We woke to find terrible weather.  Fog, rain, wind, chilly temperatures—it was everything I’d expected from the weather forecast but was hoping wouldn’t happen.

Back at home in Vermont we weren’t getting any sympathy.  They’d been having rain for days, and what we were getting was just the fringe of a much larger storm.  But on the other hand, the folks back at home weren’t facing a motorcycle ride around the tip of a peninsula and the edge of the North Atlantic.

It was also a shame to leave the comfy Motel Adams.  It had free wifi, free breakfast, free “buy one get one free” drink coupons (which we used the previous night in the bar) and nice rooms.  But after breakfast we suited up in full gear (rainsuits again) for an attempt at touring Forillon National Park.  The road follows the coast north and around in a loop back to Gaspé, about 70 miles or so in total, and on a nice day I’m sure it’s a great ride.

It wasn’t a nice day.

Probably the less said about that ride, the better.  We survived, and I think we saw a lighthouse or something through our fogged visors, but overall the best part was coming back to Gaspé, opening up the motel room, and drying off.  I had made a serious mistake in forgetting to put on my waterproof overboots for the first five miles of the ride, and by the time I felt the moisture wicking into my socks it was too late.  So even with the overboots on I had soaking wet feet.

Since it was time for a conference, we headed to the Tim Horton’s (next door, of course) and in there we decided to continue forward to Perce.  There was really nothing else to be done about it.  The weather was going to last at least another day.

By the way, a blog comment came in yesterday asking about how we were doing with French.  I mentioned a couple of times in earlier entries that our combined French was pathetic.  However, I kept trying.  In the Tim Horton’s I asked one of the counter staff (using my college-trained Parisian accent) for “sucre s’il vous plaît” and I got the same response that I got every time I spoke French in Quebec: a blank look.  So I said in my best Amerricun accent “SUGAR” and she said to me, “Oh, sucre.”  I swear her pronunciation sounded exactly like mine, at least to my ears.

This happened so often that I was tempted to give up on French entirely, but I didn’t, and toward the end of our time in French-speaking Canada, I actually managed to have a pidgin-French conversation with a woman at a campground who spoke no English.  This, to me, was a major success.

Back to the ride:  it sucked.  Gusty winds, constant rain, very chilly.  Even with rainsuits, condensation and small drips eventually dampen everything.  The visibility was poor, the gusts of wind nearly blew me off the road at one point, and to top it off, the last down grade to Perce was 17% with curves and broken pavement, in fog.  In short, it was terrifying.  I was glad to get into Perce after a couple of hours of riding, and find a motel.  When I stomped into the motel office with my dripping suit, matted hair, and clunky (leaking) overboots, I got a pitying look from the desk clerk.

After hanging everything to dry and turning up the heat in the room, we went out for a walk to find dinner.  We got seafood in honor of being at the “turnaround point” of our Gaspé tour.  After traveling northeast for so long, we will now begin to head back southwest.  At this point there was not much between us and Europe except the fierce grey ocean, which was covered in stormy waves cresting on the rocks offshore.  We walked to the small town dock in the light rain, and saw a seal looking back at us—our second large mammal sighting of the trip.  Perce Rock, the iconic attraction of this town, was magnificent but forbidding when it was shrouded in fog.

We came back to our room to find it like a sauna.  All the wet clothes had released their moisture into the room, to the point that it frosted my glasses with fog.  We had to leave the door open for an hour to vent out all the humidity.

We would all rather be camping tonight, but there’s little chance of that for a while. The weather report suggested a slight chance of improvement tomorrow, but as long as there is rain we are going to stick with motels so we can dry out our stuff at the end of the day.

Steve was “floor man” tonight.  Eric laid down on his bed to do something with his phone and fell asleep fully dressed at 8:00 pm. I guess all this rainy riding took it out of us today.  But hopefully this is the low point, and tomorrow the weather will be better.