Notre Dame

Day 72. Montreal to Trois Rivieres. 91 mi. 4,560 Mi TTD. 1,639 ft elevation. Weather warm with helpful wind

Sorry, but I continue to be stunned by the lack of traffic at what would be considered Rush Hour in the States. This is a main thoroughfare in downtown Montreal at about 7:15 this morning. I was grateful for the lack of traffic, but there was a great bike lane to get me out of town and then on to a trail heading further out of town.

It’s not a very clear picture, but that is a tent. If I came into Montreal on the high income side of town, I definitely left Montreal on the no income side of town. There were a lot of homeless camps, but what I noted was a distinct cleanliness other than a few. I even saw one or two tents with garden plots, and many of the tents had garbage cans. It appears homelessness is a little different in operation here than in Pueblo, where there’s typically garbage strewn everywhere.

This side of town was also quite industrial. The Canadians talk a good green game and put windmills up all over the place, but in the end, they have a bunch of refineries and oil storage facilities all along the St. Lawrence:-).

Admittedly, they’ve done a fantastic job of making bicycle riding and walking a pleasant experience. I continue to enjoy excellent paths, fairly good shoulders when I was on the road, and good signage. I did run into one small problem when an overpass on a back road was being worked on I couldn’t see a way around it. I decided I had to take the freeway down to the next exit which was only a mile or so and then cut back to the back road. Apparently, no one in Quebec has ever seen a bicycle on the freeway. I was completely safe with a 10 ft wide shoulder but either people were extremely friendly honking at me or they were trying to tell me something. It turns out, it’s actually illegal to ride on the freeway in Quebec.

The French language continues to determine from entering some establishments. I haven’t eaten for 3 days. I’m just kidding. Almost all of the store clerks have been very pleasant about speaking English. It still is shocking to me that they remain French speaking. It would be like Nebraska and Kansas having their native language be Dutch. Apparently, my app for navigation, ride with gps, doesn’t know french. The pronunciation of roads I’m to turn on is as baffling listening to them as trying to read them. This is especially true since the vast majority of everything and every road is named Notre Dame. I believe that I was on a different Notre Dame, something or other street in every town I passed through today. I don’t know who he was, but apparently, the French think Notre Dame is pretty important, LOL.

Tomorrow, it’s onward towards Quebec City. I won’t quite make it there but will pass through it on monday.