I ended up hanging around Gatineau (Buckingham) into the morning, leaving me to skip the skatepark today and head directly to Quebec City.

While there are surprisingly cheap hotels in Quebec City, I kept even more money in my pocket by staying in a dorm room at the Hostel Maeva for $32. Located right in the heart of things in a seemingly historic building surrounded by other historic buildings, this would certainly work.

Walking into the front lobby, I handed over my ID and the proprietor exclaimed, "Newfoundland! Finally! I've never had a Newfoundlander before and now you're here!"

He was so damn happy I was there that I didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise.

Taking a brief look at my dorm room, I then hit the streets because I needed to get over to State Canac for tonight's baseball game.

Baseball in Quebec City?!

That's right! Thankfully Quebec had a little surge in baseball popularity in the 1930s, resulting in ballparks being built like this one in Quebec City and another amazing one in Trois-Rivières. At the same time, baseball hasn't become so popular in Quebec that these stadiums need to be torn down to build new mall-like parks like every minor league team from Worcester to El Paso.

In 1937, Maurice Duplessis, then Premier of Quebec, was invited to throw out the first pitch in Trois-Rivières and found himself appalled with the state of their stadium. Duplessis decided to commit a bunch of taxpayer money to improving and constructing new sporting stadiums throughout the province of Quebec, which would also help with the high unemployment numbers of the time.

One of the approved projects was the new Municipal Stadium in Quebec City, which would open on May 14, 1939 with a crowd of over 5000 people watching Quebec City defeat the visiting Trois-Rivières team, 6-5.

By 1941, the Quebec City Athletes team would join the Can-Am League and become affiliated with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Pausing for the war, the Quebec City team then became the Alouettes afterwards and affiliated with the Cubs in '46, then the New York baseball Giants in 1948.

A different businessman bought the Quebec City team in the 1950s and renamed them the Braves. This new businessman, Ulysse Ste-Marie, wanted to elevate his Braves and moved them from the Can-Am League to the Provincial League. They became affiliated with the Boston Braves and this affiliation continued after the team moved from Braves Field in Boston to Milwaukee's County Stadium.

The entire Milwaukee Braves team would travel to Quebec City for an exhibition in 1963 and again in 1965. It was in 1965 that Hank Aaron was on the team and of course, Hammerin' Hank was the only player in the game to hit a home run here in Quebec City.

The Braves would become the Indians in 1957 and play in the Mauricie League, before rejoining the Provincial League until 1970. The Expos joined Major League Baseball in 1969 and this spelled good times for Quebec City with the introduction of an AA team. Gary Carter, Steve Rogers and Andre Dawson all played in Quebec City on their way to the majors.

Unfortunately Montreal would move their AA team to Memphis in 1978 and the stadium in Quebec City was then only used for junior baseball. The park would decay to the point that city officials wanted it demolished in the 1990s. Thankfully the Comité de Relance, a group of citizens who saw the value in the old park, fought to keep it standing. Performing simple beautification tasks capable of volunteers and a few city workers, a Baseball America official who wasn't previously impressed with the decaying park, came back and changed his mind in regards to Quebec City's Municipal Stadium.

On June 4, 1999, the Quebec City Capitales would return and reopen the ballpark. Since that time, Quebec City has committed itself to Stade Canac and spent money on the jewel that they know now they have.

To the best of my knowledge, I can only remember attending minor league games in three different stadiums. With two of these being small collegiate parks & the other being Toledo's modern Fifth Third Field, I'd never been to one of these classic stadiums with the overhang and the pillars like every ballpark you see in old black & white photos.

And when you add in some old wooden benches? I found myself lounging out and loving where I found myself.

Stade Canac's poutine was also very much on point. I just assumed that QMJHL arenas did the most magnificent event poutines, but I guess Quebec ballparks also know what they're doing because there's only a few QMJHL poutines I'd put above this one.

Clearly I now have to sample the poutine at the Trois-Rivières Stade Quillorama and Thetford Mines' Stade des Caisses Desjardins. That's travelling though - it shows you new experiences and adds things to the to-do list, lol.

The one thing that surprised me throughout the game was the atmosphere. My section was littered with solo, middle-aged men who quietly watched the game and only let out the odd exclamation. This game being in the province of Quebec, and knowing the crowds of places like Drummondville and Chicoutimi during hockey games, I have to say that I was expecting a bit more.

I eventually found it when I went to grab one last beer and decided to sit over on the other side of the stadium. As it turns out, all of the boisterous fans were over by the beer cart! Incroyable!

The rest of the game was a laugh as fans yelled and heckled various plays. It was much more of what I was looking for in terms of atmosphere.

