Backtracking: Quebec City

After checking out a national park along the St. Lawrence, we got turned away due to our "canine" problem.  So we carried on down the road and came upon a municipal campground in the town of St. Fabien.  It was just perfect for what we needed.  It also happened to be situated at the bottom of a long hill upon which was a "Coop" which is the local grocery chain.  We bought fresh meat and veggies for dinner.

The next morning we bumped into a young couple camping next to us who were extra friendly.  They live in Quebec City so we asked for advice on where to camp in or near the city.  They suggested checking out the marina by the old town.  So we naively drove into Quebec but of course not getting there until late in the afternoon on a Friday.  As we drove by the marina there wasn't a single RV to be spotted.  As we later learned, this site closed years ago when the local zoo was shut down and turned into an RV park.  After driving MerSea 2 through the narrow streets of downtown Quebec we gave up hopes of staying downtown and having a good french meal at a restaurant.  So we headed north of town by the airport to find a campsite.   As it was a Friday afternoon around 5 pm there was no chance at all of getting a spot at this site.  Fortunately the young lady at the reception desk was extremely nice and willing to call around to find an available campground.  It happened to be on the exact opposite side of town in the direction of Montreal.  Having no choice we hopped in the RV and threw ourselves into the Quebec evening rush hour.

At last we arrived at our campsite.  It turned out to be a unique experience and Lance is still rolling his eyes.  The RVs were shoe horned into spaces and the place was packed.  Of course looking so desperate they put us in the worst spot (or perhaps the only spot!) available.  It was on the edge of the campground along a very noisy road.  Every half our an older gentleman would get on the loud (and we mean loud) speaker to announce the weekly bingo game that was taking place later in the evening.  He also reminded the little kids about the train ride that snakes through the park.  The loudspeaker made you feel like you were either at a train station or in a prison yard.  Speaking French made it understandable for Stephanie but for Lance the entire experience was altogether very foreign.  If it had not been for the super friendly park owners and the welcoming neighbors, we might have written this one off as one of our least favorite campsites. But given that we had not made a single campsite reservation the entire time we were in Canada, we managed to luck out most of the time.