Crossing Back into U.S. (8/26/2015)

We got another early start this morning to leave St. John, since we got to see both tides yesterday.  We were on the road about 8:30, heading on Hwy. 1 to St. Stephen, then crossed the border and picked up "Coastal 1" in Maine.  As we drove out of the campground, I took a picture of the best moose we saw in Canada; this one lives right here in this park where we are camped.

As we crossed the River in Saint John, we saw a Carnival cruise ship in port, Splendor we think was the name of it.

It started sprinkling just as we were leaving the campground, and then set in and rained just about all day.  We were going to stop and fuel just before we left Canada to use the last of our Canadian cash, but it was raining and just nasty outside, so we just kept going.  We even had the heater on in the RV.  It stayed in the 60s all day.

We got to the border crossing about 10:15 (9:15 Eastern time).  We didn't have any problems crossing the border, although the guard did board the RV, asked us some questions and looked in the refrigerator and back in the bedroom.  Took about 5 minutes.  I think he just wanted to come in out of the rain.


As we drove through the little town of Mathais, Joe spotted twin waterfalls on his side, so he pulled into a parking lot for us to take a better look.  We were actually looking for a soda stop, but he never found that.  We did see a few other small "roadside" waterfalls along the way, I'm sure due to the rain.

We found a campground about 25 miles from Bar Harbor, right on Frenchman Bay.  We pulled in there at 12:10 EST, got set up, and were in for the afternoon.  Or at least for a while.  I got caught up on the computer now that we are back in the U.S. and I can use my hotspot, then I took a nap.  Joe spent the time on his Notebook, checking out the area.  Once I got up from my nap, we took a little drive (of course).  Our campground, Mountainview Campground, is also an antique store, so we walked around in it and talked to her about extending another night.  We may have to change sites, but she was waiting to hear from someone coming in today so we never did find out.

Finally, we left there and headed out for a short drive.  We didn't take Lucille with us (Joe said, "we didn't have out get out of jail free card with us") so we only went about 10-15 miles in each direction.  We drove back one road that said "Tidal Falls," but I think it was another one of those reversing rapids areas.  We did see some river otters again. 

We also walked the rocky beach, looking for seaglass.   No seaglass, but I picked up another couple of rocks and a few seashells.

 It was misty rainy and very foggy.  On the way back, we stopped at Tracy's Seafood, right next to the campground, for some chowder for dinner (seafood for Joe, corn for me), and by the time we got back to the RV it was so foggy on the Bay that we could hardly see the water.  We were in for the night this time.  Joe defrosted the refrigerator, and I started on this blog.  We may have to turn the furnace on tonight, it's supposed to get down in the 50s.

We are glad to be back in the U.S., where our $$ works, gas comes in gallons, not Liters, and our phones are back to full use.  But Canada was good, and we saw a lot of very interesting places and things.  We enjoyed it and are very happy that we made the trip.

Back to New Brunswick (8/25/2015)

We had a bit of a slow start again this morning, Joe wasn't ready to get up at 7:30, so I took the opportunity to walk the beach again.  Still no sea glass, but I found 2 more rocks I needed.  And I checked to make sure Joe's addition to the cairn survived the night.

I really like this campground.  There is something pretty special about camping at "Seafoam Campground" in a town named "Seafoam."   There are a lot of "seasonals" in here, and the ones on the front row have quite a view.

We got on the road about 9:30, finishing this coastal drive, heading into Amherst, then crossing back into New Brunswick about 11:30.  I did see another eagle this morning.  We had camped one kilometer from a lavendar farm that I thought we might go back to, but it didn't open until 10:00, and we were on our way by then so we missed it.  We skirted around Moncton on Hwy. 2, then picked up Hwy. 1 into Saint John, where we spent the night.  Our destination here was the Reversing Rapids, aka Reversing Falls.  There was a tidal chart in the many brochures we've picked up, and when I found out low tide was at 2:21, we picked up our speed a bit and headed straight for the viewing area for this.  We arrived about 20 minutes late, but we watched the water in the St. John River continue to drain into the bay here.

  Joe had a rock he was using to measuring the changing tide as the water flowed out to the bay.

They offered boat rides on the river, and we watched one circle close to the whirlpools.  We talked to someone later who was on this particular boat, and she said it was a really good tour, and the narrator gave a lot of good information.

We walked across the bridge and viewed the River from the other side.  They had the bridge all torn up so we couldn't see upriver very well, but we stayed about 1 1/2 hours and watched the whirlpools form as the water continued to recede.

We left here and drove to the campground to get checked in.  It was about 4:00 by now, but we had actually gotten to the river about 2:45.  After we got things set up, we went for a drive, first down to the City Market, and then around the harbor where we found 2 ships in port and 3 offshore, either waiting for high tide or for room in the harbor since there were already two ships in.

We stopped back by the RV for a bite to eat, then headed back to the River to watch high tide.  We got there about a hour before high tide, so again Joe kept an eye on his rock.

