Get Outlook for iOS

Get Outlook for iOS

Get Outlook for iOS

Get Outlook for iOS

Get Outlook for iOS

Quebec City, Canada July 22 - 26, 2026

Quebec City, Canada July 22 - 26, 2026

Wednesday:

This summer I chose to go to Quebec city for a CME conference. Greta was planning on being in the boundary waters during that time but due to the Canadian fires, she went to the Badlands instead with our church. Matt came with me to the conference. We departed from O’Hare at 930 Wednesday morning. We took a Van Galder bus down, which was pretty slick. We had a direct flight to Montreal. Once in Montreal we rented our vehicle and drove to the river. We found a cute café that had amazing cold brew and a very interesting couple sitting next to us who sounded like they were doing a counseling session. We managed to order our first meal with a French menu. Fortunately, many of the Canadians here are bilingual. We next went across the street to the park and gawked at weird looking art sculptures. We had a long drive ahead of us so we hopped in the car and headed to our chalet. I rented us a place from a Airbnb that was on top of the mountain in Lac Beauport. We had to take a dirt road up and we’re not sure we were headed the right way or not. It looked like the path we took was for bikers. Once we got here we were in awe with the solitude and beauty. It overlooks the mountains and is surrounded by pines. There’s no TV in it and the breeze that comes through here is so fresh. The air quality was never more than two of all time we’re here. Leading up to this week back home air quality had been over 250. We decided to venture into town and found a place for dinner at Archibald Micro and Resto. After the fact, Matt said this place had the best dinner of the whole week. He had ordered fish tacos. I had a salad with chicken and red cabbage. It also had a side of wild blueberries, I think that was actually sweetened jam. It was so good! Afterwards we went to IGA to pick up our weeks worth of groceries. We made our way back to the chalet as we were exhausted. We were in bed by nine. The stairwell going upstairs folded into the wall. It was really cool but also scary going up and down. There was actually a gate we would put in place at the top so we didn’t accidentally fall down the stairs going to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Thursday:

I decided to skip my run this morning and instead hike with Matt. After our morning breakfast, we hit the trails right outside our chalet. We hiked 2.5 miles and did 700 feet of ascent. We then hopped in the car and drove to Parc National de la Jacques Cartier. We found a strenuous hike that was 6.9 miles with 1900 feet of elevation gain. It was called Les Loups (“The Wolves”), which is the park’s most popular and iconic trail. It climbs Montagne de la Sautauriski and offers spectacular overlooks of the Jacques-Cartier Valley. We hiked it even with it misting on us. Once back at the base I cracked open my kombucha and felt like a million bucks. We came back to our chalet to rest. Matt napped and I attempted yoga on the back porch until I realized I was too exhausted for that. We showered up and then drove into town to the Boub, another nice restaurant. I devoured my salad with strawberries and smoked salmon. Matt inhaled his pizza and Caesar salad salad with chicken. I think he also had two gin and tonics. We had to laugh at the name of this restaurant. We aren’t really sure what it means but it is quite interesting. We next drove to Maxi, a grocery store, another very interesting name for a store. I was able to find cold brew and Matt got Mojitos for the remainder of the week. Once back to our place, we played cribbage and sent Greta a FaceTime video of our place. This evening we were in bed pretty early as we both were pretty exhausted.

Friday:

