Our Maritime Adventure
LACKADAISICAL implies a carefree indifference marked by half-hearted efforts.
Yep, that has been me. Today is August 1st, and I am just getting around to telling our story about our Maritime Adventures. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to be on top of my writing, but the truth is, I’ve been enjoying the moments and the beauty we have been witnessing, that it just hasn’t felt that important. I’ve wanted to be in the moment.
And guess what- it’s all okay.
So, bienvenue!
We left Lubec, Maine and headed to the Canadian border of the first Maritime Province we will visit. New Brunswick, Canada. We crossed the border with no problems and headed to Hopewell Cape. This place is most known for the Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park.
At the Hopewell Rocks Ocean Tidal Exploration Site in New Brunswick, Canada, the Flowerpot Rocks are rock formations formed by tidal erosion. They are 40 to 70 feet tall. Located on the shores of the upper reaches of the Bay of Fundy at Hopewell Cape, the formations are covered in water twice a day due to the extreme tidal range. However, at low tide, the formations can be viewed from ground level. We visited at 9:30 a.m. and Buddy relished playing in the mud on the ocean floor. We returned six hours later to witness the high tide, which rose 35 feet and submerged the area we had walked on earlier.
These two pictures are taken from the same location. The first one is in the morning when the tide was out. The second picture was in the afternoon at high tide. It was very impressive.
Our next stop, Prince Edward Island.
In planning our Maritime adventure, it was imperative that we get to Prince Edward Island, PEI for short.
Jim has fond memories of his childhood past here, where his father was born and raised by his parents who immigrated from Ireland and became potato farmers. I had done some research on Jim’s ancestors and found a long lineage of O’Connells who spent their lives on PEI. It was very interesting and Jim was so happy to know that I had found the church where his father was baptized and the resting place of his great grandparents.
Jim had visited PEI with his family when he was young, and was definitely excited to see the places he once shared family vacations.
Getting to PEI from New Brunswick was a short two and a half hour drive. But, …
We pulled over, about a hour into the journey, so both boys could go potty. Luckily we stopped at a gas station. And just like that, the thing I’ve been holding my breath about for the entire trip thus far came true. The RV died. It would not move, and the air brakes had a huge leak. We were broke down.
I panicked, and of course Jim told me it would all be ok. We were safe and off the road. Thank you God.
We needed a mechanic. Now let me tell you, we were in the middle of nowhere. We were in Canada, and there is not a Pep Boys around the corner or down the street. Plus, that wouldn’t have helped any way! Our motorhome is a beast, and you need trained diesel mechanics to work on it for any problem you might encounter.
I went into the gas station and asked the lady if she had any leads on a mobile mechanic. She gave me a number. I also called Coachnet, which is the equivalent to Triple A for RVs. It is a must have. We used them when we got a flat tire on our last adventure. They take awhile to get to you, and being as though we were in Canada, I just knew it was going to take awhile for them to find us help. They told us they would try to find us help, but also said they would be looking for a tow company if we need that too. Ugh.
Jim called the number the lady in the gas station gave us. Turned out he was a car mechanic and couldn’t help, but gave us the number of another guy who turned out to be our knight in shining armor. About 2 hours later the mechanic showed up and diagnosed the problem as an air brake valve gone bad. He did not have the part on his truck and had to return to his shop to see if they had one there. If not, it would have to be ordered. This is where I had to get into Acceptance and count my blessings that we were safe, and we have a generator for electricity. We could basically spend the night in this gas station and be ok. Phew.
Another few hours passed and another mechanic came with the part we needed. He was awesome and got us up and running. I was so relieved and so grateful. In total we were in that parking lot for 9 hours. I had called the rv park we were going to on several occasions to keep them updated on our progress. It was dark by the time we got out of there. We had a hour long drive to the campground, and both of us were still reeling from our day. We traveled over the Confederation Bridge. The Confederations Bridge is a world engineering feat. It connects New Brunswick to PEI over the Northumberland Strait in the southern part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. At 8 miles long it is the longest bridge in the world.
We crossed in the dark of night and made our way to the campsite where the owner waited up for us and delivered us safely to our site.
I’m going to stop here.
Some things are not in my control and unfortunately this whole trip came to a screeching halt. I stated in the first sentence of this post that I had been “lackadaisical “. I did not keep up on our beautiful trip to the Maritimes as it was happening. So, today, as I write, it is actually November 9,2024. At this point in life, our summer trip is a distant memory.
On September 6, 2024, Hurricane Debby ripped and roared through our home, bringing massive amounts of rain which flooded our home in Osprey. We were in New Brunswick Canada, just 2 days from entering back into the United States to make our way back home. I will talk more about this after I give the short version of our beautiful trip through PEI and Nova Scotia.
We had a great time in PEI. We visited the homeland of Anne of Green Gables, where green hills and ocean views are a stunning reminder of how good God is. Around every corner, the landscape made me think of a picture postcard.
Jim enjoyed a fishing trip for his birthday, which took him out in The St. Lawrence Bay. He had a great day.
The research I had done, delving into Jim’s family tree and heritage paid off in a humbling experience for Jim. I reveled in the emotions of this day as I watched, with joy, my husband pay respect to his father and family.
We ate amazing seafood dishes at local eateries and went to a few tourist attractions like the Bottle House and the Potato Museum. We relaxed at our campsite, endured a few rainstorms and ultimately ended our time in PEI on a ferry boat which took us on our journey into Nova Scotia.
We had a great time in Nova Scotia. We explored, we ate a lot of Mussels and enjoyed driving to the small little provinces. We pretty much covered the entirety of Nova Scotia in a few weeks. I took many pictures and the memories will last us a lifetime.
As stated earlier, our trip came to a halt just as we were about to enter back into the USA. We got news of the flood to our house while we were in New Brunswick, so we made the decision to cut our trip short and head for home. We had to wait in New York for a few days, as the remnants of Hurricane Debbie needed to pass us by. We drove home in 6 days so we could be there to oversee the destruction of our home. We had hired a company to rip out all the walls to prevent mold. We made a reservation at a RV park in Sarasota for a month which would be our home base since we could not live in the house.
Today, as I write, it is November 19, and we are still in Sarasota at the rv park. We have made some pretty solid plans which include moving out of the state of Florida and going home to California for the time being. More on this to come, but, we both are confident in our decision and are excited about this next part of our journey in life
These pictures below are a fraction of all the beautiful pictures I took on our PEI/Nova Scotia summer adventure.
My blog site did some sort of upgrade over the past month or so and it won’t let me make blocks of pictures anymore. Why can’t people just leave well enough alone😂
I hope you come along with us as we navigate living in our RV full time, selling our home, and moving on to California.
If not now-then when ❤️
PHOTO DUMP
