I've been trying not to panic over enjoying Fall here (or rather, over not enjoying Fall enough while it lasts) because it's fine, we are enjoying it, it will last however long it lasts and I'm trying to embrace the idea of winter as its own beautiful season too. Do you feel reassured? :)
However, considering how much I love Fall* in Utah, I knew I would love it here too and that's enough to have galvanized me into getting the family out-and-about even more than I would normally want to. Or, as Malachi described it in his letter home—"This week we picnicked like as we might have been teddy bears or something. We embarked into the cool fall weather to eat outside at least 3 times in 6 days." Yes. This is true. I just don't want to live a life of Quebec-Fall-regret!
*Have we discussed how the seasons really ought be capitalized, and yet for some unsatisfying reason [because they are "general nouns," not proper nouns, in fact] they aren't? I chafe at that rule. I rebel against it. Unless it suits my purposes not to.
We drove UP (in cardinal direction) or DOWN (in river-current direction) (I have discovered that many of the children are very confused about this and frequently think we visiting vastly different locations, geographically speaking, than we really are) to another little island, L'Isle aux Coudres. I won't bore you with the details* about why this island is "isle" while the closer island is "île", but suffice it to say that this island is smaller and farther away than our beloved L'île d'Orléans, and there is no bridge, so you have to ride a ferry to it. It's about two hours northeast of Quebec City.
*Much like how when a politician starts a sentence with "Let me be perfectly honest with you" you know he or she is about to start lying—when you read this phrase here you know I'm about to bore you with some details.
Pink arrow points to L'isle aux Coudres. You can see L'île d'Orléans down there at the bottom.
We stopped for pastries, of course, at our preferred bakery up toward Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré. Somehow the shop man thought I said "croissants" when I said "torsades," causing great disappointment in the ranks when I returned to the car with said pastries, but never mind, the construction worker outside (there was road construction right at the key point and I had to take my life in my hands walking in and out through a friendly crew of backhoe operators doing their best to make it impossible) saw our Utah license plates, welcomed me effusively to Quebec, sent me off to a nearby farm stand to pick up some apples, and then offered to carry my bags back to the car. Very kind people in these parts. The bakery man, to his credit (and the croissant/torsade mistake was no doubt my accent's fault anyway), remembered me from last time and asked if, in addition to the cheese bread I was ordering, I wanted a cheese-and-bacon bread—pour ton mari (for my husband)! Because real men want bacon in their bread, as we all know!
One great thing about this little day trip was the chance to see some of the same scenery we'd traversed in thick fog a few weeks ago. Aha, so those really were mountains we were driving through! And they had beautiful views!
This was the beginning of October, and even from far away you could see the colors starting to wash over the mountains. I love the variegated colors in the forests here—I'm used to aspen forests in Utah, which are (mostly) unbroken yellow (with the occasional surprising orange, of course).
I don't know why I keep trying to relate Quebec Fall to Utah Fall, by the way. I know it's not a competition! It's just I've always loved our mountain leaves so much and I feel protective of them, and I don't want to just say, willy-nilly, that Quebec is "better"—though I'm sure most people would say there is objectively no comparison; Utah is a desert after all and the East Coast is famous for Fall leaves. But while defending my dear Utah leaves I also want to do justice to the amazement I feel at this Eastern Autumn!
(Here's a thought experiment. What if you found words to describe the full spectrum of beauty, 1-10, but then learned there was actually beauty up to 100? What words would you use then? "Very very very very very very pretty?" Is that how it will be when we get to the Spirit World? And if so, should we be very bland and moderate in our descriptions of even the most beautiful things now, just to leave ourselves some room for when the scale blows up later? No, I think not. We will probably have better words later as well!)
Anyway, I love both places, but I'm just trying to find words for the differences. I don’t think when I’m up in one of the Utah canyons looking at the colors, or walking under the trees at Maple Campground, that I could say the leaves in Quebec are any more beautiful and amazing. But here in Quebec there are just so many more trees. So I feel that amazement all the time, just walking into a park or driving to the store. And when we go into the forest or on a hike, the colors just stretch on and on with different trees and bushes and underbrush in different configurations as far as you can see, and you could never possibly see and appreciate all there is to look at. It's breathtaking.
I loved this view. The colored foreground leaves. The colored background leaves. And the river down there in the distance.
So many different colors!
The camera couldn't even capture the colors on the distant hills. In real life you can tell even from far away that they are bright and vibrant!
