July 12
Before we depart from La Jolie Rochelle, our breakfast on July 12 was enhanced by an unexpected visitor. No one knew exactly where our feline friend came from nor who might be its humans. But it wandered through and around the trailer for a good while before disappearing as mysteriously as it had appeared.
Janet also wandered into the river to take a photo of her Alto on site. I wish I’d done that, too. Nothing is so unfortunate as an opportunity not taken.
Just to have some fun, as we were leaving we saw Jim with a cartop carrier packed with “noodles” of all colors. He and Jack have a running joke about how much Jim loves noodles—he’s the one that gave us the idea to use them to keep folks from tripping on awning guy lines. We felt that Jim needn’t purchase any additional noodles (no matter the use to which he put them) if he used the space in an entire cartop carrier to haul them everywhere.
From La Jolie Rochelle, our group departed in a scattered way aiming at an interim “rally point” that was close to the 20th Anniversary Celebration in Sainte-Marie, outside of Quebec City and near the new Safari Condo factory in Staint-Frederick. Individual owners collected ourselves—after breaking camp and, for those who needed to, visiting the campground’s dump station—in a neighborhood in the small village of Scott, that our guide Jim had selected—a place where 16 Alto trailers with their tow vehicles could assemble to await a 1PM sharp en masse departure to the Celebration site.
This was important because if a group of friends wanted to all camp together, all had to arrive at the parking lot-cum-campsite at the same time. That was what we wanted, so we parked for a while along a crescent road in a quiet neighborhood until all had arrived, and then we began our short trek to the Celebration site (the Caztel Center ice hockey rink [among other uses]) in Ste.-Marie.
As luck would have it, while we lined up on the crescent road, Jack and I met new friends, who had been unable to join us at La Jolie Rochelle. But since they were going to attend the Celebration, and because they’re from Ottawa and are friends of Jim, he included them in the “arrive with this group” gathering. I say lucky because they parked on the crescent directly behind us, and we kept that configuration along the way—we called it a Conga of Snails—to the parking lot. Alex and Christine shared our “open space” as our trailers were arranged door-to-door with one parking space between us.
As it happens, they had one of the “old style” awnings and paired theirs with ours. Using a small grass embankment behind the trailers, and with some additional poles and guy lines, WE HAD SHADE!! Which was a good thing as the lot temps reached the high 80s that day, and rose to the 90s the next day.
So the single factor about this entire adventure we were dreading the most was completely removed from the equation. What tremendous luck. And they are delightful folks who share many of our own interests, as do many Alto owners, we have found.
After registration and continuing to set up our site, we all went back downhill to the Caztel Center for the evening’s kickoff events, and on display was the very first Alto trailer ever built by Safari Condo. They discontinued the “signature” yellow several years ago, and you can see the plastic windows have since been replaced with glass. And today’s Altos are significantly larger than #1.
There was a craft beer tasting event and welcome that evening, with the “grand illumination” following at around 10:30P. The beer, from a regional craft brewery called Frampton Brasse, was quite good. And while the presentations were mostly in French with some translations, and while they made the Nadeau family happy, some of us were left in the dark about what was going on. But our Australian friends who stayed with the group at La Jolie were publicly honored and thanked for not only coming from the farthest distance, but also because they have been great helpers to the company in selling and answering questions about the trailers from some of the potential buyers down under.
The pre-gathering materials encouraged all trailer and conversion van owners to “light up their Safari Condo” in whatever way they chose. We had our “blue moon” lights charged and ready to go, plus pulled out the “disco light” and we had a big gathering in the parking lot—sharing drinks, nibbles, and stories until midnight.
The evening turned cool, thank goodness, and the sleeping was fine after a big day.
July 13
The Caztel Center’s facilities (and charging stations, and air conditioning) didn’t open until 7A, so we started our morning sipping our beverages in our chairs outdoors, watching the “camp” awaken.
At some point Mark and Angela came by and expressed an interest in taking a bike ride, so we began setting up for that after a quick brekkie. We got away around 9:45, and another Alto owner and rider who’d made his own recumbent electric bicycle joined us. After filling our water bottles at the Center, we headed steeply downhill to the route. On the map (apologies for the poor quality of the pic) and apparently close to the Rivière Chaudière is the paved bike path indicated in green (opposite side of the river from Sainte-Marie). We headed northerly from Sainte-Marie back toward Scott, because Mark had heard that there was a beautiful, very French patisserie with excellent coffee in Scott. Of course, we went.
First, we headed past Scott to get about 10 miles in before heading back. The path was a bit confusing because there was some construction and we were worried because we could not read the signs very well. But it was all paved and we only had to creep past a couple of vehicles along the way, until we began down the shoulder of a busy road headed toward a couple of interchanges with the very big #73 highway. At the second interchange we returned to Scott and paused briefly at a pretty church with a lovely steeple and very unusual wrought iron steps.
At last we found the pastry shop and stopped there for a long time to enjoy not only the delicious eclairs, cake and coffee, but also the lovely setting.
We rode back toward the Caztel Center feeling somewhat heavy, but energized. It was around 2PM when we finally got back, after getting slightly lost along the very busy road directly below the Caztel Center (we over-shot our turn uphill). It was in the 90s by then, and if we had not had shade to sit in I might have returned to Scott to sit by the river on the lawn under the trees again.
Bike stats:
- Ride time = 1:43
- Stopped time = 1:47
- Miles = 22.3
- Average speed = 13MPH
We rested and then spent the evening entertaining friends and being entertained by friends, sitting in the middle of the parking lot once the sun set. Michele and Claudette came by with nibbles and wine and whiskey, and that became our dinner.
The Celebration activities include a Beatles show and lots of our group was assigned to the Friday night show, while we head to it on Saturday night after the group dinner. I guess the auditorium where the show was to be held would hold only half of our group of 700+ individuals (in 350 Safari Condo products Altos and conversion vans [condos] together).
I shall report on those final activities (and a Sunday breakfast for all) in the next post.
peregrinations 