2010-09-08

	Today the sun is rising over the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the Atlantic Ocean.
Eight days ago we left Toronto at 09:00 and arrived at a ferry crossing over the Ottawa River to Oka, Quebec at 17:00. We ate a supper based upon Oka cheese made by the silent Trappest monks and French micro brewery beer at Parc National d'Oka near Montreal.
	We ran eastward all day stopping only for gas and a lunch. Past Quebec City, the farthest east I have traveled in Canada, we arrived at Parc National du Bic at supper. We had arrived in the west of the Gaspe Peninsula.
The St. Lawrence was brackish and tidal. In two days of hard travel we had arrived at our destination.. the Maritimes.
	We spent two days at Bic touring the coastal villages and gravel roads.
We traveled 3 hours east along the 132 coastal highway winding beside the Gulf of St. Lawrence creping over mountain ridges which plunged into the salt water and followed the road down, geared down into estuaries where villagers live. At highway 229 the Osiris hauled us up a steep paved grade which turned to even steeper grades of gravel to Parc de la Gaspesie. Behind our site at the primitive campground without potable water a mountain stream babbled.

The next morning I hiked to the peek of Mont Ernest-Menard, the first mountain peek of the Grande Traversee. I am on a photo sketching, pleasure tour. And now, four days later, Mary has risen and we must prepare to travel on from this place to another place farther down the road. My timeline is disjointed. I can't catch up with the present. I am like a painter en plein air astounded by the moving clouds and the changing light which seem to happen in the future while I struggle with the present, the ever present paint. We have been without cell reception or an internet connection for eight days.

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