Although we have a two hour drive today, the drive today is part of the destination. We are switching over to the northern side of the fjord and will spend the day driving along and around Saguenay Fjord, one of the beautiful drives of North America. 

After celebrating Fathers Day we got to our new camp around 11 and Everest found a picture on the park map that he wanted to see for himself. It would be a six kilometer hike except we saw they allow bikes so we biked in a line through a dense pine forest through dirt and gravel, stopping to walk up the hills when they got steep. The rains came and went while we rode and no one even notices anymore. This is a well known Beluga Whale watching platform and although we are early for the season, it’s not crazy that we may see a pod. We planned our arrival for when the whale expert would be present to answer questions (a ranger had let us know when we entered.) We arrived at the watching hut and quickly remembered we don’t speak any French. We brought a scope and some binoculars and did our best, but to no avail. Although we weren’t lucky enough to see a Beluga we were lucky enough to have an entire beach all to ourselves. The kind of beach from my dreams, where the pine needles fall right off the trees into the ocean, and mountains seamlessly flow right in to the water with layers of mountain ranges in the distance of every color purple. We played for a while the sun came out then biked back swapping our earlier uphills for downhills. We relaxed around camp for the rest of the day throwing the whistle ball and going for small walks. We finally had Everest’s belated birthday dinner of chili with corn on the cob over the fire. We watched Indiana Jones on a collective iPad until I woke up to the credits rolling and everyone sound asleep.

The mosquitos and black flies have picked up with each of us getting attacked and having reactions to various degrees. We have our outfits and chairs treated in permethrin, we bump a Thermacell, we spray Deet, and we each have an electric mosquito racket. Most of the time you don’t need to think about it, some of the time it’s all you can think about. The zap from the electric racket makes the war more satisfying. Black flies don’t use a sucker in the way a Mosquito does, it more or less saws a chunk out of you so it takes a bit longer to heal. In Amy they turn into giant lumps. Maples neck looks like a vampire buffet. Fitz thin hair has them getting caught like a spiderweb, only the captives feast on the captor. I don’t think I have even been bitten by one yet but I am not bragging because I fear not being accepted.

We must wake up early if we are going to catch or ferry across the massive St. Lawerence River as we make our way further east.