We followed the Ottawa River looking for a spot to switch over to Route 17 to Ottawa... found our way to route 148 and a bridge into Quebec and decided to take that instead....   and follow the river down the Quebec side toward Montreal...  once over on the Quebec side, the signs changed immediately to French..   after being trained on the Ontario side with the French following the English, on the Quebec side it reversed and French came first followed by English on traffic signs...  then once within the interior regions, the English disappeared entirely, and it was clear we were in a "foreign country"...

It was a beautiful drive following the Ottawa river road on the Quebec side...  As we passed through an intersection, we noticed a highway "Mounty" parked along the road observing the traffic, and in the rear view mirror saw him pulling onto the road behind us.... what we did not see until the last minute was the the motorcycle coming up behind us and shooting by us at speeds that must have been well over 100 mph... we were doing 60mph (above the 90 kph speed limit), and the motorcycle went by like we were standing still...  I would bet he was going 120 to 130 mph when he went by.... we saw the Mounty giving up the chase, slowing and pulling off the road, turning around and returning to his post.... it was clear he was not going to catch that guy or even determine the color of his motorcycle....   I think it was a BMW crotch rocket, and it was being driven like a professional racer around the curves... out of sight in seconds... 

Further down the river we went through a small town that was filled with motorcycles parked on the front lawn of a church and with the bell ringing...  as we passed through we saw the streets crowded with Harleys...   later we saw even more parked in along the street of another small river town....  when we stopped for gas, we found out it was the annual River Run...   we continued to see motorcycles all the way down to Montreal jamming the highway...  

Once on the Quebec side we began seeing the signs of the "Quebec as a single nation" debate...  A sign saying "Canada United" with both the Canadian and Quebec flags flying greeted us from a field shortly across the border... later we noticed almost every home/farm along the river flying the Canadian flag, and some flying it along with Quebec....  It appeared that there was great support along these border communities  for a united Canada..     A short way in though, the flags disappeared, and the mixed road signs disappeared with them... we later read in a newspaper that Quebec Premier Bernard Landry recently stated that he wants a sovereign Quebec by 2005...  it was thought to appease some in his party, but unlikely to ever come to a vote.  Suzanne kept  her French dictionary handy translating new phrases we would see on signs... before long we found we could really interpret quite a bit of what we saw...  

The trailer began to squeak... with every bump and twist it seemed to get worse...   We were certain a spring had broken or something as bad had occurred...   finally we pulled into a Wal-Mart parking lot to do an inspection... there was nothing visible, so I got out the grease gun and pumped a few shots into the side of each wheel....  then I unhitched the trailer and got out the WD-40 and sprayed the hitch connection thoroughly... that fixed the problem...  leaving the trailer hitched to the Jeep for two nights with the rain had cause the ball and hitch to rust and squeak...  I should have remembered this from my trip to Alaska... it was great to get back on the road again without the squeaks...  always carry a large can of WD-40 when you travel...!!  

We tried to catch route 158 East to Quebec City before we got into Montreal... as we entered the outskirts of  the city we missed what we thought was the turn.. (streets are not well marked in Quebec)..    hot and hungry we pulled over in front of a large official looking building that had parking space and Suzanne made us sandwiches...  I got out and approached a strange looking man on the sidewalk and asked  if he could tell me how to get to route 158 to Quebec City...   he looked puzzled, but  luckily with all my experience traveling in foreign countries, I knew just what to do.... I spoke louder and pointed on the map in my hand the direction I wanted to go.... this seemed to do it, as he confirmed that we had missed the corner  two blocks back... I thanked him and he turned right at the corner ahead and walked away...   Suzanne and I stayed and had a sandwich before starting back to catch the missed turn... shortly we saw the same man returning down the street on the other side... then turning and going up the street in the direction we were headed... We figured we must have gotten him excited or worried and he took the wrong corner....  We turned around and finding the route to Quebec City...   felt good to be on the road again..

An hour or so on the back roads, we switched over to route 40 which was an interstate heading toward Quebec City..  we had decided to camp in the city on the east/south side of the St. Lawrence River so needed to find the best bridge route to cross.  We stopped at a rest area and information center about 60 miles out and they gave us directions.    The language barrier was evident, but the young people working in the center were very patient with us.  

At the rest stop we noticed the "plug" on the end of the rear bumper of the Aliner was missing..  and after closer examination found the bumper had a dent in the bottom corner..  I must have backed into something but neither of us could remember when that might have happened... the bumper is heavy iron, so not easy to dent.....    so after about 17,000 road miles, my first dent!  I will look for another plug in the first RV shop we come across.

Levis Camping Transit Campground is a very highly rated Good Sam resort camp in Quebec City... they have  the cleanest restrooms and showers we have ever seen for a camp this congested.   We came in on a Saturday when all the weekenders were camping here with their children.   Lots of recreation facilities including a huge pool, hot tub (both closed because of earlier rain), a pet zoo, playground, basketball, etc...    It had a small restaurant on the premises but was closed for the season...   the rate for us was $23.50 CDN per night... we decided to stay two nights and take the ferry across to "old" Quebec downtown area...  we both needed the rest.

When opening up the Aliner, we found the top side panel was stuck...  evidently the bouncing and stress on the trailer had caused the panels to twist and the heavy rubber pad that the panel sits on had shifted off of the center window panel under it and was stuck along side.  I was able to pry it up and get the panels up, but it looks like the pad is loose now so I will have to do some repairs before we leave on Monday...    We went over some bumpy roads today, and one detour where we hit a pot hole that must have stressed the panels to shift... 

The break from traveling is good...   the sky is clear for the first time since we started the trip.....  we found a Subway shop down the road for supper... then picked up a pack of sushi from a local super market and washed all that down with a glass of wine before turning in... looking forward to Quebec City..  and closer views of the St. Lawrence tomorrow..