Comedian Jeff Boudreault is passionate about motorcycles. This summer, he went on an adventure on the trails of the American Southwest. Fourth and last sounding with the biker, who returned to Quebec on August 14th.
Posted at 11:30 a.m.
Since our last interview, Jeff Boudreault has literally crossed the continent. First through Napa Valley and Lake Tahoe, before tackling the trails of the Backcountry Discovery Route (BDR) again.
“With my experiences at the start of the trip, I was aware that you hardly ever see anyone on the BDR, but it was stronger than me, I wanted to do some of it in California. I found myself in the sand again, and I even came across cougar tracks, accompanied by fresh excrement… I started to worry a little, so I decided at that time not to back on the trails before New York State. »
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PHOTO PROVIDED BY JEFF BOUDREAULT
Napa Valley Vineyard Walk
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PHOTO PROVIDED BY JEFF BOUDREAULT
The Californian BDR led Jeff Boudreault to Death Valley, where the temperature was exceptionally below 40°C. “I don’t understand why there are people living here. They are aliens! exclaims Jeff Boudreault, laughing.
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PHOTO PROVIDED BY JEFF BOUDREAULT
The slot canyons of Antelope Canyon, Arizona, home to incredible rock formations created by water runoff.
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Back in Arizona, the Quebec actor went to Jerome, a small town where he was to play in a film a few years ago, a project that finally fell through.
“I knew the place thanks to the director, who was looking for an actor who rides a motorcycle, he recalls. I now understand his attraction to the place; it’s very atypical, with a serious left field side. There were 10,000 people living here in the XIXe century, but the city burned three times, there were a lot of deaths.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY JEFF BOUDREAULT
Jerome, Arizona cultivates the myth that it is a haunted village.
“We also surf a lot on its reputation as a ghost town,” he continues. At the restaurant, I told my server that I was staying at the Grand Hotel. He replied that it was an old hospital known to be haunted… I laughed, but he wasn’t kidding me… He then asked me which floor I was staying on. At first. ‟So much the better, because it’s on the third that it brews”, he said to me… Let’s say that it gave me the taste to rework the screenplay of the film. »
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PHOTO PROVIDED BY JEFF BOUDREAULT
On route 66, Jeff Boudreault saw deep America pass by. “It’s legendary, but you come across old garages, old pick-ups, scrapyards and abandoned motels there,” he says. Albuquerque, however, is an exception, it really is a charming city. »
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PHOTO PROVIDED BY JEFF BOUDREAULT
“From a distance, the Cadillac Ranch is really nonsense, says Jeff Boudreault. It’s almost on the edge of the highway, just before Amarillo, Texas. Artists have created this as a kind of snub to capitalism. Today, people can buy a can of paint to add their mark; there must be a foot of paint on every car! »
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PHOTO PROVIDED BY JEFF BOUDREAULT
A guitar that belonged to Elvis Presley, on display at Graceland
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PHOTO PROVIDED BY JEFF BOUDREAULT
Jeff Boudreault with Brigitte Bélanger-Warner, Canadian representative of the Tourism Corporation of Virginia, who invited him to Monticello, in Charlottesville, historic residence of Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States.
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After a stop at the famous Big Texan Steak Ranch – they serve 2 kg steaks there – the actor headed straight for Tennessee. “I stayed four days in Memphis. I notably went to Sun Records, because I like these places that transcend, he maintains. Johnny Cash came here, Elvis too. Precisely, I visited Graceland the next day, it’s huge, like a kind of Quartier DIX30 of Elvis. I paid for the big kit with a personal guide; at 4 p.m., I still hadn’t finished going around! »
Big crush then for Nashville, where the actor celebrated his 48e birthday, August 2.
Being alone, however, made me plunge into a nostalgic state, until I ran into two Quebecers in a bar, with whom I finally spent the day and the evening. I’m not a believer, but I really think I met angels during my trip. The two Frenchmen on the BDR in Utah, that couple in Nashville… After which, I received an unexpected email from Brigitte Bélanger-Warner, Canadian representative of the Virginia Tourist Corporation, who invited me to visit the house by Thomas Jefferson.
Jeff Boudreault
PHOTO PROVIDED BY JEFF BOUDREAULT
In front of the “tree of shame” of the Tail of the Dragon, a must for any good self-respecting motorcyclist, there are some parts of motorcycles that have been “bitten” by the dragon, asphalt tape of 17, 6 km which has no less than 318 curves, on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina.
Jeff Boudreault finally set sail for Copake, New York, where friends came to join him to accompany him to Quebec via the BDR from New England.
“In the last hour in my helmet, on Sunday August 14, I found it hard, he admits with emotion. The images jostled in my head, I realized that it was the end of an extraordinary summer, the end of a great adventure. I saw grandiose landscapes, met exceptional people. I explored parts of me that I knew a little less about. I wanted to do a Compostela on a motorcycle and I succeeded. A word of advice: we only have one curtain raiser in our lives, so if you can, live your dreams, go all the way. »