Maine & Canada, Part 1

From Boston we drove about five hours to the upper part of Maine.  Our campground address says “Trenton, ME” but we seem to be much closer to Ellsworth, ME.  It is very close to Acadia National Parks which was highly recommended!  Even though it was quite late, it was David’s birthday and I wanted to make his favorite meal of Swedish Meatballs and Darn Good Chocolate Cake.  It was the only gift he got.  Pretty terrible considering how much I wanted to celebrate the fabulous man I am married to.  We had a little cold running through the family and I got it, not feeling well for a couple of days.  

Thursday the main plan was to hike the highly recommended Beehive Trail in Acadia National Park.  We got a late start because I had to get the month end tasks finished for Addium.  My friend, Tammy Wallen, had told me that she had waited at the beach while her husband did the hike.  Because of the difficulty of the hike, we decided David & Zina would go to the beach and Myra, Will, and I would do the hike.  The “hike” was a climb up a 450 ft rocky mound. It was  stressful and challenging for me but Myra & Will went up like mountain goats.  We survived the hike and joined David and Zina at the beach.  The beach was very cold but the kids went into the ocean anyway and we ended up with a lot of sand in the car.  David and I celebrated our 17th anniversary by ordering from the tavern in our campground.  

We were supposed to head to Canada on Friday morning but we spent the day waiting for our RV technician to arrive.  We didn’t need to stay while he worked but we did need to greet him and go over the issue.  In the end, it took us most of the day anyway to get the laundry done and packed.  The repair guy didn’t arrive until about 5:40pm.  David oriented him to our slide issue.  We left, grabbed some pizza, and headed to Canada.  We only had a four hour drive but there are always bathroom stops.  I didn’t know that we got another time change so it was almost midnight of Atlantic Daylight time by the time we settled in our AirBnB in Moncton, New Brunswick.

I was the first one up and we needed milk and some other supplies so I headed to the nearest grocery store.  As I parked the truck, a car sped around me and zoomed to park, nearly hitting the car in the spot next to it.  I was only casually observing but when the man got out of the car he said “They still letting you guys across the border?”  I initially thought he was joking and said “sure.”  It became obvious he was not joking and he kept looking back and me saying angry things like “Americans suck.”  It was a little scary.  I wondered if I would come out of the store and find the truck had been keyed. I will put the blame where the blame is due, on the awful comments made by President Trump.  This experience made me really angry at his obnoxiousness. When I got back the girls found a kitty on the back porch!

It was tough getting on the road because of our late night, but we managed to get out of the AirBnB by the 11am checkout time.  We headed out to see the Hopewell Rocks in the Bay of Fundy National Park.  The Bay of Fundy is famous for its tide differentials.  David used to enjoy seeing the difference between when he headed out to his mission area and when they headed home.  We were not on the road where he observed that but we went to the famous Hopewell Rocks that emerge as the tide goes out.  I spent a little time taking a time-lapse photo and it turned out pretty cool.  After observing the emerging rocks we decided to head down the road.  First we went to Sackville, one of David’s areas.  His most memorable moment was bible bashing a local Baptist minister and he had a mental picture of the church and the house next door where the minister lived.  But when we found the church, it did not seem at all familiar to him.  We grabbed some lunch and headed on to our AirBnB in Truro.  David and the kids watched a movie showcasing Paul McCartney music and minimal plot while I got some groceries and made hot cakes for dinner.  

We really had to scramble to get to church, arriving one minute late.  Truro was the last area where David served on his mission and the place of his only baptism.  As fate would have it, they had a Stake Conference last Sunday and so they were having a fast and testimony meeting.  When David got up to bear his testimony and said he had been there 42 years ago several people took notice!  Most of them don’t remember him specifically but they had a good time reminiscing about church in a house (that went back to being a residence once they got the church building built).  I took Zina to primary and was very heartened when I saw the four girls split their group and put a chair in for Zina!.  After Relief Society I found Zina with those girls and they were becoming fast friends!  They had already asked their mom if they could invite us over!  The family was very friendly.  They had a boy Will’s age who came to the car and talked his ear off.  We felt very welcome.  It took David a long time to come to the car.  Turned out he had found the ex-wife of Ray, the man he baptized, Linda.  I finally got the whole story from Linda.  David had taught them both. They had had previous missionaries but David was the one who made the difference for Ray.  She pulled me aside and told me how eternally grateful she was for David.  She told David that Ray was less active but still had faith in his heart.  She said the divorce was very difficult but she was supported by her brothers and sisters in the branch.  David got Ray’s phone number from Linda.  David called but got no answer so he just left a message.  We drove past his old apartment and the old church house but 42 years is long time.  We decided we needed to head to our next stop, Prince Edward Island.  We had gone some distance when Ray called David back.  They had a great conversation.  It was on the speaker so I was listening in.  Ray said he has thought of coming back a number of times but it is hard.  Perhaps David once again can make a difference for him.  

Prince Edward Island is beautiful with its small farms and red soil.  I made a simple dinner of boiled tortellini and ravioli with jarred marinara. Then we watched the 1985 mini-series of Anne of Green Gables to get ready to see the island the next day.

The AirBnB in Charlottetown was a very nice apartment and it took us a long time to get on the road.  We found a local market that Zina wanted to try (we did find her a smoothie) and I found the local tourist information.  The girl there was very helpful and helped us make a plan for our single day.  We headed to Cavendish, the town Avonlea is based on.  First we went to the red sand beach to do some wading and rock skipping.  Then we went to the Green Gables heritage site.  I must say that I enjoyed the Anne series but had never felt a passion to visit PEI.  But, Canada is very proud of this work and the heritage site was very informative.  Green Gables is itor’s cenan actual house, owned by the author’s cousins.  That house has been preserved and the visitors center helped us learn more about L.M. Montgomery.  Someone had made a lego model of Green Gables with additional legos for visitors to build with.  My kids have never been into legos but they played with them for a long time while David and I read all the placards! Then we went to the recommended local restaurant and ate seafood.  It didn’t look much like a restaurant from the outside but the food was really good.  We had a great view of the bay and the ocean from our giant picture window.  David and I shared a sampler that had a hot lobster roll, a fish taco, and a breaded fish.  We also shared a seafood chowder.  The only drawback to the meal was that there was an enormous spider outside our window and Zina stopped being willing to sit in her chair!