Waking up at the hostel, I proceeded to anger the owner and ruin the reputation of Newfoundlanders at the Auberge Maeva.

Not noticing the owner was washing dishes, I grabbed the soap and sprayed the one glass I had used, to which he ran over and snatched the glass out of my hand, exclaiming that he was already doing the dishes. "Newfoundland!" he yelled in his French accent with upturned clenched hands, apparently really upset that I used a quarter-sized splotch of Sunlight, haha.

Slipping out of the dining hall and the hostel, it was back to the Parc Victoria, which may be my favourite municipal park in the world as it is home to not only the Stade Canac, but also Quebec City's awe-inspiring skatepark. The two features are actually so close that I thought skaters might heckle me last night as I was taking exterior photos of Stade Canac.

Anyway, this morning I returned to the skatepark, getting there before anyone else and boy did the park not disappoint. This skatepark would be up there with my favourite parks like Fargo, Boise & Brampton. Highly recommended.

Heading east in the direction of Rimouski and the Gaspé Peninsula after leaving Quebec City, I knew that the upcoming area was going to drop off quick in terms of civilization. If I wanted anything besides a poutine or a burger from a chip stand, my last opportunities were passing by as I curved past the suburbs of Levis, south of Quebec City.

So I picked some random exit that looked like it had the normal collection of Quebec chain restaurants and stores...and lo and behold, it had a rare Le Bell de Taco! (and a lowly, Poulet et Frites Kentucky.)

Sadly, as I was going back to write this update, I couldn't find this Taco Bell anymore and eventually found an article about 5 PFK's (KFC's) closing around Quebec City, with this Taco Bell, Quebec City's only Taco Bell, being caught up in the collateral damage.

And now there's no Taco Bell between Moncton and Montreal. Canada gets lamer and lamer :(

I'd driven the Trans-Canada Highway from Levis to Riviere-du-Loup before, so I was especially excited for the country afterwards, as I headed out more and more towards the Gaspé Peninsula.

In the end, I wasn't all that moved by the countryside as I rushed towards Matane before nightfall. The scene above in Saint-Fabien was nice and I liked how many campgrounds I was seeing, but there was also a lot of plain country and few settlements.

It probably comes as no surprise that I was rushing to get to Matane before nightfall so I could photograph their lighthouse in the sweet, golden light coming off the St. Lawrence.

Quebec lighthouse #11!

It's a funny thing that Quebec has so much coastline with the extensive St. Lawrence Seaway, but many of their lighthouses have been demolished, replaced by modern beacons, or are located on offshore islands. You would think I'd have many more lights in this province than I do, but they're also far away from the QMJHL towns like Victoriaville where I often find myself.

Matane's current lighthouse was built in 1907 to replace the previous wooden tower. Made of cast iron, it served until the 1950s, when it was transferred to the Town of Matane and turned into the tourist bureau.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize you can go up into the lantern room for only $4. Dang!

At least there's a year-long video of the view to hold me over until the next time I'm in Matane.

I was able to find some craft beer from Amos Quebec easy enough at Matane's local SAQ in their shopping mall, but finding a motel was proving troublesome. There were a lot of those classed up, closer to hotel accommodations that you find in Quebec, and I was struggling to find the local roadside motel.

Eventually going back to Motel La Marina, amazingly the cheapest room available in town was in a motel renovated into a maritime theme with rooms at $201/night. Crisse de tabernak!

I'd later find Matane's abandoned budget motel in Google StreetView, but this Motel Le Beach was closed down because someone stayed there and called firefighters due to unsafe conditions, who then called the Régie du bâtiment du Quebec (provincial building inspectors), who shut the building down unless $500,000 in repairs were conducted.

And because of that Karen, you now have to pay $201 to stay in a room with faux anchors made out of rope and naval flag pillows.

I do have to say the Motel La Marina was clean, fine and had a nice view out over the St. Lawrence. I could see people unfamiliar with the Maritimes and the Atlantic Ocean finding this to be a good spot.

Still though, I'm not the person who is in the market for such a pricey motel room.

Leaving with a sour taste in my mouth, my mood improved as I cut away from the arterial highway where the motel was, and got away from the chain restaurants and sprawling parking lots.

Into town, it was the Quebec I love of funky houses, corner bars and old stone churches. Working my way towards downtown, they were tearing up the road around the church, so I skipped around the sawhorses and walked on the gravel bed about 4 feet below the road surface.

Soon coming to the pub La Fabrique, it was that part of Quebec I'm always caught off guard by, where the local popular pub or restaurant is always filled with people. I was the type of person who pays $201 for a motel room though, so I can walk in anywhere. I grabbed a seat by the bar and worked through my rough French to order a beer.

