The Rapid Pace Continues
In one week we have traveled from New York through Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, New Brunswick and we are now just outside the city of Quebec. We have visited Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor. The weather was cloudy and threatening rain but we never got more than a light sprinkle. The view from Cadillac Mountain always amazes me. From Ellsworth to Calais we took a different route than in past trips and this rewarded us with new and interesting scenery.
In New Brunswick we stayed on Grand Manan, visiting friends and went on several whale watching trips. With very calm seas, we were able to see quite a few North Atlantic Right Whales. The folks at Whales-n-Sails on Grand Manan really know their whales and were able to get us quite close to them without disturbing the whales.
We traveled north from the ferry landing at Black's Harbor to St. John and then on to Fredericton and Edmundston in New Brunswick. Like the roads in Maine, this was new territory for us. The whole trip is along the St. John River and the scenery is quite spectacular. It is always a pleasant surprise to find wonderful scenery when traveling from one place to another on schedule. It makes the trip so much more interesting.
From Edmundston we continued north into Quebec Province. Every mile brought more signs of the French culture. When we crossed the border into Quebec, the English language disappeared. Given a little time, I can usually figure out what the French signs say but at highway speeds sometimes that isn't good enough. We managed to stay on the correct route but it took some mental work. Louise helps a lot, she is much stronger with languages than me.
Reaching the St. Lawrence Bay, we took the smaller highway 132 southwest for a better look at the bay, the wonderful small communities, and rich variety of beautiful and unique homes. Unfortunately, there are very few places to stop with a motor home along this route and if you are looking for space to park two motor homes it is even more difficult. At one stop, we pretty much blocked off the entrance to an ice cream shop. A motorist stopped and walked back to take a picture of our two motor homes at that location. There aren't many motor homes even in the RV parks here. All of Quebec seems to be on vacation, just as the French do in Europe, August is vacation time. We saw numerous garage sales and flea markets. The RV parks were full and there was no indication anyone was going home on Sunday afternoon!
We've passed up many interesting places on this trip. Our pace doesn't let us delay for long. We'll return to see more of the area in the future. For now, we're just glad to be able to keep the wheels turning!
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