Days 26 to 29: Gaspésie

Day 26

Kilometer 2090

Petit-Matane, QC

At one point today, I looked down at my odometer and saw that I had reached kilometer 1993 (my birth year) and my speed at that moment in kph was 24.6 (my birth day). So, you know, miracles do happen once in a while.

The water is looking less and less like a river and more and more like a sea. The north shore has slowly faded into the horizon, now just a faint sliver of darkness over the water. The air smells like saltwater and seafood restaurants have started appearing by the side of the road. The river officially continues for another couple hundred miles, though. I've got a ways to go.

Day 27

Kilometer 2173

Sainte-Anne-des-Monts, QC

I crossed the boundary into the Gaspésie Region today, which, if I've read the locator map on my tourist flyer correctly, is the ninth and last of Québec's 17 regions that I'll visit. It took me longer than I'll admit to figure out whether nine seventeenths was slightly more or slightly less than 50%. (The answer is left as an exercise to the reader.)

In no particular order, here are five of many songs that have been playing in my head the past few days: The "Ping Pong Song" by Enrique Iglesias (a mix of the Spanish lyrics and the English lyrics), "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from Mary Poppins (thank you to the kids I walked by speed-singing it in Québec City), "Wagon Wheel" by Old Crow Medicine Show (thank you to the live country musician playing until 12:30 at the bar beneath my window two nights ago), the Game of Thrones theme song, and, for reasons I'm not sure of, 2007 Eurovision Song of the Year "Molitva" by Marija Šerifović.

I bought a dozen bagels yesterday and I've almost finished them. Pretty sick of bagels now, though. As proof of how rural this region is: I got to the first town I crossed today at ten, looking for something to put on my bagels, but the town's only store didn't open until 10:30. The owner's granddaughter saw me standing in front of the door, though, reading the hours, and ran across the street to open up for me. I got a jar of peanut butter.

I'm in Sainte-Anne-des-Monts as I write this. Turns out "Monts" means "Mountains." That's a vocab word my thighs are not forgetting any time soon.

Day 28

Kilometer 2277

La-Rivière-Madeleine, QC

More mountains today.

I also hit the northern most point of the Gaspé Peninsula, and therefore of the trip, today. I looked it up, and it's just about exactly the latitude of Minnesota's Northwest Angle, the northernmost point in the continental US. So, I suppose that's sort of interesting.

If I didn't feel quite so dead, I would probably have something to say about how beautiful this region is.

Day 29

Kilometer 2378

Cap-des-Rosiers, QC

Another day of walking my bike up hills I can't possibly ride and careening down them at ridiculous speeds. Another day of watching my phone battery slowly deplete itself, even on airplane mode, even turned off most of the time, hoping that someday soon I'll find a restaurant and that it will have an outlet. Another day of swatting at the swarms of blood-sucking insects that only seem to abate during the occasional bout of heavy rain. (Side note: Did we for sure decide against the whole DDT thing? Because if the alternative is a mind-numbing, never-ending buzz, then maybe our Springs are better off Silent.)

All the repetitiveness, though, takes a back seat to today's exciting new development: I took a left turn today. That may not seem noteworthy, but it felt pretty momentous to me. I haven't taken a turn—in either direction—in six days, as I've just been hugging the shoreline on Route 132. Granted, I took that left turn in order to keep hugging the shoreline on Route 132, and, granted, I'm going to be shoreline-hugging on Route 132 until I get to New Brunswick, but let's not nitpick.

The village I'm in now is both the traditional end of the St. Lawrence River (about time!) and home to Canada's tallest lighthouse. Tomorrow morning I'll reach the eastern tip of the peninsula, and then I'll have to turn around and head west again.