Day 14. Where are we going to stay???

Danville to (5km outside of) Lyster, Quebec. Mariette and Irenee’s place.

8/31/23. 60 mi. AIS: 6:03. 9.9mph. Elev. 843

So much happened today. Where to start?! Our bed n breakfast had a great continental breakfast for us at 7am. On the road early… needed to get 60 miles. Compared to yesterday it was a beautiful day. Sunny but a chill in the air. It was 51* when we started. Had to put on headband and leggings and my two jacket system. Autumn was in the air!

Todays trail was 100% on Route vert 1 and it was another linnear parc (train bed) like P’tit Train du Nord. That means it was flat and easy riding all day. We stopped for a snack break in Warwick. They had a gare museum with antique sewing machines. It had the wildest collection of sewing machine art. Machines made into all kinds of interesting objects. Lots of photos of these. So clever!

Back on the trail we road past another small ski area in the distance. You can see the chalet and chair lift. The name caught my eye. Gleason ski glissade. As if that wasn’t enough we found out their is a Wiski Pub in Gleason too. I have cousins whose last name is Gleason!! This one’s for you Jim Gleason😊

While in Warwick we tried to procure a place to stay in Lyster. No luck, the two places in town were “sold out” for the holiday weekend. We decided we would probably have to “stealth camp” somewhere around Lyster. Then I remembered to try to contact a Warmshowers host if one was anywhere close to our route. I found and contacted a couple in Lyster with hopes they would see my request today. Kind of very short notice!

We stopped for lunch in Victoriaville where I sent an email ( Warmshowers method). Leaving Victoriaville turned out to be a mess. We got seriously off route and had to try to find our way back. Too many nice city bike paths to follow and we missed the Route Vert 1 sign. I think we saw the perimeter of the entire 50,000 person town. However, we did spot another good fence. And met a man that really really was determined to get us back on track. We had stopped to check our phone maps when he came outside. Uh oh… our bad French and his very little English. Then he went in the house, we were still trying to figure it out and he comes out with the ripped off cardboard map of the way back to the train route! Ok we’re off to where we started… complete backtrack eventually. But it gets better, he jumps in his car and drives down to the busy street to make sure we’re going the right way. So damn nice… he was a very kind Quebecian.

Back on the trail… about 1.5 hr delay…. We decided we were going to eat early dinner in Plessisville then head toward Lyster and find a discreet place to camp along the trail. We’d seen a few rest stops that would work along the way and figured we’d find a decent spot. At dinner we heard from our Warmshowers hosts that we could camp in their yard outside of Lyster. Yeah!! We still had 15 km to go but we set off. Arrived at 7:15pm. Our lights were running out of batteries and daylight was fading. Just in time we arrived. They let us camp in their gazebo next to the tennis court. Perfecto! We settled in while they played tennis with their son and DIL. We will see them early in the morning. Our hosts are Mariette and Irenee. They are tennis players, pickleball players and cyclists.

Tomorrow is Friday, we head into the thick of a city again Quebec City! I have family history there. We have a family to stay with. That will be another story. We will have lots of traffic.. start of a big holiday weekend! See ya later🥰