Welcome back riders,
FYI: This is blog catch up day, you may want to scroll down to day 9 to stay in chronological order.
We have a late departure time of 10am this morning, and fortunately for us the temps are more mild this morning, low negative single digits and no wind, with the sun shining down. A Blue Bird day, as they say.
Even with the scheduled late start, the group gathered around 7:30am for the snowmobiler breakfast. I awoke around 6am, and tried opening my phone with the facial ID. It wouldn’t work. To back things up a bit, coming out of Chibougamau, I got a bad bite of the frost on my jaw line, and I have had an egg size goiter growing out of my jaw line. I went to the bathroom to do my morning tooth brushing, and I was shocked at the reflection in the mirror. I see why my facial recognition didn’t work, I was pumpkin face boy. My phone didn’t even recognize me.
Anywho, we decided that since everybody was up and at ‘em we may as well get suited up, fueled up, and on the trail. NFG Kelly was still ailed with the traveling virus, and his group decided to give him more time to rest, and they would catch up with us at our night’s destination.
And off we were. A beautiful mountain ride back to civilization, with fast well groomed trails. We only had about 85 miles total to our overnight stay and by noon we had clicked off 65 of them. We stopped at a fuel station with a restaurant attached, and decided we may as well have a bite to eat while we are here. The rooms wont be available to check in, anyways.
A light lunch was had, with Onion soups, club sandwiches, and cheesburgers all dressed being served up. A funny thing happened after lunch, however. Rimel caught me in the coat room where our gear was, and asked me to try his helmet on. I am bewildered at this point, trying to figure out where he is going with this. I reluctantly say “OK”, and as I am putting it on he says “Can you see out this helmet?” I ask him, before I placed it over my head, “you have taken the protective film off the inside of the visor, right?”. He replies “Well, yea, duh”. Ok, I slide it on it for 2 seconds and say well then it’s effed, you better see Ski Doo Matt for advice. So he meanders over to Ski Doo, who promptly pulls off the protective film from INSIDE the visor. You can’t make this stuff up! And to add to this story, after our arrival this afternoon to our overnight stay, Hedgie and I was discussing the Rimel helmet debacle, and Hedgie says “hold on, it’s worse than you know. He has had, and worn, that helmet for THREE YEARS!!” Folks at home, you can’t make this up, I am just not that creative.
Rimel can see clearly now
Anywho, we were back on trail for 15 miles to our overnight stay at the Club Tadoussac, in Sare’-Coeur QC. We arrived around 1:30pm to the parking lot and small chalet of an office. Fearless Craig went to the door to find the office unattended. He called the phone number on the window for assistance, and was told to ride back down the service drive to where they were cleaning and working on our residence for the night. This is where this becomes a Darkside Adventure, once again. The main lodgeing unit that was going to house 9 of our 14 group was suffering from a pipe burst, or some ailment that had the water shut off to it. They had alternative, RUSTIC cabins available with bunk beds, but no electrical outlets. And this group needs electrical outlets, half of us travel with life support machines (CPAP) and power is a must.
I have to add to this that we waited in the parking lot for about an hour while Fearless Craig was doing recon on our bunks for the night. A couple of the crew got impatient, and decided to travel down the trail about 5 miles to bring back adult beverages, and such, for our evening, that being Dylan, feeling lively and spry again with his new partner Wingman Rob, and the Old Man Ron for supervision, and diet Pepsi. The rest of us hung out in the parking lot killing time and smoking ‘em if you got ‘em.
Hanging out in the parking lot
The toxic twins
A decision was made to travel up the trail to the Resto-Motel Chantmartin where 7 rooms and 14 beds were open and available. As well as electrical for life support equipment and running water for hot showers. Onward we traveled.
If any of our 7 followers have been around for any period of time, you will recall this is the location that we have stayed one time prior. When we took the ferry across the Saguenay River, headed this way a couple years ago, we were met with the remnants of a winter blizzard and snow drifted trails, and unable to make Club Tadoussac that evening, and they put us up here for the night. For further jogging of your memory, they wouldn’t feed us here, and we wound up about 200 yards up the trail at a hostel that made us a fabulous spaghetti dinner, and fed us in their hostel’s kitchen at a big wooden table, like school children. Still a fond memory for us.
The riders that didn’t go ahead for adult beverages, landed in the parking lot of the Resto-Motel around 3pm, with the 3 degenerates chasing adult beverages arriving shortly there after.
For the record, they are taking much better care of us this evening, with the restaurant/bar open at least until 8pm, and the option to stay open later, as long as the thirst lasts’, and the cash flows.
I think we are caught up to the present day and time. It’s hard to tell at this point.
And the virus continues to spread, now Fearleas Craig is popping dayquils like tic tacs, once we got in.
Tomorrow, I hear, the ride is about the same as today.
We shall see.
Bye for now
Stick