Messing around in the Milkweed

While parking the car at the studio today I spotted this snail in the milkweed forest that's growing between the parking lot and the Canadian Pacific railroad tracks. At first I thought it was a monarch caterpillar, curled up, but when I got close I saw it was a snail. It's a fairly large one, and not familiar to me.

I haven't seen a single monarch butterfly yet this year.

But there were more antics going on below.

"Let me call you sweetheart..."  But I'm wondering: is this an interracial insect couple, demonstrating against the odious, recently-proposed Quebec Charter of Values? And are those eggs, or tiny aphids? Guess I need to go back and take a closer look, but maybe someone (Dave?) can enlighten me about the identities of these beetles.