Yesterday (Saturday) we woke up after a night of steady rain. Once again, our trusty little Jayco Baja kept us warm and dry. We had to move to a different campsite with everything soaking wet on the outside, but once the sun came out, all was dry in no time.
About this moving to a different campsite thing... Many of the Canadian campgrounds seem to have a different type of reservation system than we're used to. They assign specific campsites as people make reservations, and much of the time we're reserving sites just by a number, having no idea where it's located or what it looks like. Consequently, unless you have reserved your specific siite months in advance, you get to choose from the fragments that are left...which often means that you change campsites within the same campground several times during your stay. This has happened to us in the last 3 campgrounds. Though we reserved 5 nights, we stayed in 3 different sites. I think it's not so bad if you have a hard side travel trailer. You just hook up and go. But in a pop-up, you have to unhook the propane stove and stow it, pack everything away so you can fold in the tent ends, clamp down the top, raise the stabilizer pads, hitch up the trailer, move it, and undo everything you just did to set up on the other side of the campground. I'm not much of a complainer, but I must admit, this multi-site camping has gotten to be rather inconvenient... And a little tiresome!
But we made the move, once again, and decided on another in-camp day after our all-day trip to Lunenburg the day before. In the afternoon Vivian came over to our new campsite and she and I spent a couple of hours playing mandolin together in the little screen room that Curt and I like to set up when we camp. What fun to learn from one another and teach each other things we have learned!
I put a wonderful stew in the crock pot (our new favorite camping appliance, since it allows us to do other things and return to camp with a hot meal ready!), and we invited Vivian and Dennis over for our last dinner together. It's amazing how much the two couples have in common, and we have SO enjoyed our time with them!
Just as they were leaving, the full moon topped the pine trees. Here's the view from our campsite:
This morning it was pack-up time again. We had several hours to drive to catch the 3-hour ferry from Digby, Nova Scotia to St. John, New Brunswick. The moment we got everything packed up and stepped into the truck, the rain started. We were SO grateful that it hadn't started an hour earlier!
The drive was lovely. The rain receded, and we saw some beautiful farms along the way. Here's one:
These are salmon farms where they cultivate the salmon that we eat that weren't caught in the wild.
We arrived early at the ferry (better to be a couple hours early than one minute late!!!....especially when it only runs twice a day, and you're taking the second one!). So we checked in, then went into the town of Digby to explore a little and have a late lunch. All the streets in Digby were blocked off. Turns out today was their big annual Scallop Fest. So for lunch, of course we had to have the world-famous Digby scallops! It's a picturesque little fishing town...not as tourist oriented as Lunenburg seemed to be, and we liked it better for that.
Here's Digby's Main Street, where they were having a classic auto contest as part of the Scallop Fest:
Back to the ferry to board. Here she is at dock, waiting for us all to drive on:
We spent the three hours on board in several enjoyable pursuits...reading, knitting (me, not Curt), sipping Starbucks tea, watching a film on whale research in the Bay of Fundy, and enjoying the sea air and the view.
Here's our last glimpse of Nova Scotia in the distance,
And our first view of St. John, N.B.
It was funny...though we were the second vehicle on the ferry, we were the very last ones off. They place the vehicles very tightly on the ferry, of course, so they can get more on. They loaded the two pop-up trailers first, against a wall and under an overhang, stacked the cars behind us, and the semis alongside us. As we were getting in our vehicles ready to leave, Curt struck up a conversation with the man driving the car pulling the pop-up trailer ahead of us. His battery had died on the ferry ride. There was nothing we could do but sit behind him until vehicles were off, and they drove a truck back in from the bow of the ferry to give him a jump. We always like to be the last ones at a party!
Now we're settled into our new campground...and we get to stay in the same site all three days that we plan to be here! Hurrah!
This is a unique experience, though. We've never camped in a Municipal Park before. St. John has a lovely 2200 acre park right in the middle of this big, industrial city, and that's where we are. Our campsite overlooks the city...not exactly a wilderness view, but very interesting!
As soon as we finished setting up camp, we looked up and saw the "super moon" in the sky. A little different setting than last night's view...
We've already heard several trains go by (just below us!), and there's lots of traffic noise. But somehow, I don't think it's going to bother us a bit. It's all part of the adventure!
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