Amos Quebec to Chapais Quebec 235 miles
The skies are mostly cloudy. Doesn’t look like it rained during the night which is a good thing. The car still doesn’t start without a pull. A very short pull but successful. We drove to a nearby McDonald’s for breakfast. We can tell we are in French Canadian territory because all the signage is in French only. The egg McMuffin tastes the same however. Another fill up of gas before departing the town. The car is once again a big hit. The road starts out pretty good just bumpy. Then it turns to gravel. Not many cars are on the road now. This is still a provincial highway. We went along a lake for a short distance. Of course that is nothing new. The area has numerous lakes and rivers. We crossed another small bridge with a wooden deck. After roughly 30 miles of this we came upon a man in a small motor home. He told us the bridge was out further down the road. We should turn around. Well that cost us at least 15 miles to get to where we should have been. It is still gravel. We had only gone a few miles when the car sputtered and died. We have a small leak in the radiator and water splashes back on the engine causing it to short out. Rob tried drying it but no luck. He started to walk back to a house when a pickup came from the opposite direction. A very nice young man agreed to pull us. Even then it took a couple of tries. We only got another mile or so and it died again. This time another man helped us. The car started and went a mile or two before stopping once again. Luckily a third man stopped. This time Rob spent even more time trying to dry the engine. He also replaced the distributor cap which had a small crack and the coil. We tried pulling again but no luck at all. It backfired a couple of times but that was it. We sent the man on his way even though he didn’t want to leave us out in the middle of nowhere. He was on his way to work and we had already kept him for close to 45 minutes. He only left after Rob told him we had a satellite phone. Rob tried some more things and finally pulled out the main fuse, looked it over, and put it back. The car started on the first try! That fuse may have been part of the problem all along. It still sputtered occasionally especially when going up hill. However it does keep running. We came to one rather strange bridge that had a bar at 3 meters and barriers on each side. The car barely fit through. The pot holes on either side were terrible. Finally we are back to pavement. But then it begins to rain. We turned off the main road to go to a small town for gas. After filling with gas a nice man (interpreter) went with Rob to the Napa store next door to buy Stop Leak for the radiator. He poured that in and hopefully that will help. Then we went to a small convenience store and bought sandwiches for lunch. Actually by this time it was mid afternoon. Back on the road. We went in and out of rain showers. Some light and some much heavier. We also had to stop twice at lights used for one lane construction areas. When we finally got to town the rain was coming down so hard we could barely see. We did find the hotel and checked in. The place has a small restaurant attached. They are open until 8 pm. We got there at 7:30. We had toasted cheese sandwiches and french fries. We were both hoping to get a hot bowl of soup but they ran out. Maybe the locals also wanted something hot to eat. The outside temperature was about 50 F. The local curling rink is across the street.
Spoffords Travel 