It rained overnight and was raining lightly this morning—and it rained on and off all day and it is now forecast to continue in the same mold all week.
We stayed an extra night at Parc du Bic in order to make a leisurely day trip into Rimouski. We started off fairly early and stopped for breakfast at Cafe Des Halles at Les Halles Saint-Germain, an indoor market with fairly upscale food shops, a miniature version of a European indoor market. The breakfast and coffee at the cafe were nothing special and as we walked up the main street afterwards, we found that there were innumerable places serving breakfast in Rimouski. It seems the thing to do in this town.
We stopped at the local tourist office to see if there might me an English version of the Rimouski tourist guide...there wasn't. But they recommended the regional museum across the street on a rainy day.
After walking a few more blocks and passing several more bistros and restaurants, we returned to the museum. It had two ongoing exhibits, one a series of modern drawings and sculptures on an improbable bestiary by Jean Paul Riopelle, the other an exhibition of photographs of life in Quebec, particularly the Gaspé, taken in 1950 by an American photographer, Lida Moser. Both were interesting. Only the photography had text in English.
Since the museum had free WiFi, I tried using Google Translate on my phone. You frame the text with the camera and it amazingly translates in real time, with the words on the screen morphing from one language to the other. It sort of worked, but I couldn't hold the camera still enough to actually read the text. I only tried it on one description. I'm sure there is a snap and translate mode, but I haven't played with it enough.
After the museum, we went off to the local Metro supermarket. It is significantly better than the Maxi with lots of fresh vegetables, a deli, bakery, good cheese selection, meat and fish markets, prepared foods, sort of between Stop & Shop and Whole Foods in feel. We are prepared for the next few days.
Our final sojourn was to the Pointe-du-Père lighthouse where we had lunch in Speedy and got the lighthouse passport stamp. There is also a submarine and a museum about The Empress of Ireland, a ship that wrecked off the coast of Rimouski in 1914 with the loss of over 1,000 lives. We didn't visit either the sub or museum.
It was then back to Parc du Bic. We drove up to the main visitor center to check out the other campground (the one that is completely booked) and to take advantage of the center's wifi to check mail. By the time we got back to camp it was time for dinner.
Tomorrow we are off to Parc national de la Gaspésie. I'm not sure what it will be like if the weather continues like this, as the park is in the mountains and is primarily a hiking park. The northern part of the International Appalachian Trail runs through it.
We have pictures but need another wifi stop...soon.
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