My confidence didn't last for long, as I settled into drinking my beer quickly. About halfway through, the man next to me said something in French and then went into decent English to introduce himself as Ben. He was another person who thought I made a wrong turn and accidentally ended up in Matane, but feeling that we were on the same level in terms of adventures and road trips, he asked if I was sleeping in my car - it was suddenly disappointing to say that I didn't stick to my resolve and ended up getting a motel because I wanted to park my car and explore this town.

Ben said I could have stayed on his property, and then his friend who had showed up in the meantime, pulled out his phone and showed me gorgeous pictures of this property right along the seaway. God damnit. The guy then kept scrolling in the camera to 5-6 pictures of some naked woman on all fours, which was a bit funny and strange because his son was there and this was his father's new girlfriend. The teenager just shook his head and looked away. Ohhh, embarassing family members, lol.

So after only wanting to go out for one beer and quickly get to bed, we ended up having a handful, although it was still a Thursday and things didn't go too late. Ben had to leave earlier than the rest & buddy with the camera said I should stay and not head up the road to Gaspé, but Ben was sort of the one facilitating things in terms of translation and conversation. I foresaw an awkward silence coming and got out of there.

The other interesting thing was how both Ben & his friend talked about wanting to visit Newfoundland and how they'd take the intense road from Baie-Comeau to get there. It's with this talk of coming to Newfoundland that I told Ben I should add him on Facebook or Instagram, to which he replied that he didn't have either. I couldn't help but wonder if he simply didn't want some weirdo he met at Le Fabrique having him on social media.

So I wandered back through the night thinking about that, past the faux Matane Lighthouse lantern, then the real Matane Lighthouse, and then up to my room at the Motel La Marina. For some reason, I stayed up watching RDS (French sports network), which would leave me feeling groggy come morning.

I was going to skip Matane's skatepark, but it was also going to be a few hours before I got to another significant town. Arriving and finding the front gate locked, I threw a little tantrum towards skateparks that they lock up and how I couldn't ride alone this morning.

That is, until I walked around the side to take a picture and realized that the fence was just for the concession stand, haha.

God I wish I lived where towns of 9000 people built parks like this. Corner Brook could quintuple its population and they'd still only add that weird, wavy flat bar on the right (if that).

Alas I complain instead of learning French and moving to Matane.

Continuing along...

It was a hard decision whether to visit the Gaspé Peninsula or skip it on this trip back. It feels like a place that requires more than 1.5 days, but at the same time, I always have that outlook of just seeing places with whatever time you have now, because who knows when you'll be back.

Except I went against that rule today, because of how much I'm looking forward to one day committing the proper time to see the Gaspé So instead I drove south over the interior mountains from Matane, excited to see yet even more new country - except that it was mostly hills and rivers where there'd be great camping and hiking, but not much in terms of drive-by scenery.

The above picture comes from some random farm road, which I noticed I could take for 5km instead of the highway near Amqui.

Crossing the J.C. Van Horne Bridge from Quebec over the Restigouche River and into New Brunswick, I was liking the look of gritty Campbellton from its well-used curling club, to its brick-laden main street, to its fine lighthouse backed by said bridge.

I even liked the arena in the parking lot across from the lighthouse and was surprised to learn it was from only 1992.

Campbellton's Range Rear Lighthouse used to be one of the most unique lights in Canada as it was home to a hostel. Up until 2017 and for about 30 years, travelers who came through this area could sleep in the attached structure. Unfortunately the hostel was running at a deficit of $12 500 annually, which the city of Campbellton decided wasn't acceptable and closed the facility.

I know people dump on the rougher New Brunswick towns, but that sounds like it was a worthwhile, cross-Canada road trip experience to me.

About a half hour up the road I came to the town of Dalhousie.

Dalhousie used to be the significant town in Northern New Brunswick, but with steep cliffs buffering the village from the interior, it was avoided by the railway and Campbellton grew instead. That was the case until 1925, when Dalhousie was chosen as the site for constructing a sprawling paper mill.

Built in 1929, the newsprint mill was amongst the largest in the world and put Dalhousie back on the map. It's funny that the same thing they complain about in Corner Brook with how there's no waterfront because of the imposing mill, they would say that about Dalhousie and call it the "waterfront town without a waterfront". Dalhousie isn't as restricted by geography as Corner Brook though, which means Dalhousie's mill covers a lot more ground than the mill in Corner Brook.

