Broken Bed and at last, Listuguj

Sleeping on a mattress with no air is not fun.  Very little sleep was had.  The dogs didn't have much of an issue with it, although I do think BuddyJack scraped up a few more blankets together than usual to use as a cushion.

Morning Coffee with Bags

We struck the tent, loaded the car with all of our items, including the broken mattress, and walked the dogs around the campground.  It was fairly empty, at least in the tenting area.  RV's were everywhere down below.  The last items to load in the car before we left was us and the dogs.

No wifi and no cell service meant we needed to use some smarts to try to find a replacement mattress.  We new the place to find but not where to find it.  We traveled down the road to Rimouski to Tim Hortons, Canada's coffee & donut store.  They offered free wifi at every store.  Rather than going in, I noticed an information center across the street.

I walked into the center and after a few bon jours I asked them the nearest location of Canadian Tire, a WalMart sort of store in Canada.  They have everything one could ever want, including, you guessed it, tires.  There was one located within a mile.  Back to the car and down the road we go.  Along the way, the dogs looked out the window staring at the St. Lawrence River with those puppy dog eyes.  "Not yet guys."

I found the store and went inside to find a new mattress.  It was difficult  to ask for help as I don't speak  french.  The aisles were tall and hard to make sense of their design.  I eventually found them and thought about this one, then that one, then maybe the one with legs.  Ooh...look at these items over here.  Do I need bungees?  Ooh...boots.

If you got the picture, I left the store maybe 40 minutes later.  There's Tom and the dogs waiting rather impatiently in the car.  Sorry!

Rimouski is the town, if coming by the North, where you have a choice of taking route 132 either East or East.  Correct.  You can go straight and go East or take a right and go East.  It is one big coastal loop going around Gaspe Peninsula.  I had to go East.  The 'take a right' East.

There were a few more churches along the way, but I let Tom do drive-by pictures today.  I was not going to get suckered in to another 32 churches.

This road I know well.  Traveling through the hills and eventually the river to the right.  The Restigouche River gets wider as we travel down the road.  Then the islands show themselves which tell me I am so close to Listuguj.

Within minutes we are on the reserve.  We are driving down the main thoroughfare through Listuguj.  Passing Pow Wow grounds, then my Aunt Deuce's home.  Take the left at the end of the road, around the reserve bordering the queen's land.  We passed the Red Roof and then Maggie's house.  It was like home, even though I have never lived here.

I pulled onto Pow Wow grounds, ironically situated behind this community's silver capped church, and set up our camp.  We found a great spot situated on a fence line and under a few cedar trees.  For the first time, our tent was dwarfed by another.  Not to far away was the ginormous circus like tent which will host the Wellness Fair tomorrow and the feasts throughout the weekend.

It was pretty warm, so we decided to head up to the Woods, another part of the reserve nestled in the mountains above the residential area.  It's a 10 mile drive up a dirt road with homes tucked in throughout.  It has a small lake and also a running river that crosses under a bridge.  Right past the bridge to the left is an even smaller dirt road that leads to my cousin Betty's cabin.

We often swim in the river and it is a great spot to do some ball play with the dogs.  As I have mentioned, when we get on a dirt road, the dogs ears are perked and their snouts are out the window.  Today was no different.  I'm not sure whether they new where they were or not, but they were ready for some action.

Sopping wet BuddyJack

Luther diving in for his ball

Great retrieval

Double retrievel

Do it again!

Break time.

Swimming up stream

Tired puppy.

We headed back into town and got some more poutine at a local road side stand.  The dogs were nice and cool still being fairly wet from their romps.  We headed back to camp and checked on my family's arrival.  We had planned our arrival to match theirs.  They were a few hours away so we relaxed at our camp for a bit before heading across the bridge to New Brunswick.

Timing is everything in Listuguj.  The reserve is located in Quebec, Eastern Time.  New Brunswick is Atlantic Time.  The bridge over the Restigouche River separates the two.  "Indian Time" is New Brunswick Time.  It get's very confusing.  Enough that my aunt, years ago, would wear two watches.  To this day, I never really knew when things start or end.

We all loaded into the car and headed down the road.  Along the way, we passed my Great Aunt Deuce.  We passed her once, stopped, turned around and stopped to this frail woman and her walker heading down the road.  Language is even more difficult here as there is the french influence, the indian influence and the english, all jumbled together.  Add to that a hard of hearing aunt, and you end up using a lot of gestures.

I gleaned that she was heading over to the mall.  I asked if she wanted a ride.  She nodded.  I told her about the dogs in the car.  She did not like that too much.  Tom got into the back seat as I loaded her walker into the back of the car.  I was glad that most of our equipment was at the camp.  Tom held back the dogs as I assisted Deuce into the front seat.  The dogs were great and we headed towards the bridge.

After crossing the bridge, we stopped at the local mall to drop off Deuce and then headed over to the Visitor's Center for Campbeltown, NB.  This spot had some wifi, so I took care of some business on the inter webs before meeting my family who would soon arrive.

We headed over to the Brasserie and had a beer.  My family was just a short bit away but we took the cribbage board with us and played a few games.  Within the half hour, I saw my Dad lumbering over towards the front door.  Then my Mom and Sister and her husband and two kids.  My other niece took up the rear.  Hugs and kisses with all.

We had some dinner as we talked about our travels so far.  Post dinner, we headed over to their hotel and I showed some pictures of where we have been so far.  It was great to be with them.  We stayed for an hour or so before heading back to camp.  It had been a long day, so we went back to camp with the intention of meeting Naresh, my brother in law, for a beer later on.  Instead we got a text from my sister that it would not be happening as my niece, Emma had hurt her wrist while attempting a skateboard maneuver at a local park by the hotel.  She doesn't even skateboard, let alone "maneuver".  They were at the hospital and we would see them tomorrow.  We instead went to bed.  Yes, we would see them tomorrow, at the start of Pow Wow weekend!