Today was the first day of my MCE Primary Care / Emergency Medicine / Neurology conference. It started at 7:30AM. Matt dropped me off at the Château Frontenac just in time for my first lecture. I stayed for two of them. The first one was about medical errors and communication and the second one was about using the acronym spit to help with decision-making. We did case examples. It actually was pretty interesting given that it was interactive. Our lecturer was from Los Angeles. She is both an internist and an ER physician. She’s been practicing for 35 years and teaches many medical students and residents. Meanwhile, Matt was at the Starbucks a floor below me doing some work on his laptop. Afterwards, we met up and toured old Quebec, the Fort, the naval ships, and the many shops. We ate at a really cute outdoor café with an amazing view of. the Château. We put in many steps this day, climbing up and down the steep streets. It was relatively crowded. Even though we had less steps today than we did the day prior this day seemed more exhausting. We decided to head back to our chalet to reset. After a good hour of resetting, we went on our next adventure which brought us to the nearby lake right here in Lac Beauport. You had to be members to go to the beach so we instead walked through an exhibit of art that actually caught Matt’s eye. I was intrigued by the painting of the fox and also the one of the raccoon. Matt loved the abstract art that I’m not really sure what it was an image of. It was crazy because the art was actually displayed in a park. It was only maybe 20 paintings, the perfect amount for my husband with the worst ADHD. We drove around the lake and gawked at the million dollar homes. I jokingly said that I bet you have to have a certain BMI and resting pulse to be qualified to live here since everybody is so fit! Or maybe you have to have at least three bicycles per person. Lol. We then decided to find dinner. We found a cute neighborhood called Montcalm. It reminded me of Lincoln Park in Chicago. The streets were lined with cute restaurants that had outdoor seating and unique looking street lamps that had artistic display. It looked a little Chinese like. Matt and I joked on this trip that everywhere we went we felt like people took one look at us and knew we were outsiders. I wonder why that is? Is it our shoes, our noses, our choice of clothing, how we walk, or maybe how we attempt to speak French? After our evening meal, we had to walk just a little bit more to achieve our 20,000 step goal for the day. The day prior we had 28,000. We were hoping that on our way home as we passed the local soccer field, we might see 15 year-old girls playing. Matt certainly misses watching Greta’s soccer. No such luck. It was old men kicking soccer balls around. Anytime we drive in this town we had to be so careful due to the amount of cyclists on the road. I think the cyclists almost outnumbered the cars, both road cyclists and mountain bikers. As we were driving into our chalet, there was a group of 25 trail runners on the dirt road near our place doing a training run.

Once back at our place, we called Erma to check in and give her a review of how things are going. Matt also made sure James knew what we’re doing. We only have ability to email him right now as he’s underway. We also don’t have the ability to talk to Noelle, since she is on a submarine. It’s crazy to think that our whole family right now is spread all over North America. James off of San Diego, us in Canada, Greta in South Dakota, and Noelle off of Florida.

This evening was an early night for me. I believe Matt stayed up a while to do Matt things.

Saturday:

I was going a little stir crazy having not ran since Tuesday morning. I thought the heck with it. I’m gonna run the steep hill down and back up near our chalet. That was one tough run. It only ended up being 25 minutes, but boy were my calves burning! Good thing last night I had iced them before bed. After we showered up and had breakfast, we hopped in the car and headed to Montmorency Falls. We hiked 2.6 miles. This involved a steep decent down 400+ steps. We had to take a tram across the water and then walked the suspension bridge over the Falls. Of course we didn’t do those steep stairs just once, we had to do them many times to get our workout in. Matt next had the fun idea to head down the coastline of the the St. Lawrence River to the nearby town of Ste. Anne de Beaupre. We found a really beautiful cathedral and spent 30 seconds in it. We then walked out on a pier into the St. Lawrence river. We went one more community up the way and found ourselves lunch. After that we needed rest so we made our way back to the Chalet to decompress. I journaled while Matt walked the property to critique the structure of our rental. After a good hour, we were ready for more adventure so we put on our running shoes and hit the trails near our chalet. We put in 2.6 miles. The trails were super spongy. There were no bugs and it was so lush. Plus the trees made it so shady and not hot at all. We then showered up and headed to Boub for our final dinner out. Matt got Poutine. It is basically French fried potatoes, cheese curds, hotdog, and gravy on top. I had a mixed green salad with chicken and pineapple. We topped it off with dipped ice cream cones from the creamery right next-door. We sat out in the front lawn on Adirondack chairs, chilling. Now back at our place, we decided to pack up and hit the sack early. We leave tomorrow morning at 6:45 for the airport.

We had a great trip. We appreciated how Quebec city was a lot like Paris. Lac Beauport was a lot like Vancouver or Whistler, British Columbia. It was great to have a combination of both on one trip! Plus, it was so much more affordable than going to either one of those two locations. I could definitely see us coming back. Until next time…

Get Outlook for iOS

Get Outlook for iOS