We (I)) were kind of dreading this day – the longest (at 90 miles) of the whole itinerary. But we can adaptable as long time readers of this blog already know.

First, let’s return to the end of the day in Montreal. I was so happy to see Leonard Cohen, my musical hero, watching over us from several places in the city.

We had a lovely day walking about the city and even getting a nap in the afternoon. We had dinner with live music at the Upstairs Jazz Bar where Kayla Summer and her terrific band were performing, doing the great American songbook. It was just fantastic.

We had a really wonderful rest day exploring Montreal and can’t wait to come back.

Of course, under the surface we (I) was fretting a bit about the coming day. We’d planned on riding to Trois Rivières, an old city on the St. Lawrence River. 90 miles is a long day, and that was causing me to worry a bit. We’ve done rides of that distance before, but it has been a while. And then we looked at the weather forecast which was predicting both rain and thunderstorms.

I started pondering (quietly) some alternatives. I balance out pride (you’ve got to ride every mile) and practicality (that’s just too many miles for us.) I thought “this is our vacation” and “we have nothing to prove to anybody” as I think about what to do.

I checked one way car rentals (nope) and then turned to UHaul – our reliable option on other trips where we need to leapfrog ahead to stay on schedule.

Could we just get a van and drive up to Trois Rivière and get set up for the last two days of our ride into Quebec City?

In the end, the weather forecast made us decide to book a small truck for the drive – changing a 9 – 10 hour trip into a 2 hour one.

We arrived after our drive on the freeway, unloaded our bikes and rode to our really nice hotel (called Hotel Oui Go) and then went out for a bike ride (of course) and got a good sense of the town, as well as our route out tomorrow.

Quebec is quite different from Ontario – it really feels like we are in France, and we encounter people who do not speak English at all. But it makes this seem like a real adventure.

After getting cleaned up, we walked a block away for a great meal and a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow we keep riding downstream to Deschambault and it is going to be rainy, but hopefully not stormy.