It was a lovely place--beautiful, serene, and French--and we had a wonderful, peaceful time, eating under the sky and roasting potato on the fire.

But on the way there, almost everything that could go wrong, did: traffic; road work; confusion and separation in Ottawa and the loss of 40 min trying to find each other; a bathroom emergency; complete lack of visibility due to heavy, heavy rain; crazy locals driving at full speed despite the literal barrage of water; evening; thick cloud cover; a road closure--and the subsequent confusion of our GPS.

Here, it would be best to recount in detail and to explain that we were trying to find our way in rural Quebec, at dusk, with zero cell reception. While the GPS shouted at us to turn around, we came across two young ladies walking along a dirt path. In a surreal personification of Canada, one of the ladies spoke perfect English, one spoke perfect French, both were extremely polite, but neither was helpful. The first appeared to be an exchange student, and the second may or may not have been a local. I was directed, in both languages, to a nearby farm, where we came across two men using a small tractor. I hopped out of the car:

- excusez moi, vous parlez anglais?
- non [smiles, hesitation, and knowing glances]  

And, in my pièce de résistance, a sudden surge of high school French that I can only attribute to extreme desperation:
   
- nous sommes perdus!
- ah, aha

... After that, I resorted to single words:

- adresse [pointing], cellulaire [head shaking], téléphone? [more pointing--inside]

... And from them, something like:

- oui, pas de ... tower; allez [pointing down the road]; tournez à gauche ... signe stop
 
Then suddenly, as if sent by god, Charles appeared--Charles who knew English and who knew exactly what to do. The GPS found his route and we thought we were safe. We even found our chemin. But this road, being newly-developed, being rural, and being basically a dirt path, was unlit, un-mapped, and quite terrifying in the dark. We were twice confused by our electronic friend: first, we were told that we had reached our destination about 2km before we had actually reached it; second, we were told that we were 300m away and then, suddenly, 1km. We physically popped out of the car to shine a flashlight on every cottage until we found our own.

I've learned from this experience that I'm a bit of a tyrant when it comes to extended road trips: no music until we're on a highway for at least 40km; no leaving later than 7:30am; no more than two stops for gas/washroom/food; no long stops; no delays. I have become a slightly toned-down version of my father--and I'm not ashamed.

Here are a few pictures of the surroundings and of our two excursions:

Cottage

Quebec City

Ottawa