On January
8, we leave our comfy house in Franconia and drive to Québec city.
It's snowed pretty hard all night, but it's not too cold and the roads (at
least near Franconia) don't look too bad. It takes a while to finish getting
our stuff packed and the bus ready. Just clearing the 400ft driveway is a
major workout. We finally leave at noon or so. The roads are mostly dry in
New Hampshire... so far so good. Once we reach the VT border however, things
get considerably uglier. Snow-covered interstate with just two tire tracks
of dry pavement to follow. Stressful driving, particularly with a large, heavy
vehicle and a 1963 vintage steering gear... It gets even worse near the Canadian
border.
 |
|
Leaving
our comfy house in Franconia, immediately after a huge snowstorm.
|
|
 |
|
Driving
through new Hampshire is not too bad...
|
|
 |
|
...but
it gets much worse as we reach Vermont.
|
|
 |
|
Almost
in Québec!
|
|
 |
|
The
bus at the border crossing (parked for a search...).
|
|
We get
searched again by canadian customs. They're pretty friendly this time though.
They spend about a half hour searching the bus and taking a quick look in
the Jeep, before letting us go. We always wonder whether this searching is
them doing their jobs, or curiosity on their part about the bus?
We continue
toward Québec. Once night falls (4:15 PM), driving becomes really difficult.
It's snowing hard again. I can barely see though the windshield of the bus
anymore. We stop at least three times to clean it.
 |
|
Everything
is in French!
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Road
conditions do not get much better as we are nearing Québec
city at dusk.
|
|
 |
|
The
appartment we're renting is just inside the fortified walls of
the old Québec city.
|
|
Eventually,
we stop for the night at a large rest area, just before the bridge across
the St Laurent, 15 minutes from Québec city. We drive to a restaurant
with the jeep: it's a "Saint Hubert", a local chain, kind of like
Friday's, where they specialize in chicken. The food is all right (basically
fast food served on porcelain). Everybody speaks French but we're having a
hard time understanding our waiter (for non french speakers: Quebecquois is
very much like continental french, but with a very different accent, and unique
expressions; kind of like Ireland's english might sound to an American from
Los Angeles, I guess). We'll need to practice our Québecquois!
We drive
back to the bus for one of our coldest nights ever. It's brutally cold! We
manage to keep warm under three thick comforters, stacked on top of one another.