Dalhousie today is a rough, pockmarked town on account of the mill closing in 2008. Not only would the mill closure affect the city, but Wikipedia paints a bleak picture by mentioning that a chemical processing plant closed soon after & the plan to keep using the mill's power plant would fail by 2012. The Wikipedia page's grand finale is that the largest employer in Dalhousie is the Dalhousie Nursing Home.

I don't know how to look up New Brunswick employee numbers to confirm or deny this, but the last three censuses have reported Dalhousie's population as falling by 6.4%, 4.5% and 11.0%.

So Dalhousie sounds like a place that might interest me, right? Well by this time, and even this morning back at the Matane Skatepark, I was starting to question what I was up to and why I wasn't rushing to PEI to spend both Friday and Saturday with my friend Christian.

I had made up my mind by the time I reached Dalhousie. I texted Christian and let him know that I'd make it there tonight. No more northern New Brunswick lighthouses, no exploration of down on its luck Dalhousie, and no camping at Kouchibouguac National Park.

So I left Dalhousie's Inch Arran Park, trying to eat up the 4.5 hour drive to Charlottetown in less time through speeding and aggressive passing on the NB-11 Highway that eventually grew in stature after Bathurst. It was getting late in the day, but I figured I could make it in enough time to make something of this Friday in Charlottetown.

Except that when I finally arrived in Charlottetown, Christian was asleep! LOL!

After all of that speeding and skipping abandoned houses and the appealing skateparks of Bathurst and Miramichi, I ended up sitting in Christian's living room watching bike videos by myself in the dark.

At least Christian was well rested & primed to head out of town the next day, which was a gorgeous island Saturday.

His friend Taylor had long talked about the swimming off of Seacow Head and he was also excited that I was in town. The reason for this is because he's always taken an interest in my goal of seeing all the lighthouses, even though I don't actively work very hard within his Prince Edward Island. Still though, if he could help me get to Seacow Head, then he was very pleased that I was seeing another new PEI lighthouse.

Where I have some friends who don't really care too much about my endeavours, I've always appreciated how Taylor seems to genuinely care about such things, even as we'd probably fall into the acquaintance category.

Well, Seacow Head is lighthouse #30 for Prince Edward Island. With 63 lighthouses on PEI, I'm almost halfway there.

I was hoping swimming here would mean a beach or a cove I could cling to the side of, but Seacow Head is a cliff jumping location. Not being the strongest swimmer, I wasn't feeling this as Christian and Taylor both repeatedly jumped into the ocean.

They eventually explained that a calm day like this, and this location on the south shore of PEI, isn't going to produce the rip currents I imagine always picture in the ocean. They were adamant that if I jumped in, it would be just like a lake (and that they were there if I really needed to be saved from some rogue wave and/or current).

And so, my grew-up-on-Lake-St.-Clair-ass jumped into the Atlantic and discovered the greatness of Seacow Head. What a spot.

Built in 1863, Seacow Head is one of the oldest wood-frame towers in Atlantic Canada. Twinned with Cape Jourimain over in New Brunswick, these two lights were constructed to mark the narrowest passage of the Northhumberland Strait between the two provinces. It is the third oldest lighthouse in Prince Edward Island.

Automated in 1959, the lighthouse was moved back from the eroding cliff in 1979. In 2013, the Seacow Head Lighthouse Inc. was formed by nearby residents, after the Canadian government divested itself of the lighthouse and the group believed the historic structure was worth saving.

Lastly, there's a chance this might be a lighthouse you've seen outside of BRN, as it was used in scenes for Road to Avonlea and portrayed as the Avonlea Lighthouse. Although, some of these scenes were also filmed in Uxbridge Ontario in a farm field using a faux Seacow Head Light that they built for filming.

After a good swim in the ocean, it was definitely time for dinner and maybe a cold pint. We were going to stop in at the Barnone Brewery that's inside an old farmhouse in Rose Valley, but some silly people were getting married there and spoiled our fun.

The consolation was pretty damn good though as we headed to Hopyard, which has just the most unbelievable food. I'm not prone to gluttony when it comes to food amounts, but I always order three plates here because the food is so damn good.

Afterwards we went back to Christian's and he climbed the giant tree in his backyard. I couldn't believe how far he went up, going way past the point you'd need to go to say that you "climbed" said tree.

This was also the night that Christian started talking an older Quebec couple at Hopyard and they came back to his house for a drink, surprising us both when they said that they love ICP and go to as many of their shows as they can.

Going back to the tree climbing, I died laughing at this Joel Embiid meme a week later.

The next day was pouring rain, so we chilled out until I eventually needed to head back to the Confederation Bridge and over to the Newfoundland ferry.

Good times in Isy's car.