July 22, 2007
St. John, NB
Today, we accomplished two things. First, we turned the coach around to be a “drive in” as opposed to a “back in” spot. This way, we have the front window pointed toward the view to the west over the river, and opposed to the campsite across the aisle from us (nothing wrong with the people over there, but the view is nicer over the river). Theoretically, this repositioning was going to allow the DataStorm dish to find a signal as well, but it was not to be. I think we’re too far north and/or east for a signal here, although it does it’s best to search for one. From the PC, I can watch the status of the search. The algorithm locks onto the first satellite it comes to, then calculates where it needs to be after identifying it. This works very well – if it can identify the first thing it “sees”. It kept finding things and rejecting the as “satellite unknown” and searched for over ½ hour. It normally takes 2-3 minutes maximum to lock on, so I stowed the dish for now. The campground office has a Wi-Fi connection (just in the store, not throughout the park), so I’ll try that tomorrow. I’m in “withdrawal”, though!
Our second accomplishment was to drive into St. John. We stopped at the Tim Horton’s on the way for lunch. It was Geri’s first time at Tim’s, so now she’s able to say she’s been there. We backtracked south on NB-177 to NB-7, then east on NB-1 into the city. Fortunately for me, I’d gotten out my little envelope of Canadian money that I started carrying years ago when I traveled north for w*rk. I needed a Loonie (or half of one anyway) to pay the bridge toll to get into the city. The EZ-Pass doesn’t work here – go figure!
We drove around the downtown area, which was pretty deserted on a nice Sunday afternoon, and then headed back west toward the local geographical attraction, the “Reversing Falls”. As the Bay of Fundy is known for the size of its tidal flows (purported to be the largest swing between high and low ocean tides in the world, but who knows), the Reversing Falls is created as the narrows in the St. John River drains and then refills with the tide. As it nears low tide, the “falls” (it looked more like “rapids” to me, but I do understand the marketing side) are full of white water running out into the harbor. About 3½ hours after low tide is the “slack period”, when things begin to reverse. After another hour or so, the rapids reappear, heading in the other direction. It’s quite neat to see.
As the tide came back in, we saw a flock of birds start to congregate, and a harbor seal was playing just below the main rapids. The birds (I asked later and was told they’re cormorants; they look like black ducks) were oblivious to the screaming seagulls trying to chase them away from their nests on the rocks. They gathered on the rocks watching the tide come back in, and took off flying low to the water, barely skimming the surface, until they dove under water looking for dinner (salmon, I was told). They returned up-river flying high, about 300’ up, in “V” formations like geese, gliding along on the wind currants for long distances. In formation, they looked like the jet fighters we see flying over our Arizona house!
After watching the falls reverse, we had dinner in one of the two restaurants overlooking the river. It’s apparently been there since the ‘50s (at least based on the old photographs on the walls), and so was much of the clientele. It was charming to see couples “dressed for dinner” and recognized by name from the wait staff. At one point, we concluded that we were the only ones under 70 years old in the area where we were seated. There was a lot of talk about who’d recently died and how nice (or unique, or well-attended) the funerals were. A pair of matrons came in and made sure the waitress knew they needed their beer right away; our kind of folks!
I ordered the small Caesar salad (it filled a whole dinner plate) and the lobster roll (it didn’t), and Geri had the seafood casserole with scallops, shrimp, and lobster. She won, but the lobster roll wasn’t as bad as it first appeared. Sure, it was pretty weakly loaded, but the meat was all picked from the body; no claw and tail meat was included. For those who know their way around a lobster, body meat is pretty good stuff (second only to the knuckles below the claws in my book) and time-consuming to pick, so an all-body roll is a big plus. The roll was the right type (top-split hot dog roll) and nicely toasted and the lobster was simply dressed with a little bit of mayo, but they layered it on top of that darn iceberg lettuce which overpowered the fresh and delicate taste of the lobster. Overall, a B- score.
After we got home, and walked the pups, Geri fed them and I promptly feel asleep on the couch for a nap. Later, we sat outside and watched another nice sunset (this one wasn’t as nice as last night; fewer interesting clouds for color and shape), but was nice just the same. Even though I’d used the industrial-strength DEET (left over from my trips to India), the bugs were starting to annoy us and the bats weren’t out yet, so we retired to the safety of the coach for a nightcap. Since we’re farther north, the last light of the sunset lasted until just about 10 PM (ADT), which is cool. Just about that time, we heard a freight train heading north toward Fredericton (the Provincial Capitol) on the other side of the river. We both laughed since, in our various travels, we’ve concluded that most RV parks are located near high tension lines and/or major highways and/or train tracks (many times multiples). One interesting exception was the park we stayed at near Bar Harbor, but that was right next to the airport and US Airways turbo-props and private jets flew right by us the whole time we were there.
All in all, it was a superb day. Now, if I can just find a network connection tomorrow…
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