri, Heather, Heather’s two kids Breana and Kyleigh (sp?), Uncle Greg and Aunt Mariette and the always lovely Nanny. I managed to score the trailer in the neighbours yard to sleep in which was amazing as I had the privacy and the ability to sleep in late in the morning without being awoken by the happenings of inside the cottage. Every night I would bring the laptop outside and either read some old Spider-Man comic books or play some old Sierra games (Leisure Suit Larry 5 was working fine until I encountered some sound driver error. Doh! That always happens right in the middle of the game! I don’t even remember finishing this particular game so I believe this may have happened in the past half way through the game and I gave up, ESPECIALLY reading about how I will need to run through the game after it’s patched. Argh. I may as well just wait until Quest For Glory 2 is remade into VGA (which is coming up close!)

We had a few drinks until midnight as I wanted to stay up for my birthday. Uncle Fred and family were nice enough to get me a six pack of Stella for the week and Uncle Fred and I enjoyed it.

Weather Report: Downright dirty with the rain falling.