Charlevoix

We went on a little trip up the St. Lawrence River to the Charlevoix region. It was funny to go on an overnight stay to a different house while living at our Quebec house. For some reason it made us feel even more like Quebec is "home"—to go away, miss our house and our neighborhood, and then return to it.

Our main purpose for going was to go on a whale-watching boat—I had heard that this was a good place to do it and it just sounded fun! But it was fun to get to stay a little longer and see a little more than we would have had time for on just a day trip to Charlevoix, too.

It was a foggy, rainy day when we left.  The road goes up along the river for a while, but then it goes up through some mountains. It got SO foggy as we drove through the mountain roads! It was a little scary and I was glad Sam was driving, not me.

It's rural up there, with farms and forests. When we came out of the clouds, it was so pretty to look down and see the river from time to time!

There are two national parks in Charlevoix and we had planned to do hikes in both, but due to the rain and fog we only ended up getting to Parc national des Grands-Jardins. (The other is Parc national des Hautes-Gorges de la Rivière-Malbaie. I would love to still go there but…I don't know! We are running out of time!😱) (Actually there's a third park too by the fjord [yes, there is a fjord here, I learned!]. That would have been cool to see also! We were near there for the whale-watching.)

In spite of the misty rain, the weather was very pleasant for hiking. Just the right temperature, and I didn't even wear my jacket once we got going. The rain only got heavy a couple times so we didn't get too soaked! I like the misty rain here. Though it can be deceptive—it feels like nothing is getting on you but you can still end up very wet!

This was the end of September and trees were still just starting to turn yellow and orange. Not too different from the timing of Fall colors at home (I thought it might be earlier here). 

The one trouble with hiking in the rain and fog was that when we got to the top…there was no view! We might as well have been anywhere! Although there was a cool, edge-of-the-world feeling as we looked out off of the rocky ridges. You could sort of tell there was nothing beyond the rocks you stood on, and it was eerie. 

(This is the view we would have had! I looked it up afterwards because I felt very unsatisfied.)

People had made rock cairns all around at the summit, and Gus and Zig were happy to follow suit! (Don't mind wraith-like Malachi lurking behind Gus)

Do you like Clementine's tiny cairn? One tiny brown leaf balanced on top of a rock.

One graceful Junie balanced on a rock!

Looking back up at the top

I loved the mist and fog as we hiked down. I have never hiked in conditions like these before, and it made the hike so interesting and different!

I especially liked the spooky, magical look of the fog through the forest.

After the hike we were so chilly and hungry! We stopped at a fromagerie and bought some cheese and sausage to go with our sandwiches. They tasted so good! They must come from happy cows (…well…not so much the sausages, I suppose…). I love the cheese here. There are so many kinds (Québec produces 700 varieties of cheese, I am told), and all of them are good!

Made another stop in Baie Saint-Paul (cute little riverside town) for ice cream (some of the best blueberry ice cream we've ever had…Malachi ate most of it and spent the next few weeks figuring out how far we were from it and how long it would take to get some more) and hot chocolate (for the more easily-chilled and less hardy members of our family). Yum.

Our house was near La Malbaie, another pretty town by a river bay.

(Clementine showing off her accomplishment of getting all the holes filled in this magnet drawing board)

The house was pretty and modern, up on the hill overlooking the St. Lawrence. It couldn't have felt more different than our house in Quebec City!

Fun bunk room for some of the kids

Clementine and Evie

There was a pretty deck outside…

…and a fireplace inside, which we used a lot more!

Gus and Teddy were excited to share this big bed!

We even had foosball and (mini) shuffleboard downstairs!

(Made a quick trip out for poutine, of course!)

The hallway was painted black with a window at the end and it looked so spooky at night! Malachi loved that :)

Sam and Daisy made the best hot chocolate

Saw the lights of La Malbaie for a few moments when the fog cleared

It was so cozy and snug to be inside while it was rainy and chilly outside. Because of the weather, we changed our planned whale-watching time to the next day instead, and then just stayed in almost all that first day. It was so nice!

The backyard was fun. It had a wooden walkway coming out from each bedroom door. Zig and Gus loved playing out there by the woods.

If you pushed through the backyard forest for a while (there was a bit of a trail, enough to seem like it might lead to something) you came out into a big network of trails. Malachi ran miles and miles as he always does (40 miles a week, always!) and explored even farther afield, but even Daisy and I got out for a little morning walk in the rain and mist. It was so pretty! Kind of like the Maine forests…but not really! I am continually amazed how every forest is different!

There were SO many kinds of mushrooms (and other fungi, I suppose…I don't know that much about fungi, but surely they can't all be called mushrooms?). We loved seeing so many kinds!

A cute little picnic area

More mushrooms

And moss, so much moss!

I love moss, especially thick velvety moss like this!

This is some kind of fungus too, I think. It looked just like pretty yellow flower petals scattered along the trail. I was looking everywhere for where the petals were coming from, until I figured out they weren't actually flowers at all!

And look at these pink flower-shaped mushrooms! You can see the yellow stuff growing near them.

Colorful leaves, with some red mushrooms hiding among them

I've always wanted to see red mushrooms with white dots like these, like you always see in books about fairies!

We definitely felt like we could be going into fairyland…

Back at the house, the fog started clearing and we saw the yard with a little sun for the first time!

A little gnome was playing out on the stumps

When Daisy and I went off to get some bread for breakfast, we even saw some blue sky!

But as we drove off the hill, we went into clouds again, and by the time we got home…

…the house was half-hidden in fog again!

It got so thick sometimes!

And when we opened the door, we could even see the fog coming into the house!

It looked ghostly against the black walls.

Did I say we went out for bread? I meant pie, of course. Pear-caramel pie.

Junie spotted a bunch of frogs in the windowsill, and we all gathered around to see. (Or toads. Maybe they were toads? I don't know if I can tell the difference.)

They were so cute!

What a fun place to visit! I'll tell about the whale-watching in a different post.