Bay of Fundy
Ordinarily, my first travel rule is: "No place colder and wetter than where I live." But this summer, with a rare opportunity to spend sometime with my dear friend and his wife, we made and exception
and went Downeast. Way Downeast ... to Atlantic Canada and the Bay of Fundy.
Yes, it was cold and wet - at least for the first day but it was all the more glorious when the sun came out
on Day Two.
But first, there was the ride to St. Martin, New Brunswick, our destination - two plus hours from home.
This was my
first road trip with my friend in about 40 years when we saw most of America through the windshield of my newly minted VW (which my friend drove onto a rock - but that's another travelogue).
One
of the best parts of any road trip (it's never the comfort or the food is it?) is the "local color". Encounters with the people along the way. The gas station attendant's, the waitresses - all the people who call "home" what you call an "adventure".
Not too far along, at the edge of The Great North Woods, we stopped for a second breakfast. The food was fairly standard roadside eggs and potatoes but the decor of the gas station/rustic
restaurant included an enlightening and cautionary tale of the dangers of highway travel in those parts. A poster mapped out the hot spots for vehicle-moose smash-ups in Maine. Our path to Canada was a veritable blood alley.
It's always a bad thing to run into a moose. It's the end of things for the moose and given the size and height of the creature and how they have a tendency to collapse into (and through) the windshield it
is ... well, you get the idea. Thankfully, we had no such encounter.
What we did see was trees, trees and more trees (not a big deal, really, in the most heavily forested state in
the union). New Brunswick (aside from universal health care) is Maine 2.0. Trees, ocean, rusted out trailers with 2 or 3 parts cars in every yard.
But none of this was about the sites.
Granted the Bay of Fundy was dramatic but the trip was largely a great opportunity to see my friend. We even had a bonus visit with another guy from our high school class. He lives in Maine on the border with New Brunswick and we made an
unscheduled stop on the way back. We hadn't seen each other in many decades and I'm glad to report that he seemed to be in exactly the place he wanted to be, doing exactly the things that made him happy. That's quite an achievement.
So, the next time you go to Canada, bring a friend.
P.S. About a month later, Cindy and I went to Bar Harbor. I've been to Bar Harbor and
Acadia National Park hundreds of times and I'm still left speechless. Enjoy the photos.
Gary and Cindy
All text and photos
copyright Gary M. Growe, 2013.