Hampden, ME to Matane, Quebec - July 21 & 22

Our grand summer of 2016 summer adventure trip to Quebec, Labrador and Newfoundland begins.

We packed up our new truck and headed to the Fish's house in greater downtown Edinburg, ME.  Lynn fixed us a yummy dinner, we pondered how we were going to fit everything into the back of our truck, watched the Red Sox and called it a night.

This morning we were up and ready for the arrival of the Fowler's and Smith's.  By the time they arrived at 7:00ish the truck was packed and all that didn't fit were two folding chairs.  With plenty of room in the Smith's 15 passenger van the chairs found a traveling home.

We took off for breakfast at the 95 Diner in Howland.  They have the best tasting and best priced breakfast you could hope for.  Today our waitress was especially entertaining and we really enjoyed our send off meal.

We traveled up 95 to Houlton and crossed into New Brunswick, Canada there.  We proceeded north on the Rt. 2 the trans Canada highway.  We rode through some beautiful farm country. 

We kept an eye out for moose!  None sighted.

 The clouds threatened but it did not rain on our parade. 

There were fields of a couple of different types of grain.

This was our grand view from our roadside picnic lunch stop.

There is continued attention to moose watching.  None sighted!

As we rode through the mountains of New Brunswick we traveled beside a couple of different shallow rivers of various widths.

 In due time we arrived in the Gaspe area of Quebec.  Keep in mind that our French is very limited...

Now we need to keep a lookout for deer too!

 I think the car in behind the sign may have kissed a moose or deer at some point in the past.

And then there is the universal watch out for falling rocks sign.

In this area it was clear that something was "bugging" a lot of these evergreen trees.  What a fire hazard this will create.

We drove by a couple of huge wood yards.  There were thousands of maybe 2 x 4's and in another place lots and lots of lumber.

I didn't get any pictures of the various firewood piles.  We found it interesting that they looked to be mostly composed of white birch.

We stopped at a local welcome center in a small village along our route.  There was a splendid array of large photographs on the hill above the parking lot and this amazing salmon statue.

This area of Quebec clearly welcomes snowmobilers and 4 wheelers.  There were many signs indicating that they had use of the side of the road.

Yes, still no live moose sightings.

Although we are not traveling on our motorcycles on this trip we welcome this informative sign.  We traveled on well maintained roads today until we came to this section that was a little rough.  Not so much of an issue in the truck but had we been on the motorcycles we would have really appreciated these signs.

By 4:30 we had traveled 411 miles and arrived in Matane.  Our hotel is very close to the ferry. We will hop on it tomorrow for our 8 a.m. crossing of the St. Lawrence Seaway.