New Brunswick

July 7th - Travel Day from Cap-au-os to Percé, Gaspé. Easy day…only 62.4 miles. We got to sleep in a little today as the travel briefing started at 9:00 and we didn’t have to leave until noon. The scenery was again spectacular as we travelled along the coastline. We got to the park about 2:00 and got all set up. One guest broke a window shade so Claudia and I re-strung it for them and then went to town to send out last week’s blog. We returned at 5:00 for a social. The scenery here is spectacular.

The view from the RV park

As we are parked, we look out on two islands, one of which has a hole completely through it.

Tomorrow, we go on cruise around the bay, the “holey” island and the other island, inhabited by a few people and a whole bunch of gannets (birds).

Birds, we saw! Everyone left the park about 8:30, parked downtown at the boat company parking lot and went in to watch a movie on the various birds that live on Bonaventure Island. We then got on the boat and did a tour of Pierced Rock and Bonaventure. We then landed on the island where we had a really enthusiastic park ranger give us an hour-long presentation on living and working on the island many years ago, even before I was born.

After the presentation, we returned to the mainland and did a little shopping. Actually, we did a little “looking” as opposed to actual “shopping” except when we got to the bakery. There, we picked up a small baguette and a few pastries, including an outstanding chocolate éclair. Barry and I then made a run to the gas station down the road and filled our propane bottles. We are going to fill up tomorrow and should take around 100 gallons. The price here is $1.579 a liter. Figuring 3.78 liters to a gallon, we ought to put about 378 to 400 liters into our fuel tank. That is going to shoot the hell out of a $600 bill! Damn I love these high fuel prices…NOT! Claudia and I then dug all the lobster meat out of our three bugs, washed the muck off “Godzilla” and repaired a few open spots in the window and door screens. Now those sneaky varmint mosquitoes will have a more difficult time getting at out sweet little bodies. We have a travel briefing, bonfire and dessert party tonight to prepare for tomorrow’s 258-mile jaunt to Caraquet, New Brunswick where they actually speak ENGLISH! It has been a little “interesting” trying to figure out some of the road signs so far. We should do much better from now on.

We are now in New Brunswick and the signs have both English and French. I found out that some of New Brunswick still has French influence and French is spoken but things are improving. After washing the car and the rig and getting them both sparkling clean and shiny, it rained and all our work was for naught. We are in our site and it is pouring…a definite toad choker! The lightning knocked the TV out temporarily and then we couldn’t get a signal due to the heavy rain but after a half hour or so, the rain let up and the satellite locked in again. Tomorrow we are headed for the Acadian Historic Village…weather permitting.

The weather held! It is cloudy and sort of “iffy” but not looking like rain. Maybe a little, but not much. I did a repair on a side window. We were getting water inside during the rain yesterday so I took the frame partially apart. There are “weep holes” to let the water out of the frame but they stuck in some thin foam inside the frame, for what reason I know not, My guess it that it’s to stop bugs from entering. What it was doing was stopping the water from getting out. I removed the foam and that should do it…I hope.

After my ingenious repair job, we left for the Acadian Historic Village, about 8 miles back down the road. It is a historical village that typifies the buildings of the 1700 and 1800’s. Some buildings were reproductions, but most were brought from their original locations, reassembled and restored. Every building had a person inside in period costume to tell us all about the building and what they did. The first building was the bakery.

Every day, she bakes up a bunch of bread in a real outside wood-burning oven. The flour comes from the grist mill on site. The mill is all original and was purchased in Toronto for $400 when the building was originally built. It is totally operational and they do demonstrations every few hours. The bread is used at the two restaurants on the property.

They make their own clothes and things from wool and flax that is produced right there in the village. In one home, we had a demonstration on combing and spinning wool yarn.

In another, the demonstration was on making yarn out of flax and how to weave it into cloth.

Both were outstanding and really interesting. They had a blacksmith shop

where the smith made square nails for souvenirs, a wood-working shop where the smith made buckets

and a man that made wooden shingles using a drawknife.

Since it was about noon-thirty, we went into the restaurant and had a bowl of pea soup and bread pudding for lunch. The soup was just as good as mine and the bread pudding was just plain outstanding. We picked up a few souvenirs as we left and came back to the RV park. We need to rest up in preparation for tonight’s lobster dinner.

Well, Mark (our trainee) came through. We had nine bugs that weighed out about 25 pounds. We all kicked in for an outstanding lobster pot luck dinner. As Barry and I fired up the hot water, Mother Nature fired up the cold water. We had several bouts of heavy rain but then it cleared. All the bugs were cooked perfectly and we all sat down to two picnic tables full of salad, clam chowder, bread, miscellaneous side dishes, several bottles of good wine and the “guests of honor”. All of us did ourselves proud. After the dinner, we all needed to throw our clothes in the wash pile and jump into a good hot shower. It was a wonderful night. We will sleep well tonight. Tomorrow…Prince Edward Island.