We also saw some river otters cavorting in the water.  But now, the water that was dumping into the bay heading east when we were here at 3:00, was now heading upriver west or north.  The water level was rapidly moving up on the rock.  I wouldn't call them "reversing falls," but the rapids we had seen at low tide had either disappeared or the water was crashing over them heading the opposite direction.  Quite an amazing phenomonon!  Maybe when the tides are higher at full moon, it is more of a falls than a rapids.

The big rock is almost completely submerged now.

There was another viewing area upriver that we drove over to and watched the tide slow, but we didn't wait around for it to actually stop or reverse.  There were 4 small fishing boats over in front of a paper mill right here at these rapids, and we saw the river otters again, this time chasing fish.

 

One of the locals said that would take another hour or so, and it was pretty chilly out there by now.  So we called it a night and headed back to camp.We caught the sunset here, very pretty.

If all goes well, we should cross the border back into the U.S. tomorrow morning.

Cabot Trail - Day 2 (8/25/2015)

It is now 9:00 a.m. and Joe hasn't made a peep.  We had decided we might push the check-out time and have a sleep-in day, so it looks like that is working for him.  Actually, I woke him up at 10:00 a.m., so we got a late start this morning (11:10), to finish our Cabot Trail drive.  Today we did mountains.  Way, way up, then way, way down.  And we had some fog to begin the day.

We passed a few little waterfalls on this drive through the mountains.

And stopped at one viewing point above a pretty little coastal town.

Here, we saw some wildlife -- our first eagle of the trip.

It actually flew pretty low right over our RV, but I couldn't find it in the camera quick enough to snap a picture. 

We have been seeing lobster traps all week, sometimes stacked pretty high.  I finally got a picture of a few out by the road.

We came off the island and back across the Canso Causeway about 3:00.  We had been looking for a lunch and fuel stop since about 1:00 but could never find a place to park at either, so Joe just kept driving.  We fueled at Auld's Cove, just across the causeway, and had a late lunch here.  Joe decided to check the oil in the RV too, since it had hard pulls today, so that stop took a little over an hour, but we had a nice lunch.

However, just as we got to the causeway, we spotted more wildlife -- a red fox!  Things are looking up (but still no moose).  And just before we stopped for the day, Joe also spotted 2 deer (a momma doe and her fawn) too, so this was our best wildlife day of the trip, I think.

We had watched a dark cloud for a while, and it finally started raining on us, and it rained until just before we stopped for the day at -- are you ready for this -- Seafoam, Nova Scotia.  And the campground is Seafoam Campground.  And it is right on the sea!  It was after 6:00 before we quit driving for the day, and we had the full gambit of weather -- fog, clouds, rain, and finally sun -- just no snow.

 As soon as we got checked in and set up, we put on our rubber shoes and walked down to the sea.  The water was cold at first, but we quickly got used to it.  I picked up a few more rocks, but we couldn't find any seaglass.  Joe found a cairn on top of one of the big rocks, and decided to add to it.

We both walked the rocks, but he actually fell in, halfway. 

It was great just getting to walk the beach, look at the views, and watch some kids on an air mattress (hope it dries by bedtime).

There was even a place to wash the sand off our feet!

This is a lovely, well-kept campground, with tent sites right on the bank above the water.  A nice play area and playground for the kids.  And they sell ice cream at the office! We walked up to the office for ice cream cones (that was our dinner) and saw a beautiful sunset!  What a nice end to the day.

Day One on Cabot Trail (8/23/2015)

Today was one of those days.  A missed turn and a mis-adventure made it a pretty long day.  However, we got an early start -- we were on the road by 8:40, so it must have been those other co-travelers who were holding us back in the mornings!  LOL!  We had decided to "do" the Cabot Trail before we leave this province of Nova Scotia, so we had to go back through the town of Pictou and pick up on 106 (with its bumpy roads) and pick up 104 at the roundabout, then head to the northeast corner of this province.  We stopped at Cape Breton about 10:30 at the Visitor Center and got more information (we are going to have an RV "full" of "information" by the time we get home), then worked our way to where the Cabot Trail begins.  We drove the right side first, then came back down the left side.

 Our next stop was at the Alexander Bell Museum at Beddeck, across the bay from his summer home here.

Bell's Mansion

They had a nice map of this island here.  We are really north!  (We spent the night above the black area.  Meat Cove (where we didn't spend the night) is at the very top, on the left.

Not too long after leaving the Museum, we missed a turn and ended up on the road to the ferry at Englishtown.  We figured out pretty quick that we missed the turn, but there was absolutely no place to turn around, so we thought we would just take the ferry across this bay.  Nope.  When we got to the ferry landing, the loader guy immediately motioned us to stop.  He said there was no way we could load because of the drop onto the ferry (I don't know if that drop varies with the tide, but otherwise, there should have been signs, and even the lady at the Visitor Center suggested we take the ferry).  Anyhow, we had to unhook the car to get turned around.  I think this was a 7-mile jaunt, so 14 miles roundtrip, could have been worse, probably cost us a half hour.  Back on the main road, we continued on our way.  Saw some beautiful scenery, coastal and inland.  This area is mountainous -- who knew!! 

