The Maritimes

Yesterday was a traveling day. We left our little B&B, and headed east. We bypassed Quebec City and Montreal, finally stopping at the first provincial park we came to in New Brunswick, just outside Edmundson. It was the next to the last day the park would be open this season, so we lucked out. We talked to Jon and Jamie before we went to bed, and found out that Sophie was pretty sick from eating a variety of refuse around the site. Jamie took her to the vet and got her some flagel, so hopefully she is better today. We made a dinner out of cheese, crackers, several different kinds of beer, and chocolates and called it a day.

Last night was the first night I was really cold in the tent. I had to get up during the night and turn up the heater after I found myself shivering in my sleeping bag. But the heater did the trick, and I slept in until 7:30 a.m. This morning when we finally got on the road at 11 a.m, the temperature was 48 degrees, so you know I had my heated clothes cranked up to high for most of the day!

We had breakfast, packed up, and then went over to the New Brunswick Botanical Gardens, and then to the NB Classic Auto Museum. The gardens were lovely even though it was at the end of their season. I’ll upload pictures tomorrow from Steve’s camera.

We finally got on the road about 11 a.m. and headed to Grand Falls to see the visitor center there. In the spring the falls are supposed to be 9/10’s the size of Niagara Falls. Today, they were quite lovely even at low water levels.

Some NB conservation officers stopped us in the parking lot of the Grand Falls and chatted about motorcycles and travel and their jobs. They said there was a lot of poaching going on in NB and Quebec. People were killing deer and moose to trade for drugs. Apparently a very heavy, mob based drug traffic scene goes on out of Montreal. They cautioned us to be on the lookout for moose on the route we were taking, and that they had seen a monster one two days ago. There were certainly lots of highway signs warning of moose traffic today but we didn’t see any, thank goodness.

Tonight we are staying at the Berrypatch Campground just outside of Bathurst. We are the only campers, so we have the place to ourselves. We’ve done laundry, caught up on the internet, and had a nice dinner of salad, baquette, and a nice Australian shiraz. Right now there are fireworks going on in town, but we haven’t figured out the occasion yet.

Tomorrow we will stop in town at the Farmer’s market for breakfast, and then head south along the east NB coast.