THURSDAY, 30 June

Happy birthday, Linda.

Our drive today was to the Bas Saint-Laurent KOA Resort near Saint-Mathieu-de-Rioux, QC.  Check in time was 2 PM and our estimated travel time was ~ 2-3/4 hours.  With no major construction slowdowns or urban traffic to deal with, we targeted an 11 AM departure.  That allowed for an early breakfast and a leisurely departure routine.  We pulled out of the Quebec City KOA Holiday at 11:08 AM.

Lac Saint-Mathieu from the upper campground at the top of Rue Principale. It’s steeper than it looks.

The first part of our route was, once again, the Trans-Canada Highway (T-CH) which was still the A-20 in this area.  We were on a NNE track all day, roughly parallel to the SE edge of the St. Lawrence River headed into the Gaspe peninsula.  The road was mostly good, traffic was mostly light, and the scenery was all new to us, a lovely, a mix of beautiful lush green farm fields, rolling hills covered in trees, and occasional massive outcrops of rock.  The temperature and partial cloud cover allowed us to run without the air-conditioner on.

Our patio site.

Our only navigational mis-que came near the end.  Near Riviere-du-Loup we left the A-20 for QC-132.  At Trois-Pistoles, both the F-150 GPS and Google Maps on Linda’s phone told us to turn right.  I saw a sign for our next destination that indicated 22 Km straight ahead, but Linda didn’t see it and we decided to follow the GPS route.  We ended up on some smaller back roads, driving past farms, and eventually along the south side of Lac Saint-Mathieu before arriving at the RV resort from the south instead of the north as planned.  Our GPS units do not know that we are towing a trailer and thus are not routing for an RV.  On the plus side, I got to use the F-150 downhill assist feature on a 13% grade.  I’m happy to report that it works very well.

The road into our site. We were not at the very top.

We caught our first sight of the Bas Saint-Laurent KOA Resort as we rounded a corner and saw the southwest side of large, terraced hill.  Our initial impression was that the campground was built vertically rather than horizontally.  It was unlike anything we had every seen.  We pulled in to one of the multiple check-in lanes around 2:30 PM and Linda went in to register us.  We were registered for a 50A 3-way (full hookup) back-in patio site, but Linda had sent an e-mail before we left to see if we could move to a pull-thru site with same amenities.  She never got a reply to the e-mail, but they had us on a pull-thru site at check-in, so them must have gotten it.

The area around the resort looks like this. The ridge to or SW has a ski slope.

This was a big, busy campground with lots of rigs already here and more arriving in advance of Canada Day.  One of the women at the registration desk spoke English, so Linda was in-n-out fairly quickly. They had at least three people on golf carts (probably more) leading folks to their sites and I followed one of them as instructed.  Our site was in the “mountain top” area, and the road up (straight up) probably a 12% grade, plus or minus.  The resort was, quite literally, built around, up the side, and on top of small mountain (hill) and was unlike anything we had ever seen.  It also turned out to be one of “those” places with lots of “rules.”  Although apparently in the middle of nowhere, we had to have a different colored wrist band each day for access to the swimming pool area.

The road to the lower campground from Paul and Nancy’s site.

As always, it took a few extra minutes to get the trailer parallel to the edge of the patio with the truck sufficiently straight ahead that we could lower the tongue jack.  It took quite a few quick iterations of G.O.A.L. (Get Out And Look) but we got it done.  We were 2” low on the passenger/patio side, but the Anderson levelers took care of that.  We chocked them and the tires as before but got out the X-chocks for the first time on this trip and secured the tires on each side of the trailer.  We then proceeded with unhooking the truck.  The X-chocks did the trick and the stinger slid out of the 3P hitch smoothly with no movement of the trailer.  Success, finally.  We had the trailer/campsite fully set up by 3:30 PM and sat down to a light snack and cold beverages.  (W3W=scams.sunken.itches).

A warm fire on a cool evening with friends.

Paul and Nancy had arrived a bit ahead of us, having stayed the course on QC-132 and coming into the park from the north.  They were in the lower campground, but had to go up a hill in order to go back down the hill to get to that area.  We could see the lake from the front of our site, but they were much closer to the beach, which was part of the small portion of the campground on the other side of the main road.

Linda holding a bottle of Madeline mead from Schramm’s Mead. Paul and Nancy saved this for her birthday.

Even though it was her birthday, Linda made dinner for the four of us.  (Nancy burned her right hand on one of the homemade vegan marshmallows and has been on light kitchen duty until it heals.)  She made a nice green salad with strawberries, blueberries and peanuts to start.  The main course was cascatelli pasta with sun-dried tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, garlic in olive oil.  And wine, of course.  She prepared the meal in our rig and we ate at the dinette as it was too sunny to use the patio table.

After dinner we all went to Paul and Nancy’s rig to enjoy a campfire.