French Tuesday

Let’s do a bit of a day in pictures today. I’ll have to give you a running start first though. So I got an extreme wakeup call at this hotel. I actually had my alarm set for half six with plans to meet for breakfast at half seven. The universe had other plans. Around six in the morning the alarm in the hotel started going off. I got the feeling that it had been going for a bit. My first thought was that it was the door alarm somehow going off. There is a beeping that starts when you don’t close your door all the way. A clever way to keep hockey teams from partying too hard no doubt. I realized that it was a real alarm. My bags were still mostly closed from the day before so I pulled on my clothes from yesterday and dressed, stashing the few items I’d had out into the bags. When I get up in the morning the first thing I usually do is answer nature’s call. Today was no different. I was sitting on the toilet when the alarm changed to something faster paced and more desperate. I finished my business, grabbed my bags and took off for the stairs. There were some others doing the same. I made great time and got out to join the gathering crowd of hotel guests. I went and put my bags in my truck and went to stand near the others with my mask on. Minutes later three police vehicles arrived and the cops rushed into the hotel. People were milling about the front doors and most were directed across the street with the rest of us. Next a couple of fire trucks pulled up. I was looking for Brack but didn’t see him. We texted a bit, more on that later. The police brought a youngish man out, shaved head, in decent shape but only wearing a towel. I couldn’t see if he had on shoes of some kind or not. Four of them roughly slammed him into a cruiser and took off abruptly. One of the other cruisers left a few minutes later. The firemen went into the hotel with axes and other destructive looking tools next. After about ten minutes they emerged and waved us in with an explanation in French I couldn’t comprehend. I was the first in and rushed to the elevator. By the time I got back to my room it was half six and I didn’t really have time to gain back any of the forty or so minutes of sleep that were stolen from me, and I was feeling it. I showered and got properly dressed from my clothes bag that I’d retrieved from the truck eventually while waiting. I checked out, no apology or explanation was given. I was hoping for the latter. But there was a complimentary sack of food provided in lieu of the restaurant option that they used to provide before the pandemic.

I texted Brack again and found him across the street by the water. He had taken a pano photo of the area and I tried to as well. Mine went terribly so I’m sharing it. I started nearly straight on and ended up with a lot of what was behind us. There is a proper photo below to show the water feature that unceremoniously shutoff at eight. We ate our breakfasts and shared our stories of the morning. He had the same thought about the door alarm initially too (I’m not crazy). He eventually got up and looked out the peep-hole at the exact moment that I went past the door. He decided it was for real and got his stuff and had just opened the door to head down when the alarm went off, which would have been shortly after I’d stowed my stuff in the truck. He decided it was over and went back to bed, unable to sleep but still. We ate our muffin, yogurt, cheese, juice, and granola bar from the bags and watched some fish jump in front of us. We had a good chat and planned the day. It was a later start than anticipated but it was some time well spent.

We got to the first site which was only a half hour or so away and met up with JJ. He was busy trying to plant his winter wheat and was hustling and bustling around. He took a few minutes to point us in the right directions. Again Brack was on the soybean ratings and I was doing corn. I think I take more thorough notes but I’m hoping he gives me enough. It took me the rest of the morning to finish the corn. He was done first and worked on emails. He had some on-going issues to tackle. I took notes on one of the soybean sets and we set off to the next location after checking out with JJ and his assistant.

We went to a restaurant attached to a gas station. We’d stopped here a few years ago to much success. Two things they do well are poutine and smoked meat. That is what we were after, part of the Quebec experience. Our lunch went on much longer that it probably should have. We had some good discussions and shared a lot of stuff that you wouldn’t talk about on a Team call. We basically tried to cram a year and half of hallway chats into a lunch. We did wrap it up around half one and after loading up with some refreshments from the gas station we set out to the second site of the day.

For me this location was the biggest of the trip. It was large and gruelling. You can see from my expression below that I’m not loving it all. It has two maturity sets but they are comprised of six smaller trials. There are a lot of plots to take notes on in them. Brack conversely only had two soybean trials to review. He was done much faster than I was. You can see from my expression in the photo below how excited I was to be still doing the same set after a couple of hours.

At least it was a beautiful day. I had packed fall clothes, lots of jeans and sweaters thinking it would be cool and overcast like normal. Glad I had a pair of shorts in there, wore them most days.

Most of the corn I walked was later maturity and was still pretty green. Not too soon to walk but more than I’ve seen at this location in the past. There is some good stuff in there.

I was feeling a bit better by the end, that’s pretty much a smile.

I sent Brack on ahead and I stayed late to try and get it all done. I ended up passing on one trial of the six, having seen it in the morning and knowing I’d see it twice more before leaving Quebec. We had to skirt around the city of Montreal to stay at our unlikely home for the next three days in Drummondville. Normally we stay in Saint Hyacinthe but all the hotels were booked up, and those left were exorbitantly expensive. I was starting to look it pretty good by the time I left, feet were sore, brain was foggy, dehydrated. All the things that happen when you only look at corn for the majority of the day. My drive was uneventful and I arrived at the Quality Suites around seven. We went on an adventure to find food and ended up at Le Cage an exit away from the hotel. Our server didn’t do English so my broken French had to suffice. Even pointing at the French menu didn’t do much for us. We got the wrong beers to start and had more what we were aiming at for the second ones. I think she was testing us to see if we were jerks or not. We both ordered the same seafood meal. Apparently a risky endeavour. It was some kind of Gaspe shrimp roll. with fries. I got mayo to dip my fries in, what a delight! The rolls were served cold, like a lobster roll and were ok. I wouldn’t rush back here for another go at them. We paid our l’addition and hustled back to the hotel to get some sleep. I spent some MSF time before crashing around half ten. Tomorrow was going to be an earlier and longer day than today.