Joe is fascinated by all the little seafood restaurants that spring up just about everywhere.  If he had his way, we would be stopping at every one of them.

We made one roadside stop at a beautiful rocky coastline, waves crashing into the pretty boulders, a couple boats out in the water.  We looked for whales, and Joe thought he might have seen "something" but we couldn't spot it again. 

 

There were pretty rocks that Joe adventured out on.

And of course, I followed.

There was a "mailbox" here, for information I think, that Joe thought might be a good design for a birdhouse.

Before we left here, I called about a campsite for the night, at the very tip of this island, at "Meat Cove."  Yes, they had room, no hook-ups though.  Probably take an hour from where I told her we were.  And by the way, if we needed fuel, we should get it in Cape North.  Ok, we could do all that.

The roads up here are either good, or awful.  Joe hit one pothole he didn't see, and jarred everything, including our bones.  So he eventually pulled off by a little creek or river, and checked to make sure all the parts under the front were still in the right place.

We eventually came to the gates of the Cape Breton Highlands National Park.  To camp inside the park, it would cost about $55.  We thought we wanted to drive on out to that point way up on the northeast end, which is out of the park, so we didn't have to pay anything just to drive through, and the road took us in and out of the park a few times.

But we had nice scenery, inlets, rivers, crossing the causeway, a little fog.

We stopped to fuel the car in South Harbour about 5:00, thinking we would go on an evening Wildlife Viewing Drive in the car once we got camped at Meat Cove.  This is sort of where civilization ends.  But we had pretty coastal views, along with switchbacks and bumpy roads.  And then the pavement ran out and we were on dirt!

The last 4-5 miles were patches of pavement (on the hills) between dirt.  And they must be tearing up every bridge in Canada because we have certainly seen a lot of this.

Before we got all the way to Meat Cove, we were pretty sure this was a mistake.  But again, there was no place to turn around.  We could imagine that we would be the only campers in the campground so no surprise that she had room for us, but would there be a 35-foot level spot?  We climbed the last hill and saw the hillside with tents set up, so we knew we had "arrived," but it didn't look very promising.  We walked around a little, trying to figure out where we could park.  We would actually be renting a picnic table and a fire ring, for $30, no services.  And you sort of find your own piece of grass.

Rugged cliffs off to one side.

Finally, we walked over and talked to the gal.  I told her I should have asked her more questions (like, "is the road paved?")  She didn't seem too concerned, and walked us over to the one spot she thought we could get level in.  She had had a 32-foot camper in the night before (we could see his tracks in the mud), and if we parked exactly where he had (and didn't get stuck), she thought it would work.  As she talked, bugs (mosquitos?) were swarming her head.  This was advertised to have the possibility of whale viewing from the campground, and we were on the coast, on a hill, but I couldn't imagine that we could sit aside with the bugs buzzing around. 

So we opted out, unhooked the car for the second time today, and Joe somehow got turned around.  I drove the car, and he followed me, and we went back out on the same unpaved, bumpy road (now with a little fog) that we had come in on.  I guess we did our Wildlife Viewing Drive on the return trip, although it wasn't as planned.  And we didn't see any wildlife.  We did see some nice scenery though.

I called from here for another campsite, so we went back to where we had fuelded the car, just a little on past that, and ended up at Hide Away Campground and Oyster Market in South Harbour, with electricity.  By now it's 7:00.  They had us go check out a couple of spots to see if we could get in (lots of trees here), so we did that, and picked one.  We asked about restaurants, and were told there were 2, about equal distance but in opposite directions from each other.  One we had just come past.  And if we "hurried," they might still be open. 

Well, that began the next saga.  "Hurry" does not work well with us.  But we tried.  We are really nestled in between the trees.

But the spot is a little downhill, so Joe had to put some boards under the jacks.  When he did that, the steps would not come out.  So we had to mess with that a while.  We finally deduced that the whole rig must be twisted a bit, so he readjusted.  Then the board under the jack slid in the mud, and it fell off that jack, which is not a problem, but a bit jarring.  So I re-set the board, and by trial and error, we got as level as we could with steps still working.  We go a bit downhill, but we made it work.

So we got back in the car and drove up to the first restaurant.  Cars in the parking lot, people inside.  We walked in and waited to be seated.  A young boy was at the cash register, finalizing somebody's bill, but no one came to seat us.  Finally Joe walked up to him and asked if we just seat ourselves.  He told Joe that it was take-out only now, they quit seating at 7:45 (it was 7:47).  So we left.  We drove to the other one, back past the campground turnoff, in the opposite direction as this one.  It was already dark, no cars in the parking lot.  So we went back to the camper, Joe had chili hotdogs (I had one serving of chili in the freezer), and I had scrambled eggs.  By now it was about 8:30.  A long day.

We drove 267 miles (not all positive miles though), bought RV fuel for $1.101/L ($3.33 U.S.), and didn't fall out of bed even though we have a downhill slant.  That does it for today.