Annapolis to Quebec City

July 4 – warm and sunny, ~800km from home
We arrived in Truro late last night and fell into bed at Scott’s moms house. We got on the road after breakfast and headed for New Brunswick, being sure to sing “Farewell to Nova Scotia” as we crossed the border. In the afternoon we drove the secondary roads along the Saint John River and took a couple hours to tour downtown Fredericton – we walked along the waterfront and the historic district and then went to the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. Although we saw an Emily Carr (not super impressed) and some Canadian paintings we liked, we couldn’t find the Tom Thompson. There were also 3 paintings by Salvador Dali, Christine would have loved it. The most impressive one was a huge number on the theme of the patron saint of Spain helping Jesus ascend to heaven...very trippy with amazing detail in some places and not others, you couldn’t focus on it all at once. Still weird Dali stuff but neat.
We cooked supper in Hartland, NB next to the longest covered bridge in the world and later passed the town with the longest axe in the world (Josie slept right through it). We had to get back on the Trans-Canada so couldn’t stop in Florenceville, the French fry capital of the world and home of the Potato World Museum. Got off the highway near Perth-Andover, NB for the night and, while trying to find an old road to camp on, we saw a family of foxes playing, a porcupine, a Canada goose on a beaver dam, a small black bear and also managed to come to a gate that was the US border. Camped close to the border so got to hear 4th of July fireworks!


July 5 – hot and sunny, ~1250km from home
We got on the road early and stopped in Grand Falls, NB to see the Grand Falls Gorge. We couldn`t find a way down into the gorge but did find some neat trees (yes we had the hand lens out before 9am IDing ash trees). The falls and gorge were enormous, an insane amount of water entering the steep gorge. Despite clear skies, it was misting at the edge of the gorge and everything was dripping wet like it had been raining for a week. Some good rainbows above the falls. After stopping at a farmers market and the grocery store we got on the Trans-Canada towards the Quebec-New Brunswick border. After we hit Riviere-du-Loup we got tired of the highway and took secondary roads along the St. Lawrence – lots of flat farmland sandwiched between the river and the hills. We had some delicious strawberries from a roadside stand with lunch and got back on the highway for about an hour before landing in Quebec City. Finding the campground was an adventure – huge freeways, crazy speeding Quebec drivers, lots of cars and squealing tires (not ours). We ended up making a wrong exit that allowed us to find a much less stressful route to the campground. The campground itself was interesting – it was situated in the suburbs behind a trailer park, and most of the structures seemed to be permanent trailer/cottage combos.
After we were set up we decided to head downtown to see the old city and get in on some of the 400th anniversary celebrations. Thank God the campground had a navette (shuttle) that went straight to the Chateau Frontenac, though even being a passenger was a bit of an adventure. We wandered around the very crowded old city then went outside the wall to Rue St. Jean to visit a chocolate museum (!! after I pestered Scott a bunch) and have supper at a restaurant called The Hobbit. How could we not? The menu was pretty heavy on the elk/duck/deer/etc., but we managed to find a couple of veggie burgers and really nice fries. To our meat loving friends and families, the dishes looked interesting and if you’re in the area you should give it a try. There was a free concert downtown with some Afro-Cuban band, we were exhausted by the time we caught the shuttle back to our campsite.
After driving in the heat it has become apparent that there are 2 kinds of days on this trip – days when we can shower and days when we can’t.