Tuesday, July 7 - Hamilton, MA
The Canada trip is completed and this is the final journal entry. I have several web albums to share with this entry, so be sure to check them out at the end.
We departed our campground in Gaspe on Friday morning in fog, under cloudy skies. As we made our way up to the northern coast of the Gaspe Peninsula, we encountered more rain and road construction (and mud!). However, later on in the morning the sun actually put in an appearance and the skies were bright blue. Unfortunately, the ground-level fog hung around to spoil our picture taking. We hope that you will be able to get some idea of the beauty and magnificence of this place from our pictures, despite the fog. We made a quick stop about mid-morning so Charlie could add oil to his engine. While there, K took photos of the churchyard and church, in whose parking lot we had pulled over. I also attempted to photograph my coach and Charlie's car, just to give you an idea of how dirty they got!
We made another stop for lunch in St. Anne des Monts, where we parked in a school lot in front of signs indicating that parking was for "Students Only". Of course, since the signs were in French, we ignored them. Charlie and I went down to a Subway shop in town to get sandwiches. Unfortunately, the shop employees only spoke French, so ordering lunch was an experience. The best part of ordering lunch at a Subway shop is that you can POINT AT what you want, and they will understand. The only part we really had trouble with was that we wanted OIL and VINEGAR on our sandwiches. I had no idea how to say OIL and VINEGAR in French. We were not able to point to these items, since they were not sitting out with the other dressings. In fact, what we now know is that they DO NOT even HAVE OIL and VINEGAR in their shops. We ended up settling for Italian dressing, because that was easy to tell them.
After lunch, we continued on and stopped again in Matane, which is a rather large city along the northern coast. We had hoped to reach Matane in time for lunch, but with the rain and construction along the way, we had to stop earlier. While in Matane, we stopped to fuel up so that we would have enough fuel to reach the States, since we would be spending one more night in Canada, at Rimouski, in a WalMart parking lot.
On Saturday morning, we departed Rimouski and headed for Maine. We stopped at the Visitor Information Center as we entered the Province of New Brunswick to ask where the best point to enter the US was. We were advised to travel down TransCanadian Highway 2 and cross into the US at Houlton, ME, where Canada Rte 95 meets I-95 in ME.
Turns out that that was very good advice, since our other choice was to travel from Van Buren, ME to Houlton on Rte 1, through desolate wilderness for most of the trip. The border crossing was uneventful. While one guard asked us the perfunctory questions, three others walked all around the coach with a mirror, which they used to look up under our coach for "stowaways". After their inspection, the guard who ws asking us questions asked the three other guards if they wanted to go into our coach to inspect further. One of the guards replied, "No. We're all set. They don't look the type, anyway."! So we were sent on our way. We stopped in Houlton to fill our tanks with CHEAP AMERICAN diesel fuel before continuing on our way down to Bangor, where we spent the night in another WalMart parking lot. We also went out to dinner, since this would be our last night together on the road. Where we had stopped in Bangor, there were many great restaurants to choose from. After some consideration, we decided to go to the Longhorn Steakhouse. We were pleasantly surprised at the good selections their menu offered. And the prices were reasonable.
On Sunday morning, we departed Bangor and headed for Portland, where we stopped to empty our holding tanks and have lunch. From there, we headed to Seabrook, NH for a last fuel stop, then we parted company. Kathy and I came home, while Charlie and Kathy Burch headed to Merrimack, MA to visit friends George and Leah Desmet.
Our next adventure will be later this month, as we travel down to Nashville for our anniversary. We will leave Hamilton on Monday, July 27. We will stay in Nashville until Monday morning, August 3. We are hopeful that we will get lots of interesting photos while we are there, so be sure to follow us on that journey. Mark the dates on your calendar.
Here are the links to final the web albums from the Canada trip:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay12TravelingToGaspe?authkey=Gv1sRgCP6TiI-J9LbByAE&feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay13ToGaspePQ?authkey=Gv1sRgCMrrgfGV3dCboAE&feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaTheFinalDaysTheGaspePeninsulaBackToTheUSA?authkey=Gv1sRgCOKO76y6hMrspwE&feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaTheFinalDaysGaspePartII?authkey=Gv1sRgCOywnLS_gOqRXQ&feat=directlink
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2 comments:
Hi Chuck and K,
Larry and I felt like we were right there with you the whole time on your travels to Canada...loved viewing the pics and comments. Great JOB!!!
JOY and Larry
Joy & Larry:
Thanks for following along with us. We had a great time with the Burch's in Canada. Too bad the weather was not better - the pictures would have been FANTASTIC!
Best part of the trip had to be our "Lobster Feast" on PEI - the weather that day was perfect and the lobsters were fresh and delicious!
See you in Florida in the fall!
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