St-Jean-Port-Joli, Quebec

We awoke today, August 19, to slight showers and decided we would beat the front coming through and head east to Quebec City and beyond. We continued along the Trans Canadian Highway heading east and stopping at a small town on the south side of the St Lawrence Seaway called St-Jean-Port-Joli.

A note to our RV friends. The roads are generally good-2 lanes and many times 4 lanes, (although sometimes very bumpy) and well marked. There are rest stop at about every 50 miles and ample gas available. Our cell phones (Verizon) work all along the Trans Canadian Highway, but we are not using them because it’s 70 cents a minute, both for incoming and outgoing. Many of the campgrounds and parks have 800 numbers that can be dialed for free at phone booths. There is excellent information available at information centers when you enter each province. Each province has its own booklet with information about its provincial parks and camping.

St-Jean-Port-Joli is a small resort town of about 3,000 people. It has small bed and breakfasts and typical French restaurants. We located one grocery store and it was well stocked with everything we needed. All the grocery stores have a large section devoted to deli style meats and cheeses (much larger than Schreiners in Montrose).

We stayed at a private campground just outside of town with full hookups. There were very few out of province campers so our California license plates drew quite a few stares and comments. It did start to sprinkle after dinner so we watched a Bruce Willis movie in French. We were able to get local TV with our TV antenna. It’s the height of corn season, and they even had free cooked corn in the afternoon.

The town was having a kite flying festival so we drove into town to watch the kites flying. As you can see from the photo, it was raining and cool.