ST LOUIS > CHICAGO > QUEBEC
I still can't believe I'm going to Quebec. It seems unreal that I'll actually be seeing the things I studied in my college courses.
After a solid day of traveling, though, it's starting to sink in. But before a family of bleary-eyed yet wonder-struck Heidricks spilled out of the United airplane onto Canadian soil, we had a few adventures already checked off.
First was letting our poor pups off to get boarded. Chloe turned into a shivering, terrified blob in my arms when we walked into the vet's office, and even adventurous Mojo seemed unready to be given over. I'm can't lie; I shed a few tears as we pulled out of the parking lot and left our dogs behind. I can't wait to see their little faces when we come back to pick them up.
We made it to the St. Louis airport in plenty of time, and encountered this happy Coke bottle while waiting for our plane. Being a die-hard Diet Pepsi fan, Matt was not as enthused about the bottle as I was.
As per my usual, our plane didn't even make it off the tarmac before I was passed out. It's a gift, really; Superman got X-ray vision, Wolverine's got those metal claws, and I've got the ability to sleep anywhere and at any time, whether I'm actually tired or not. I think everybody's got their own travel super power. For me, it's sleeping. For Matt, it's reading maps and having a spot-on inner compass. It works out well for us--he figures out where to go and I sit comatose in the passenger seat until we arrive.
We met Matt's parents in Chicago and made the last leg of the journey together. Our flight landed in Québec at a little before 11 p.m. EST, and after a few minutes of standing around lost outside a near-empty airport, we found our way to the car rental office. Dr. Heidrick--whose travel super power is being utterly unafraid of anything or anyone--befriended the Hertz employee, who offered us a brand new Fiat for our rental car. "It's not like those other ones," he reassured us as we murmured about the compact size of Fiats. "It's very big--like a minivan!"
A few minutes later, we found ourselves face-to-face with one of the smallest vehicles I have ever ridden in. It's tough to remember sometimes that Americans live in a super-sized world, and what is large to our standards isn't necessarily large to other countries' standards. We must have looked very entertaining to native Québecois, fiddling around with all the buttons and latches and trying with all our might to shove three suitcases into a two-suitcase car. The term "clown car" springs to mind.
Many minutes later, after a midnight food and map check stop at Tim Horton's, some sort of fast food restaurant I'd never heard of before but which was the only place open (and frankly wasn't all that bad), we found our hotel--and not a moment too soon, because we were BEAT.
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| Our hotel room in Levis, just south of Quebec City |
Until tomorrow, travelers,
Betsey
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