The beginning of the end of the world

Driving north today on Route 40 from Montreal to Quebec City, it was rather empty.  To the west of the highway, we could see farmhouses and small villages in the distance.  I was saying to Natalie that in Canada not too far from where we are the paved roads might end, perhaps even 15-20 miles from where we were.  Looking at Google maps in the hotel later, I discovered just how right I was.

It's astonishing.  Unless I'm reading these maps wrong, things really thin out to the northwest of this road.  Man I wish we had time to just nose around the outback up here.

And then you get to Quebec City.  This little piece of pseudo-Europe at the frickin end of the earth. Wall to wall cute and tourist shops.  There's a falafel place a few blocks away from a seminary straight out of some Bergman movie with a courtyard where kids have been playing for 300 years.

This despite the fact that it's not much further north than Paris, or even Seattle.

As we drove, we played some very quick games of "I Spy", which goes "I spy with my little eye something that is (name the color)."  It went quickly because there was nothing, literally nothing, but green, yellow, and red trees, green grass, grey sky, grey road.