The Beaver Lodge goes International

So after Katahdin Woods and Waters we headed to Canada. The Beaver Lodge crossed on I-95 from Houlton, ME to Woodstock, New Brunswick. Have to say that the border guard was very austere. I guess it's been a long time since I crossed from the United States into Canada but I can remember in the past when they would just smile and wave you through. No longer! We are headed towards Saint John where we intend to spend Canada Day. I have to be honest, I didn't know that the Canadian national holiday was July 1st. Luckily my mom knows everything and she sent a text to let us know that we might want to cross a day earlier than we had planned. It's even more special this year because it's Canada's 150th anniversary. It's one of the reasons that all the national parks in Canada are free this year - and we intend to take full advantage of that.

As we headed into Fredericton to spend the night in the parking lot at Walmart, this was the first moose sign that we saw! Because of this sign I spent the rest of the ride to Walmart with my nose pressed against the window, completely convinced I was going to see a moose on the side of the road. Again to no avail! The signs would make you think that the moose are everywhere, but I have to say it's trickier to see one than you might imagine.

In the morning we woke up fairly early to get on the way to Saint John. We stopped at a visitor center to pick up some information and found out that there was wonderful parking at a place called Station Harbor. It's free all weekend! This sign is right in front of one of the forts on the way into Saint John.

Mike and I were surprised how many patriotic items and signs we saw in St. John. Here is one cute example. The three penguins are actually the marketing symbol for a group that owns many shopping complexes and even they wish us a Happy Canada Day.

As we talked to the locals, our suspicions were confirmed. Normally Canada Day doesn't get anywhere near this patriotic, but because it's the 150th anniversary people have gotten a little Canada-crazy. This of course led me to want Mike to get decked out! He was not so thrilled with the idea ☹ Unfortunately my influence only goes so far and does not extend to having flags shoved in the back of one's hat.

But it does extend far enough that we can get a piece of patriot cake, and pose next to the stage where the Mayor gave the opening ceremony speech. Note who got lucky with the white icing 🎂. Also New Brunswick seems to be quite a melting pot; they had children doing ceremonial dances from their native cultures. I was impressed by how many different types there were. From the Middle East, South-East Asia, as well as all over Europe.

This is the stage that was found in Market Square. It's where the cultural dancing took place and is right across from the New Brunswick museum that we visited. It was interesting that this small museum was inside what we would call a mall.

It had three floors, the bottom of which showed the history of the people and industries in New Brunswick. The next floor up had the history of the world as well as marine and mammal fossils.

The top floor is an art museum. It is largely dedicated to local New Brunswick artists. This was very exciting because it meant that I didn't know any of them. It's very rare when I can walk through room after room, after room, of paintings and not know a single artist.

Next we moved on to Saint John City market. The roof of the building is the old hull of a ship so the entire thing is extremely picturesque. For those of you from the Philly area, it strongly reminded me of a small version of Reading Terminal Market. We considered having dinner here but decided to move on as there were very few places to sit.

When we got back to Station Harbor, Mike was nervous to park because all of the other camper vans had moved on. Also on the way here we knew that the van was having issues and Mike wanted a safe place to work on it so we went to the Super Walmart outside St. John and this is what we found...

As you can see, a rodent of some kind chewed our wires!!! So we replaced the ignition wires and the spark plugs... It helped but did not fix the issue. Because it is Sunday not a lot is open.... we took it to Canadian Tire to have it looked at and they need to get us a part...

So it is back to Walmart for the evening. You can see that we are in a good RV community here.

So there are more issues with the van than we thought and we need to replace the axle.

In the meantime we thought we would make hay while the sun shines... and by that I mean we thought that we might go and do laundry and take a shower. We got really lucky and ended up at the Rockway RV park. They are kind enough to let people who aren't staying use their laundry facilities. We just decided to help ourselves to a shower and to a van water fill-up. At least whenever the Beaver Lodge is finished we will be ready to go.

Right next to the bathroom when we were doing laundry Mike spotted this guy, a Polyphemus moth, Antheraea polyphemus. This is a male moth, you can tell this by looking at its antenna which are fuzzier than his female counterpart. If you want to know about his biological advances, see YouTube .

After the news about the axle we went into Wal-Mart and Mike spotted the Pretzel Rolls. He loves them and we used them in our picnic dinner shown. I have to say some people look at us oddly, and others stop to talk. A man, who seemed to think himself in position of slightly mystical powers because he was the 7th son of a 7th son, told Mike that his aura was very bright so he must be very happy. He then offered us money for a coffee, told us he would light a candle for us at Mass on Sunday, informed us that there would be fireworks at 10:00 and then meandered off after telling us how sorry he was about our presidential troubles... I have to say a lot of people here tell us how sorry they are for us and our political situation.

Later that evening one of our RV neighbors invited us over for a drink and a snack... never did I think I would make social connections at Walmart.

In the morning we went back to find the Beaver Lodge like this...

One more day to wait for a part and we could not sleep in it on Tuesday night so it is off to a hotel for us after touring Downtown St. John. There is an amazing phenomenon in St. John called Reversing Rapids. You can hear my explanation about it here on YouTube .

Next we walked through the historic section of town and went on several church tours. This one is Trinity Anglican Church and it has a great collection of New Brunswick regiment flags flying in the nave.

Then it was off to the Vegas Hotel to sleep, work on the webpage, and sign Mike up for healthcare. In the morning we had breakfast and went to Fort Howe.

Fort Howe was built by the British during the American Revolution. This was shortly after the 1777 American Siege of Saint John. It was designed to protect Saint John from further American raids.