Métis to somewhere south of Quebec City

It seemed like a lot of driving today but really we haven’t come all that far. Perhaps if I’d stuck to the four lane highway we would have made better time. But we’ve been travelling Quebec Route 132 ever since we entered Québec Province. All the way up around the Gaspé and down the south side of the St. Lawrence River. Route 132 goes almost the whole way to Ontario but seems to disappear for a bit (on my maps) around Montreal.

I suppose that Route 132 is the original highway in those parts. Around Rimouski a four lane divided highway starts and you can have Rte 132 pretty much to yourself. There are all sort of interesting villages and almost all have at least one ice cream shop called a ‘laitier’.

I blindly followed Route 132 into Lévi, Quebec (across the river from Québec City). It was around 4pm and it hadn’t occurred to me that they would have a rush hour. All of a sudden it was bumper to bumper; stop and go. I tried Route 20 (the four lane freeway) and it was just as bad. By the time we’d passed the exits to Québec City I was ready to stop for the night.

A sign for a campground indicated it was five kilometres away. A reasonable distance and likely to ensure that the campground wasn’t beside the highway. We twisted and turned through country lanes. Very rural.

We finally came upon the campground and it was massive. One of those places that doesn’t even have tent sites and a lot of sites that are seasonally occupied. There’s even a campground restaurant, swimming pool and man-made lake. But the best was yet to come. Clearly visitors weren’t arriving in droves and when I asked about a campsite I was told it would be $46.00. I think I must have given the poor gal one of my looks. I explained that I didn’t need a site with ‘services’ (electricity, etc.) but she explained that all the sites had services ... there were no sites ‘sans’ services. I was able to beat them down to $36.00. Even though I was tired and wanted to stop, I was having trouble with paying almost $50.00 to park Helmut for the night. And, I think they were hesitant to lose an easy sale given that trailers weren’t exactly lining up to get in.

But here’s the best part. When I asked about wi-fi/internet, the poor gal had to tell me there was a charge of $5.00 for 24 hours. I think I may have laughed out loud. I said I’d think about it. Next morning I discovered that I needed a quarter for the shower (which, of course, I had not brought along). Sheeeeesh!

One of these things is not like the others;
One of these things just doesn’t belong.