On Sunday night Raymond, Diane, and Jocelyn planned a get-together dinner for all of the Palm Garden people. We had about 15 rigs with friends coming from five hours away to join us for a few days. We are honored that so many of our friends chose to join us.
We had a Lac St. Jean tourtiere which is a traditional northern Quebec meat pie usually served at family gatherings. Originally made with wild game, ours was beef, potatoes, onions, and broth, baked for hours in a pie crust. It was very tasty.
La Geant Motorise, besides offering us free camping, also gave away door prizes. Raymond gave Mitch his prize of $50 to spend at the store.
The next morning it was time for a petanque game. This round was worth six points!!!
Le Geant Motorise also provided us a chauffeured limosine ride, complete with champagne, around the area and into Chicoutimi. HP was in our group and became our guide as he showed us the bridges and buildings he had designed while living in Chicoutimi.
We had a great Happy Hour one afternoon with a bunch of the Quebeqois. Jean Charles had prepared a beautiful smoked salmon. Besides the good eats, we had five minutes of only speaking English, of which their favorite line was "Oh my God", and five minutes of only French, which makes me wish I had paid more attention in my fifth grade French class.
We've also gotten in a couple of days of playing pickleball. We're glad we taught Gilles and Francine how to play at Peace River TT. Boy it feels good to get back at the game!
After a good round of pickleball, one needs to food up again, so off we all went (four cars of us this time) to visit the Boivin Cheese Factory in LaBaie. The factory was done with the days production so we hit the canteen for Pepittes and Poutine.
Poutine--another Quebequois traditional food--French fries with squeaky cheese curds topped with brown gravy. The Pipittes are deep fried cheese curds, a relatively new food trend.
We're watching our diets--Mitch and I split these Poutine and Pepittes!
Off for a drive to visit the area. This is LaBaie Bay on the Sagueny River. We also stopped to see a Bauxite Plant and a salmon ladder.
We needed to get home, though, because we needed to get our dinner made. Six of us were eating at Gilles and Francines.
Besides grilled cheese watermelon sandwiches for appetizers we also had whelks, a first for us. We had found whelk egg cases walking the beaches many years ago, but didn't know what a whelk was. Very rubbery, very salty, and very fishy.
We had a healthy spaghetti meal, but the homemade Sugar Pie that Louise made for dessert was wonderful. Tasted kind of like our pecan pie without the pecans.
We're not done with Chicoutimi yet!
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