Arriving Shediac, NB (8/19/2015)

 I took a couple pictures this morning before we left our campground.  The sunrise picture was really full daylight, I must have just gotten in the shade, but it turned out pretty anyway. This was a pretty nice place.
 
This morning we altered our routine a little.  Marilyn had picked out a church in town that she wanted to visit, and Joe had picked out a McDonalds he wanted to visit, so he and I both drove in to McDonalds for breakfast, then the Brundiges came in their RV and parked at McDonalds, and we drove our car to the church, which was not open.  Anyway, by the time we were back at McDonalds and got our car hooked up and were ready to roll, it was 10:20.  We continued on our way along the Acadien Coastal Drive following Hwy 117 from Miramichi, but our roads today did not improve.  In fact, we passed an asphalt roller idle alongside the road, and Joe commented that they should have it out there working; in fact (he said), they should have every piece of road construction in Canada out working on the road we were on.  It was bad, then it got worse, so I guess we shouldn't have complained.

 We stopped for lunch along the shore of the St. Lawrence Bay and Joe and I walked the beach.  And I got to put my toes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence!

 And we found our very first sea glass.  Joe found 3 pieces, and the fourth one he found he showed to me so I could "find it."  But then I finally did find 2-3 pieces on my own.  We ended up with 13 pieces.

But that's not all Joe found.  He came up with lobster trap buoy on the beach, which he carried for a long time, and then he found a nice piece of driftwood that he threw further up on the bank and collected on our way back.  He was quite a sight with his haul.

I, of course, found lots of pretty rocks that I had to collect, and a few shells.  More things to try to store for the return trip.


And Joe also found a lovely, dead crab, which thankfully we left right there on the beach!

We continued on our way into the Kouchibouguac National Park about 1:40 p.m., and that is where the road got worse.  Every few feet was a strip of torn up roadway where they were putting in new culverts.  Then we got to the part where the entire road was torn up and we drove on gravel.  It was all bumpy and very slow going.  We finally cut over to Hwy 11 at Botictouche and the road improved there -- in fact, this is like an interstate so we were able to finally get up to speed.  We ended up in Shediac, the lobster capital of the world. This lobster sculpture is 35 ft long, 16 ft. high and weighs 90 tonnes (I think that is the same as tons). 

We are definitely in lobster country. The picture we took of the lobster traps are vintage, painted up as decoration, but we saw stacks of real ones just  stacked up again garages for the last two days, and we learned today that lobster season has just started again.  When we stopped for lunch, there were lots of lobster boats out not far off the beach, and they started coming in as we were walking back up to the RV.

We are camped right on an inlet or bay, and after we settled in we went for a short drive through town.  That is where we found the statute of the lobster, but we also found Parlee Beach, a very nice sandy beach with the water claimed to be the warmest north of Virginia.  And it was very pleasant to walk in.

We only drove 120 miles today, but we did get a late start and had slow going most of the day.  It was a brisk 61 degrees when I woke up this morning, and it just warmed up into the mid-70s, so it was a very pleasant day.  We had a side wind though, which was a little more work and probably affected our gas mileage some, but we were off the road about 3:45, and glad of it.

There's a Flintstones sign in the campground we are in here in Shediac that I really need.  I think it would look lovely in my yard at home.  (I don't know what it says but I recognize Fred and Wilma, and that's good enough.)

Continuing Acadia Coastal Drive (8-18-2015)

On the move again today.  We left Bathurst about 9:00, and continued on the Acadian Coastal Drive on Hwy 11, which took us around the Acadian Peninsula.  This road is marked with a symbol of a sea star, representative of the sea and a symbol of the Acadian culture.

About 30 miles up the road, we found the Historic Acadien Village, a compilation of houses and shops representing this area in the 1800s and early 1900s, with people in costume in each building to explain the history of it.  That bad news is that it was a mile and a half walk, with lots of homes and shops, and it was hot and humid.  We spent about 3 hours walking it, and it was all very interesting, but we have seen similar villages like this elsewhere, especially Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan.

Village:

The one thing that didn't occur to us was to put on mosquito repellent.  None of us did, and we all got nailed.  Even inside the homes (which were open air) the mosquitos were bad. 

Gardens were in evidence outside several homes, as well as fields of grain and we saw a small field of flax seed planted between two of the homes.  Also farm animals were around:  pigs, white turkeys, cattle, sheep, we didn't see any horses or oxen though. 

