Day 33, May 18, First Day in Canada

Today began with a breakfast of scrambled eggs, grits, croissants, and salmon croquettes. We also swept the RV floors, took showers and washed our laundry before, during, and after breakfast. Therefore, we left the Houlton, ME KOA camp with clean bodies, clean laundry, a cleaner kitchen and a cleaner RV. After topping off the gas tank, we got onto I-95 for the very short hop to the Canadian border crossing. Luckily, Doug had thought to check out Canada's current travel requirements. As a result, he found and we had to fill out Canada's ArriveCAN documents, before coming into the country. The documents were our passports, our proof of COVID vaccinations, and our attestations concerning the current state of our health. That was done last night, so that when we reached the border, it only took ten minutes for verifying our document status, before we were allowed to come into the country. Here is a screen shot of the ArriveCAN receipt.

Then we were off, getting our first views of New Brunswick, Canada -- the first of the three eastern Canadian provinces we plan to visit. New Brunswick is physically like northern Maine in its appearance: smaller trees, more aspen trees, thinner, sparser landscapes. One major difference Doug noted was the lack of human habitations and the almost total absence of billboards. Here are some photos from the New Brunswick landscape.

Once we were underway, we had to make a mental adjustment to read and translate the Canadian transportation signs which are in metric units. The location signs are in both French and English, since both are the official languages of Canada. For example, the maximum speed sign was listed as 110Km/hr (kilometers per hour). That translates to 67-68 mph. And many of the road exit signs will read "sortie" (French for exit) and have a 2km notice of the approaching exit. Two kilometers is slightly more than one mile.

After driving for about 1-1/2 hours, we reached Fredericton, which is the capitol city of New Brunswick (although apparently not the most populous. That distinction goes to Moncton.) We found a place to park the RV in downtown Fredericton and then wondered the streets a bit, observing the sights and looking for the right place to grab lunch. (We were late for lunch, because of another adjustment we had to make. Eastern Canada is on Atlantic time, meaning one hour ahead of Atlanta and most of the Eastern U.S. By the time we sat down to eat, it was after 3pm local time, rather than the 2pm we would have thought. Nevertheless, the meal was very good. We both adhered to the new Vegan diet we are trying. I had a Black Bean and Mushroom Burger with a Carrot and Apple Curry soup. Patrise had tofu Red Curry which was very tasty. After lunch, we walked a bit more, looking for a place to get a good blueberry based dessert. However, we had no luck. Most of the food shops had closed by 3pm.

Here are pictures we captured of Downtown Fredericton before and after lunch.

The Bridge over the St. John River.

We got some Canadian funds from a local ATM -- two of our upcoming camping sites only accept cash, which will need to be Canadian monies -- then we returned to the RV and headed out of town for the final push of the day. We had to arrive at the Mohawk RV camp in Youngs Cove, NB, by 5pm, when the office closes. We arrived at 4:59pm. YEAH, us!! After greeting our camp hostess and setting up, we took a walk to the shore of the lake along which the camp is located. The lake is called Grand Lake and it is the largest lake east of the Great Lakes. It is 30 miles long and 6 miles wide. That's certainly grand enough for us.

Here are pictures of the road to Mohawk, the campsite, and Grand Lake.

A partial view of the St. John River in another area close to the exit for our camp.

Our Mohawk RV hostess, Shirley. She and her husband, Brian, run the camp

Patrise sitting on the shore of Grand Lake.

The two love birds on the shore of Grand Lake.

Our wifi access has been spotty today and may be the same over the next 3-4 days. So be patient, if the daily travel entries don't happen in a timely manner. We'll get them up as soon as technology permits us today.

Tomorrow we head for our next camp in Cape Tormentine, New Brunswick. The day after that we will head onto Prince Edward Island, where we will stay in a resort hotel for two days and nights.

Talk to you later!