Day 19. Pepe Le Pew makes an unwelcome visit!

Montmagny to Riviere Ouelle, Quebec

9/5/23. 48 mi. AIS: 4:40. 10.3 mph. Elev 846 ft

Holy moly… last night while sleeping at camp was an exciting one! Here’s how it went down. I’m writing my blog and struggling with uploading the blog… so I get out the password for the internet from the campground thinking it will help ( it doesn’t). It’s on a piece of paper in my handlebar bag outside my tent. Without thinking, I clearly did not properly close my bag. A few hours into the night I hear an animal rustling outside my side of the tent. My fly is half open because it’s warm outside. I shoo the critter off! It’s a SKUNK!! He’s gotten into my bag where I had some trail mix in a ziplock bag. I grabbed the bag and put it in the tent. (Here’s where all you experienced campers say…no,no,no!) Back to sleep I go. Several hours later…maybe 4am…I hear that damn skunk back and he’s definitely snacking on something in a plastic bag! I try to shoo him off again by banging on the inside of the fly and tossing a couple of my shoes at him. But…I don’t want to piss him off.. right??!! Look like there were 2 skunks because I see one of them scamper away… but Mr Pepe is not budging. After some discussion and fear of getting sprayed, my hero, Jim exits his side of the tent. He grabs the rock he used to pound the tent stakes and fires it at Pepe! (The rock was about the size of a 16” Chicago softball, says Jim) Bam! One shot and that’s it for Pepe Le Pew!! Nailed him! He ate his last trail mix! But , you know what happens when skunks die…. They stink…really, really stink! He did not get a chance to fire at us ( thank god) but he stunk up the camp. It was pretty hard to get back to sleep with him about 5’ away from the tent. By the way, I did get up and take the bag of trail mix to the garbage.
When we got up in the morning, adding to my horror, was a big old hole chewed into the side of my tent where determined little Pepe grabbed the ziploc bag of trail mix from the foot of my tent! Fortunately, we are prepared with “tenacious tape” to fix holes and made the necessary repairs. The campground crew got the word about a dead skunk and came around and shoveled Pepe up and took the deadly rock too!

We did chuckle quite a bit in the tent after Pepe’s demise and I am chuckling as I write this too! What is my solution for our camp food going forward you wonder? It’s bagged up and closed up inside my pannier…in the tent. Anyone have a better idea???

Happy to leave skunkville this morning. It was cooler than the day before but comfortably cool. There’s a morning fog along the river that takes awhile to burn off.

Todays ride was similar to yesterday but we didn’t have that splendid tailwind. We were on the same highway most of the day and through the nice little towns. The houses today were cape cod style and then a lot of stone houses. Every once in a while you’d see a modern home but to me they looked very out of place. I did have one favorite home today.

We took a stop at a roadside fruit and vegetable vendor. Just needed a fresh apple for oatmeal, tomato for lunch sandwiches and the most delicious little fresh strawberries for lunch.

We moved right along today to another campsite near the River. The campground now has its post holiday/ post summer look. Quiet and nearly empty. This is what we’ll have the rest of the trip.

The things I see…

I’ve got some problems to resolve with my new process. The photos are not the right size… not happy about that. In the meantime, hang in there with me😊