Day 17: Rivière-du-Loup

I woke up in Rivière-du-Loup freezing. It was 6 degrees outside and pouring rain, and I had barely slept since I had been so cold. I didn’t want to get my dry clothes wet, but I also didn’t want to take off any layers to go outside, so I just put on all my rain gear and went as quickly as I could to the closest diner to warm up. 

I looked at the forecast for the day, and it was not supposed to go above 6 degrees or stop raining all day, but tomorrow was going to be sunny and 18, so I figured I’d just stay in Rivière-du-Loup instead of being miserable in the rain all day. Even after having multiple refills of watery diner coffee, I still could not warm up, so I found an inn close by and checked in there. I then had to go back and pack up my sopping wet tent and fly (when staked properly, water will roll off the fly, but since the gravel tent pad didn’t have anywhere to stake, it just got soaked instead). 

When I went back to the inn with all my stuff, they said checkin wasn’t until 3, but I had no desire to go outside again, so I just hung out in the lobby with my book until the room was ready. As soon as I got into my room I drew a hot bath which was the most amazing thing in the world. And then I jumped under the covers and stayed there for a solid few hours. 

After I was finally warmed up, I figured I should deal with all my wet camping stuff, so I put some towels down, set up my tent in the room, hung my fly over the shower curtain, and blasted the heat to 90F. My room was covered in pine needles, but at least all my stuff dried out!

I briefly considered going to the museum of Bas Saint-Laurent, but it was an hour walk away and there was no public transit. The grocery store was also like a 45 minute walk away, so I settled on the closest casse-croûte for dinner. Definitely not a highlight so far, but at least I warmed up and will start tomorrow with all dry things.