August 7, 2014 (108th Day)

Both of us kept waking up during the night cause we did not want to oversleep and miss the ferry. We were up and ready at 6 am.  The sky was cloudy and fog was hanging over the area.

We walked over to the terminal to pick up boarding tickets and propane sticker (this is to let the ferry worker know that the propane in our camper van is turned off before boarding the ferry).  We were assigned to lane #7 (Edith's favorite number).

That was where we parked overnight

Excitement arose within us when the ferry left the dock at 8:10 am.  After getting out of the van and going up to the lobby we did not know that we were not allowed to come down to the van during the sailing.  We were hungry and were going to eat breakfast. We had no choice, so we went to the cafeteria and got breakfast. Edith spent a lot of time standing on the bow taking pictures and enjoying the scenery.

Halfway across the bay, the fog lifted or was left behind and the weather turned beautiful.  

Getting ready to offload

Waiting...waiting...!

The ferry arrived at the dock in Saint John, New Brunswick (NB) at 11 am.    From the dock we were on way to Saint John downtown via Highway 1.

Enroute to downtown we stopped by to check out Reversing Falls, but we came at the wrong time.  The slack tide was in the afternoon and that is when it gets most interesting. It is caused by the tremendous rise and fall of the tides of Bay of Fundy which are the highest in the world.

On way down to see the reversing falls

Nothing happened because it was during the slack time :-( 

We meandered downtown and there was not much to see/do, left to get on Highway 1 East.  We took exit 96 to Fundy Coastal Drive . On that drive we stopped at a rest area near Dipper Harbour to eat lunch. The view of the bay was lovely.  Erwin spent time looking for small rocks, but he did not build a cairn this time.  All the rocks were too round and it is tough to stack round rocks!

Boat on dry land near Bay of Fundy in Dipper Harbor, NB

Turned off from 790 to see a covered bridge that was built in 1910. We walked down from where we parked the van and walked through the bridge.

No longer in service, but it is open for tourists to look around

Tom and Karen told us about their visit to Ministers Island near St Andrews, NB, but cautioned us that it is accessible during certain hours because of Bay of Fundy tides, so we went there to check it out.  The road to the island was open, BUT Erwin was afraid to drive on it because it is the bottom of Bay of Fundy.  Edith wanted to go, but understood the situation.  We parked nearby and walked to the beach. There were tourists looking for shells and what nots on the sand.  At that time the tide was low, so it was a perfect time for shell combing. Erwin picked up few rocks. 

Old engine block 

Edith wanted to stop at Kingsland Garden to take pictures of flowers, but Erwin was not in the mood to go inside the garden. She did not want to go in by herself and left. 

We arrived St. Stephens, NB, stopped at a bank to exchange Canadian currency to American dollars before crossing Canada-US border.

We were at Canada-US Border at 4:53 pm.  We wondered if we were going to have trouble getting through customs without a hitch, we doubted it and were prepared with all information ready in hand when we arrived at the Custom Station.

We were ordered to park, turn off the ignition and go inside the immigration building.  We were questioned about the license tag on our camper van.  Their record showed that this same license tag belonged to our 2005 Ford F-350 truck that was stolen in 2009. It took maybe like 8 mins before they let us go. 

US-Canada Border

We are now in Maine (ME)!

Edith wanted to go on coastal drive and Erwin was thinking of taking a direct route to Bangor, ME. After looking at the map we decided to go on coastal drive (US 1), then turned left to County Road 189 to go to Lubbec, ME.

There is a campground called Sunset Point Campground that has oceanview campsites. It was $30 for partial hook-up.  This campground is the Eastern Most Campground in the United States! There is no other campground farther east than this one.

G'Nite y'all!