walmart | Simple life on the road

After 5 days in Kamouraska, it’s time to head to Chicoutimi to see family and friends, and perhaps climb some more.

Aside from the wind, we had really good weather. One night was ridiculously hot and humid. You can guess how well we slept that night. Otherwise nights were nice and comfortable.

At the climbing crag we ran into a solo traveler from Bordeaux, France, looking for people to climb with. We were more than happy to make a friend and Antoine climbed with us for the next two days. He treated us to beers at “La tete d’allumette” so we got to revisit that sweet brewery. Yesterday after the climbing we ran into Pierre, the campground manager at SEBKA and he was kind enough to let us go spend the evening at Antoine’s campsite. We cooked some dinner together. After dinner we were going to play a game of English scrabble and just before we started I asked him if by chance he knew how to play “Settlers of Catan”.. guess what.. Not only did he know how to play, he kicked our butts!!

Catan’s Night!!

On the climbing front it’s definitely nice to spend quality time on the rock. Our endurance is getting much better, and my head is really getting into it. I lead most of the classics there and we must have climbed 1/3 to 1/2 of all the sport routes there. Elaine led some easier routes but her confidence when on the sharp end of the rope isn’t as good as her climbing skills. I worked a 5.12a and although I didn’t red point it, it felt really good. I just need a little more endurance to be able to link it. 5.11s are feeling fine and I’m looking forward to work harder routes. Elaine is seconding mostly everything and I wouldn’t be surprised to see her follow me up harder stuff sooner than later. In any case, the view up there is absolutely gorgeous and the quality of the rock is unbelievable.

Prestation Aerienne 5.11a (Elaine did it too!)

Pierre Volante 5.12a

Elaine on Tintin au Tibet 5.9+

Alright, some good news and some bad news. The good news is that THE FRIDGE IS WORKING!!!! It’s working better than ever. Turns out that banging it a few times with the hammer did it some good!! We also read that keeping the fridge/van level helps the fridge operate optimally. All that combined, the fridge is now keeping the beer really cold!!

The bad news is that the GAWR (Gross Axle Weight Rating) for the van is 1386 Kg in the front and 1449 Kg in the rear. Total GVWR (Gross Vehicle Weight Rating) is 2745 Kg. The problem is that the van as it is exceeds by 500 Kg the weight limit for the rear axle and by over 250 KG the whole vehicle weight limit. Not that it’s ever a good idea to go over the weight ratings, I don’t think it’s helping this 36 years old van to live a longer healthy life to push its limits as we are currently doing. Therefore we are going to ditch the scooter in Chicoutimi. It looks like scooters are quite popular in this province and we will try to sell it at a fire sale price. It would be nice to get over $1000 for it and then add it on the the trip budget.

Tonight we are staying at the Walmart campground (they even provide Wi-Fi for free!!). We were hoping to return the favor to them for letting us crash their parking lot but somehow Walmart closes at 5pm in this town on Saturdays(and perhaps everywhere in Quebec?) and we arrived at 5:15. Oh well, the other grocery store got our $36 business 🙂