We flew out of the border station and down the road into Canada. But one more minor mishap awaited us at the gas station we stopped at not even a mile from the border. We pulled into the gas station about 2:15PM. Dianne was driving now and I went inside to pay for the gas. As I came back outside, I heard my car alarm chirp; setting itself. Dianne looked into the car and then at me, "Does your alarm turn itself on?" she asked. "Yes," I replied, looking in at the keys that were still in the ignition. She looked at me with a quirky little smile. "I suppose the alarm locks the doors, too?" I nodded and tugged at the door handle. We were locked out of my car. I had no spare set of keys. It was beginning to look like I should call this trip the Empress Misadventure. As Dianne cursed my car, I went back inside and asked if they had a metal coat hanger. I had never picked a lock before but I was not about to be stranded. Using a pair of pliers I got from the mechanic, I straightened the coat hanger and hooked it at the end. Sliding it in between the window and the weather seal at the top of the door jam, I worked it towards the power lock button on the passenger side. While I did this, Dianne happened to notice that the van at the next pump over was from a local dive shop. While she chatted with the driver, who turned out to be a dive instructor, I worked on getting the doors unlocked. After fifteen minutes I managed to hook the button and unlock the car! We vowed that this incident would not repeat itself and off we went. We still had five hours to go till we reached Rimouski.

At about 3:30PM we got onto Route 20 North and about a hour and a half later we passed Québec City. We stopped to get gas and I called Chris on his cell phone to see what his status was. He was just leaving Ottawa. He figured he would be several hours behind us due to the fact that he was unable to get the day off from work. I told him about our adventure at customs. He got a good laugh out of it, and we made plans to meet in the hotel lobby when he arrived. I didn't care how late it ended up being; I wasn't going to let a little bit of exhaustion keep me from meeting him for the first time!

The roads were not too heavily congested, except for just outside Québec City where construction made for a few trouble spots. Once we were clear of that it was smooth sailing. The farther north we headed, the fewer cars we came across. The roads were pretty bad at some points, I feared for my car's suspension as we zipped along well in excess of the speed limit. At about 6:30PM we transferred to Route 132. We were less than an hour away at this point and I was driving. Dianne dozed peacefully as we drove north along the shore of the St. Lawrence River. I was amazed by its size. I had never seen a river that big. As we drove, the sun was beginning to dip towards the horizon and the river shimmered with the golden hues of the approaching dusk. I imagined what it must have been like to watch Empress of Ireland make her way up this river. At times it was hard to pay attention to the road I was so enthralled with the site of the St. Lawrence.

About 7:00 we made a quick pit stop in Trois Pistoles. I tried to call Chris but I was not getting a good signal on my cell phone. We got back on the road and about half an hour later we approached the city of Rimouski...