Je me souviens

Je me souviens is on every Quebec license plate. I am not sure exactly what it means historically but literally it means "I remember". Just sitting here in St Felicien a couple days out from the second Canadian world cup race. I was in Mt St Anne for a week with my parents acting as support crew and then Norm met us for the St Felicien race so its as close to "home" as I have been in awhile.

I have been having an awesome visit with Lizzie & Geo (my parents). Every year they come and support me at Mt St Anne and every year Geo says he wants to try paragliding. He talks to the paragliders about the wind conditions, the weather conditions and everything else aeronautical (he is a pilot). BUT every year he chickens out and says that he doesnt have time or the weather isnt good. So for fathers day I just said "get yourself organized - we are going paragliding".





He didnt have time to object. We got him hooked up and he took off from the backside of Mt St Anne. My mom said it was the first time she had ever seen him give up control to a total stranger. If you know Geo, you know every move he makes is calculated (the risk, the time, the benefit, the cost etc). But he LOVED it!! Noone else was flying that day because the wind was so strong but the tandem wing was big enough to tame the strong winds. It took them ahile to get back down as a result but it meant Geo could log more time in his flight log book.




We also went whale watching after the race. I have always wantde to see a Beluga whale. I was born in Churchill where I always heard stories about polar bears and belugas and narwhales so I had to check them out if they were so close. I guess tons of whales come into the St Lawrence to feed, including the elusive Blue whale. So we signed up for a zodiac trip and went to check it out. We were not disappointed. ~3o whales were feeding out in the St Lawrence near Tadoussac and we saw three different species: Fin whale (bigger than two school buses - second biggest whale in teh world next to teh Blue), Minke whale (bigger than 2 minivans) and some Belugas. The Belugas are protected so we couldnt get very close but the Fin and Minke were feeding close to us so we could really get a sense of just how enormous these critters were. It was a very cool experience.