Some of the ladies were "working," spinning wool into cotton, flaxseed into linen, and was was knitting a sock.  Many of the homes had spinning wheels set up either in the front room, or in the bedroom if they had bedrooms.  The earlier homes only had one or two rooms, and everyone slept in the same room, usually on the floor -- sometimes there was one bed for the parents, or in one case, the grandparents, and these were pretty large families -- 6-8 kids were pretty common.

And there were all the other typical buildings:  General Store, Church, School, Grist Mill.  Shops included a blacksmith, cobbler and tinsmith.   There were a couple general stores, with some "period" items on display.  One "clerk" told us they would offer credit for essentials, but you couldn't buy dishes on credit because they were not a necessity. 

Something we had not seen before was a Fold-out beggar bed.  This was a long bench in the front room that folded out and had a small bed (probably a straw mattress) inside.  They had this to offer to roaming beggars because there was never anything else to give them -- but a place to sleep and a slice of bread and butter was all the help they could offer, and it was appreciated.


We crossed a covered bridge to cross from the 1800s into the 1900s.  This is where the gas station, hotel, and railway station were, as well as the tinsmith and cobbler.

Once we finished our tour, we fixed a quick lunch in the RVs and headed on around the peninsula.  Today's drive wasn't as interesting as yesterdays, but the road was better, and we were all glad to find our campground.  Our walk in the Village wore us out.  Just before we reached our campground in Lower Newcastle, just outside Miramichi, we had a few raindrops, but it stopped when we went into the office to check in.  Joe stayed out, unhooking our car, and it started pouring, so he ran in and got umbrellas to keep us women dry.  We gave Marilyn one, and he escorted me to the car with his big, manly umbrella.  However, he left me there while he drove the RV to our spot, so I was stranded.  But not to worry, we happened to have ponchos in the glove compartment, so I was able to get back to the RV and remain fairly dry.

 I immediately laid down to take a nap.  Joe waited out the rain, then went out to hook up our services, and even wiped down the car which had gotten a lot of road tar on the front yesterday.  Marilyn came over about 5:45, so we got ready to head into town for pizza (my idea).  She had read in the literature that there was street music here, so we got directions at the pizza shop and drove there to enjoy that for about an hour (until we froze out -- who knew we would need jackets!)  She even got Collins out on the dance floor.  This was all right along the water, so there was a nice view and some shops.

Joe and Collins got ice cream cones to share with us ladies, and there was a gift shop here with some of the sea glass that I have been looking forward to finding.  So I bought a little (very little) pouch of it for $3.00.  You can see from the pen in the picture how big the pouch was.  But at least I have some sea glass if I don't find any on my own.

 

Our final stop was the grocery store, which is always an excursion.  It takes lots of circles inside the store to find everything on our lists, so by the time we got out of there and back to the campground it was almost 9:00.  A long day. Our campground is nice, grassy, right on an inlet of the bay.  We are about 10 miles out of Miramichi.  We only drove 114 miles today, with our 3-hour stop at the Village, but that was enough for today.  We found fuel for $1.095 ($3.316 U.S. I think) so we were glad to see it had dropped a little.  Since you have to convert the price by a multiple of 3.785, a one-cent different adds up quickly.

Leaving Quebec (8/17/2015)

Today was a good day.  A little warm, but we drove through pretty scenery all day long, and the roads, until the last part, weren't too bad.  Somehow we got an early start, 8:35.  It was pretty warm when we started out, and was hot and humid by the end of the day.  However, as we drove along the river in the pretty little town of Rimouski, where the St. Lawrence River widens into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the air was nice and cool and we had our windows down.  We stayed with the 132 South at the split, and followed it to where we crossed the river into New Brunswick (at 1:40 p.m.), then we took the scenic 134 to Bathurst.

We had to fuel up again this morning, so today's price was $1.194/liter (I figured that to be $3.615/gallon).  But when we got further east, the price was down to $1.09 where we camped so we are hoping for better days ahead.

As we drove through the last part of Quebec, we passed lots of big fields green with wheat or other grains, and lots of huge farms, usually well kept and in good shape.  Many had blue or red roofs on all the outbuildings, and you could spot them a long way off.

Collins led today, so Marilyn was our "spotter" which allowed me to capture some interesting pictures that I probably would not have been able to get without her "heads up."  (Actually, it was "get your camera ready.")  The first was a field of buffalo!!  Since we are not seeing any wildlife, we were very excited to see our friends, the buffs.  I even moved our buffalo out of the mix of our traveling zoo and gave him front and center privileges.

