Road Weary

Today was all about the travel. We did our morning routine and packing up then had a 400 kilometer driving day. Things were smooth getting out of Quebec. We stayed on the east side of the river and avoided the city center. The real crap driving came in getting through Montreal in the afternoon. The traffic ground to a halt and the interchanges would dump you off into three lane bumper to bumper gridlock expecting you to go from far left lane to an exit on the right in just a few hundred meters. We battled our way through and came out the far side as the rain began to really,cone down.

After we got past Saint Jerome, the traffic thinned and the only drawback was the horrendous stretches of poorly repaired and potholed pavement. We climbed up into higher elevations as the storm turned the day dark. As we entered the national park, the road became narrow and winding for the last half an hour or so.

We pulled into Lac Chat campground in the pouring rain and at first we saw no other campers. Kind of spooky. But as we arrived at our reserved spot, there were a few other hardcore campers sitting out the rain. We got parked up and rested a while. When there was a break in the rain, I leashed up Cali and we went out to explore the campground. Half of the camp is no pets allowed and half is, kind of a weird set up. But Cali was a rebel and walked right past the no dog signs and we took a trail down to the lake to see what it looked like. Not as big as I thought but it had its own kind of pretty in a gunmetal gray evening glow.

We walked down the portage trail that bypasses a shallow stream between portions of the lake and came out at the another smaller body of water. It was near dark and the rain returned so we hoofed it back up to camp and relaxed inside.