La Patrie – July 8, 2012

I’m sitting in a very nice B & B in this pretty little town about 40 km from the Maine border. 

I thought I might make the border today but, after pedalling 80 km on a “roller coaster” secondary highway, I was getting bagged and I’d had enough. I’m guessing that today and tomorrow’s riding will be the most difficult of the trip.  I’m skirting the northern end of the Vermont and New Hampshire Appalachians and, while the topography on the Quebec side isn’t extreme, there’s still the typical Appalachian northeast-southwest topographic trend and the highway, which runs straight east-west, crosses ridge after ridge.  The hills aren’t extreme, today at any rate, but there are a LOT of them and looking at the approaching topography, tomorrow promises to be even hillier.  The weather was ideal – low 20s with a substantial cooling tailwind and a mix of sun and cloud and if it hadn’t been for the innumerable hills, I might even have enjoyed myself.  Once I reach the Maine border, the road appears to follow a river valley southeast towards Portland so riding there shouldn’t be too bad – famous last words!

I wheeled into town, found and got set up at the B & B, then went to the bar across the street to replenish my electrolytes and what do I run into in the Bar?  Cowboy music and country dancing francophones – that makes three days in a row!  Half the town must have been there on a Sunday afternoon, which confirms the Catholic church’s grip on Quebec is no more.  Les francophones appear to be party people.  I very much doubt that you’d get such a scene on a Sunday afternoon anywhere else in Canada.