Reptiles at Risk

First day in Quebec!

Posted by Jeff Hathaway on July 24, 2007 at 2:22 PM

Hello Everyone!!

On day 6 of the adventure LOTS of exciting, hilarious, random and interesting things happened! We headed into Quebec, and everyone was a bit nervous (except Sarah B.) about it, as we would be doing the first ever Sciensational Snakes!! Quebec, plus our first ever French program, and our first show of the summer without Jeff doing any part of the presentation!

The first stop, on our way to the “Belle Province” was to a veterinarian. All of our animals had to be checked out and have papers to cross into some of the provinces we are going this summer. Everyone checked out healthy, which we were expecting as we like to think that we take optimal care of our animals! Huge thanks to our friend, Dr. Mark Cochran, of the West Carleton Animal Hospital, for donating his services for this.

On the way to Quebec we decided to take the ferry across the Ottawa River at Quyon. Our first blunder of the day began in the sweltering heat during our last moments of Ontario. The ferry was happy to take trailers across, but they (and the automobile that is towing them) had to be less than 27 feet. Our trailer alone is 20 feet, so we did not meet those requirements. Luckily, the person who was driving the ferry let us back the trailer on to the ferry, unhitch it and send it across. On the other side he arranged for his boss to pull the trailer off the ferry. On the next shipment across we were able to go over, which was a lucky break for us.

At the library the kids were great; there was a day care and some other local kids. They were really enthusiastic to hold some of the snakes. The news paper was even there and asked me for a quote!!! ME!?! A QUOTE!!??!? I think that is the first time my voice will appear in print…at least in terms of a newspaper.

The stress level in the car increased ten fold once we got back in the car as we were now hours away from the first French presentation and the first one without Jeff! On our way, Jeff was driving and out of nowhere a random wasp comes into the van and hits his arm, then it stung him. Apparently it hurt a lot!! He flipped the wasp into a cardboard box which is serving as a hold all between the front seats. Sarah Jane then looked for and killed the wasp with the map book. She then picked it up with one of the work gloves that we keep in the box. She was about to fling it out the window when the wasp came back to life!! Sarah Jane was still holding the glove out the window trying to shake it off but got nervous and let go of the glove! We now know why there is always just one glove or one sock on the side of the highway (Rick- there is your answer….it is all in the hymenoptera!!).

The show was great, we started out with Sarah B doing the intro and then each of us had 3 animals to talk about. They were able to understand us, which was wonderful! They were very enthusiastic; they had lots of great questions and were so interested in the hands on part. We had a good turnout, about 125 people. I think some of them now want to have pet corn snakes, as we answered TONS of questions about them.

After the show we were looking forward to a wonderful relaxing evening as it was late and we were all very tired! But, the trailer had other thoughts. The back country roads with all their potholes in Quebec had created the equivalent of an earthquake; judging by the damage I would have placed it about a 3 or 4 on the Richter scale. The animal cages for the most part were great (thank for your construction James!); only the ones on the top fell down and spilled open – they made such a mess! This is a good example of why the animals travel with us in the van!! The fridge, and cupboards had also opened and spilled food out on the floor and the table had fallen down.

Well, tomorrow we are back in Ontario for a few days! We look forward to writing about our time there!

Smiles and Laughter!
Mary-Ellen