Village church
And finally, we drove down the hill to the ferry at St-Joseph-de-la-Rive, across from the island. You can see Isle aux Coudres out there in the water.
(I suppose, like me, you are wondering what "coudres" means? It's a kind of hazel tree that's common there, apparently.)
The ferry was fun. We drove right out onto it without waiting, and it immediately pulled out onto the water. The phone always says warningly "Caution, Ferry!" when we get close to one, which I've thought was so funny, but this time I guess I see how we really could almost have gotten on it it by accident! This one is a free ferry, just a short 20 minute ride.
The island is very small—much smaller than l'île d'Orléans, which is also small. It only took us an hour or so to drive around the circumference. We stopped at a few shops selling apples and syrups and such.
Our best stop was at a tiny little bakery we had read about which sold bread and meat pies. We bought several of these little turnovers, which had a special name…I wish I could remember it. Ah! (A little searching brought it back.) Pâtés croches. I seem to remember the lady making a gesture when she was telling me this that made me think it meant "bear claw pie" or something, but the translation seems to be "crooked pies." Anyway, they are traditional to the area and they were SO GOOD. They were kind of like the tourtière we made for our back-to-school dinner (that's a traditional Quebecois meat pie), but they had their own special taste. Not quite like anything else we've had. They were SO tender, SO moist, and SO warm and flaky, we were all in love with them. After we had lunch, we immediately went back inside and bought several more, plus a large salmon pie to bring home for dinner. YUM. Daisy saw this picture just now and said, "Ooh. Can we go back there for another lunch sometime?"
I don't know if we will end up doing so…it's kind of far away…and that fills me with sadness.
There was a tiny little picnic area and playground to eat at.
Goldie and Daisy tucking in to their pâtés croches
Looking back to the mainland
It was cool driving around the island. It FELT like an island because you could always see the water and were right down by it. There are some houses. A church. A tiny school. I wonder so much what it would be like to live here!
I love these little roadside chapels that you see in Quebec. There are some on l'île d'Orléans too. They are so tiny, just big enough for a couple people to fit inside.
Here is the inside. This must be a chapel to Mary. There was a little plaque saying the sailors used to come here before going out to sea.
A glimpse of a little lighthouse, as Sam rolled up his window
And here we are waiting for the ferry to dock so we could ride back to the mainland!
It has a nice little indoor seating area, which I guess is necessary for wintertime!
We stopped for hot chocolate at the place we found last time in La Malbaie. Ky got the blueberry ice cream he so loved. Junie wasn't with us for this little trip, I should (sadly) mention. She decided to stay home and read, and I hope she had a good time, because we missed her!
We had a lovely drive back as the sun started to set. Can you see Quebec City, way down there jutting out into the river?
I was curious what I'd be able to see when I zoomed into this picture.
Look! There is "our" church, Saint-Jean-Baptiste! Our van would be there! If we weren't driving it right now, of course.
And here is a pretty view of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré as we went by it (this is a huge basilica a half hour north of the city. We visited here another day, but we see it often from afar and love it.)
We always search for our favorite places as we drive back home. Even Clementine can find them. "I see the Chateâu," she always yells. In this picture the Chateau is under the ★, the Price Building under the *, and St-Jean-Baptiste under the arrow.
Here's a closer look. And you can make out the other church steeple, St-Matthew, here too. There were only a few buildings gleaming gold in the whole city here. And look at this!
Do you see that tiny glint of gold between the two church steeples—the only thing catching the light in that whole area?
It's our house! Well…our neighbor's house really. But you can see our house next to it. Can you believe it? From all that distance away!
Here we are coming up the 440 toward home. The little boys always watch cars on this autoroute (police cars and ambulances especially) from our balcony, and when we're the ones on the autoroute we always see if we can spot our house! We have gotten quite good at it.
Find the two churches. From this angle you can see our two chimneys there closer to St-Matthew. (In the circle).
Here you can only see St-Matthew's steeple. The arrow on the left points to "Daisy's tree," the tree next to St-Matthew which she sees out her window every morning. The arrow on the right is our house.
And here it is again. Almost home now.
You can see our two chimneys and the balcony stairs going down. I stand here at least once every morning and every night, looking down at the city. I don't know why it's so fun to see it from afar, but it just is!
And one more blurry, dusky picture of the leaves, just as I saw them from the car window—Fall just gets lovelier and lovelier here!
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