- Candy Rainbow
This day was promised to be an easy flat day and it would have been if we kept to the original route, but we wanted more miles after lunch and so some hills crept into the day’s ride. This day was also the only day that we rode exclusively in Quebec. We rode the van to Stanbridge East and disembarked outside the hotel where Confederate raiders that had robbed the banks in Saint Albans were eventually arrested. They were soon released and even got to keep some of the money. British governed Canada of the time was more sympathetic to the Confederate cause then the Union’s.
On the way to our first stop, Mystic, we passed a crowd of people who were watching the replacement of an old bridge over a stream. Arriving in Mystic we found another crew of movers who had just moved the pastor’s house off its foundation, so it could be rebuilt. They were just packing up to help move the bridge that we had just passed. It turns out that they had moved the building that we were had all been sleeping in to the site of the Outdoor Lodge in Glen Sutton.
The key attraction of the town of Mystic was the L’Oeuf Chocolatier. The interior was a fabulous cavalcade of sweets, from a candy rainbow to shelves stocked with all manner of goods. Anne and I had hot chocolate.
All day I saw many goldfinches flitting about. They we were way too fast for me to photograph though. We stopped for lunch at the Domaine du Ridge winery. This winery served a style of wine called iced wine. It is a wine that is fermented from grapes that are not picked until after first frost. We had a half bottle with lunch. It was a fortified sweet white wine.
After lunch we stopped at the Cidrerie Fleurs de Pommiers on the road to Dunham. This was effectively an apple winery that served an iced cider. I bought a bottle to bring back. We rallied in Dunham across the street from the town’s church. Some of us elected to sag in from Dunham, Anne and I rode on. We took dirt roads to circumvent what would have been the climb of the day. The ride ended in Frelighsburg, at a Café. I had coffee and a sugar maple cake. That half smile on Le Marquis face is pure maple sugar buzz.
This was Anne and mine last official day of cycling in Quebec. More cycling was still ahead of us. This day we got forty-one miles. Dinner was spaghetti with meat sauce, our just purchased wine, iced cider and cheeses. After dinner I got to show off my photos on the laptop.