I was hoping that would challenge some of our other zoo animals to bring their live counterparts out of the woods (like a moose), but it did not have any impact at all.  However, the next exciting thing Marilyn spotted was this flock of sheep and its shepherd on the hillside just as we turned south on 134.

Church steeples dot the landscape and we are greeted by a church in every little town we go through.  Some of these churches are really beautiful.  In one cemetery, there was a charming little chapel right among the gravestones.  We see lots of interesting things as we travel, especially on days like this when we are going through countrysides rather than big cities, which we much prefer.

And I got a great picture of Collins passing on a double yellow line!!!!!

Granted, it was a "slow moving vehicle" and we followed him, but I got evidence on him!  I'm sure this will come in handy at some future date.

We had a very nice lunch spot right along Lake Matapedia.  I think this became Matapedia River and we followed and criss-crossed it for several miles.  Very shallow but the water was crystal clear and very scenic.

While we were parked here, Joe took the opportunity to take a photo of the windshield where the rock hit it yesterday.   It's right below the roof on the driver's side, not quite in the middle of his side of the windshield.

We also have seen several "Dixie Lee Restaurants" through here -- maybe they started showing up in New Brunswick.  And Marilyn picked out a car (yellow) and a house that she thought she could live it -- it overlooks a river in the backyard.

We left the farming country and got into the mountains (you can see them behind the house), and we went past several lumberyards and met a few trucks loaded with lumber.  We passed one huge lumberyard and Collins said they made toothpicks there.  Joe replied that they must have been for Big Foot.

Marilyn "spotted" a covered bridge so I got a good photo of that.  We followed this pretty Matapedia River for miles and miles, saw some boaters out there but the water is pretty shallow.  One guy was standing up with a paddle moving along, maybe called a "punt," looked like a canoe except it was longer.  Might be called "poling a canoe."  (Joe did a little research for me.)   I didn't get a good picture of that, though.

The mountains here were lovely, with this river at the base.  We

 We crossed the province boundary into New Brunswick (where most signs are bilingual and most people speak English).  This is also part of the Appalachian Route.

" As part of the NB Trail system, the International Appalachian Trail (IAT) enters New Brunswick at the border of Fort Fairfield, Maine and Perth Andover. It tracks northeast through Mount Carleton Provincial Park and up and over the highest point in the Maritimes. The trail then leads north to Tide Head and crosses into Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula at Matapédia."

Shortly after we crossed the river, we found a visitors center in Campbellton and stopped there to pick up some maps.  The lady there was very helpful and loaded both Marilyn and me down with a bag full of brochures and maps for New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia.  From there, we headed down the "Acadian Coastal Drive" right on the pretty Chaleur Bay.  The tide must have been out because we saw lots of wet areas of land, and lots of outcroppings of rocks.  Some people were walking around on the beach and we came through one area where it did look like a real beach.  However, this is where the road deteriorated, so we bumped along to our campground in Bathurst.  We lot an hour due to time change when we crossed into New Brunswick, which was a surprise to me (Marilyn advised me of this first thing this morning.)  Marilyn also told me something I never knew -- Newfoundland is 1/2 hour faster than New Brunswick because it is too far east to be in the same time zone but not far enough to be an entire hour ahead, so they made it a half-hour difference.  Learn something new every day!

With the time change and the bumpy road slowing us down the last couple of hours, we didn't get to our campground (Sunset Berry Patch, Bathurst, N.B.) until 5:50, so we were all ready to be done for the day.  However, after dinner, we played a couple of hands of cards, then Joe and Collins went out and "patched" the windshield with some tape to try to keep it from getting worse.  While I was fixing dinner, I blew the breaker at our campsite, so that delayed supper a bit -- I was trying to not heat up the RV, so I was using the George Forman and the microwave, and Joe had both air conditioners going, which was just too much pull.  Fortunately, the campsite was set up so that he could plug in to an electric box on the other side, so we were soon back in business.  I usually watch how much amps we are pulling, but I just forgot that tonight in my effort to keep the RV cool.  Oh well, live and learn.  We didn't suffer any damage and I think the campground will just have to reset a breaker (at least, I hope that's all that will be necessary.)

We drove 227 miles today, finally left that French-speaking province of Quebec, so we are looking forward to the adventures of the next few days in this part of Canada.