Oh Canada! we have learned a LOT: and had fun!

(Steve). Wow, just in Canada a couple days. We’ve had a great time and reconnected with good - approaching great - friends. What a joy to reconnect and share memories. However, rather than speak of that I’d like to share a bit of what we have already learned and experienced. Canada is not the US. It seems to be a far kinder and gentler place. Here are a few of our learnings.

Money. We have money, they have money. The learning is that you must be very careful with Canadian money. The bills are slippery. Really. Put them in your hand and the little devils try to slip out. Same with your wallet and your hand. There is also a little strip that is almost transparent and you can kinda see through. We are so used to money that stays put wherever you stick it. Here the little bills conspire - like small homing pigeons - to flee back to their Canadian home and abandon their US owners.

Water. Today we spent three and a half hours sitting on a bench to watch the tide come in on the Bay of Fundy. Not your basic New Jersey or Oregon tide. This one was forty-five feet and claimed to be the highest on earth. We started our observation on a little bench over a mud flat that was well below our vantage point. Lots of folks from Canada, the US and countries all over the world climbed down and onto slippery rocks to play on the mud flat. School is not in session. We were able to watch children small and large slip, slide and do gymnastic tumbles as they merged with the mud. A few of the parents - captivated by the sight - also stuck their feet in the air and joined the children in a (perhaps) enjoyable mud bath.

Pam and I were less adventurous. We decided to stay clean and just watched the tide come in. Frankly, it was spectacular. The entire area where the mud Olympics had taken place was covered by the incoming tide. The mud flats, the rock outcroppings and a large part of the cliffs in the gorge we were observing slowly disappeared under the waters. Here is a picture of the same spot after the tide came in.

Fuel. Our RV uses diesel fuel. Fueling up can be an interesting process. First, fuel is sold by the liter. I typically buy fuel by the gallon at home. I look at the gas station sign that says $ 3.89 per gallon and compare that to competitors to see where to stop. Now we take the fuel price - say 149.9 times 4 liters in an imperial gallon times the current exchange rate to figure out the cost. Try that going down the highway at 90 kilometers an hour to understand how much you are about to pay (or how fast you are going).

Food. Poutine and donair. Yum! Whatever they are. The first is crispy French fries made soggy with gravy and enhanced with yesterday’s leftovers served in a large ball on your plate. Not necessarily bad, just a bit curious. And donair? Apparently (apparent because we haven’t ventured there yet) a meatloafy confection sold nearly everywhere. It’s probably wonderful but we’ve been saving it for a special day.

This morning we did a McDonalds stop. The signage had a lot to say about the current state of affairs between our two countries.

People. My descriptors would be friendly, generous, civil, warm, welcoming, and embracing of we Americans. In fact, I’d be one to suggest that the US would be well served to become the eleventh province. Perhaps we would eventually qualify for the same descriptors.

In summary, we are having a wonderful time and enjoying Canada greatly. This country and its wonderful people have a lot to teach us if we would only be willing to abandon our arrogance and listen. We join our caravan tomorrow and more learnings and adventures are to follow. See you all down the road.

(Pam) I only have one correction on the above… there is NOTHING wrong with poutine! It’s delicious, I love it, and I don’t intend to share it. I am intrigued by donair and hope to order it when we are at a restaurant that looks like they know what they’re doing. We stopped at a place after our Bay of Fundy adventure and it was clearly not the spot. We ordered a flatbread that was ‘teardrop-shaped’ and the server, who should have been enjoying her rest home and playing bridge, happily said ‘That’s why it’s our specialty!’ I guess the shape of your pizza is important?

Steve needed a new camp chair, so we went to a store called Canadian Tire. Yes, they do sell tires… and EVERYTHING else! Even Steve, who has severe shopping allergies, was enthralled. There must have been 20 different kinds of camp chairs, and I think we tried them all. Some were hard to get out of their bags, and some even harder to get back in. Some we couldn’t figure out how to collapse and had to leave sitting in the aisle. I wanted the one with the big Canadian maple leaf on it, but unfortunately it wasn’t very comfortable. Steve finally found his perfect chair and is now a truly happy camper.

Our RV has a Murphy bed in it which is great because we have lots of floor space in our small RV when we have it in the up position. Yesterday morning Steve noticed that it was starting to pull out of the wall. If it comes all the way out, there is no more bed, and potentially we can’t pull the slide in and would be stuck where we are parked. It’s quite a production to fix it as the entire thing needs to be disassembled in order to get to the part that needs fixing. We were fortunate that there was a mobile RV repairman here at the campground as one of our friends is having power issues with their AC. The guy came and looked at our issue. He put a temporary screw into the side of the bed, and told us to be careful when opening and closing it. We paid him $100 and off he went. He didn’t have the means to fully repair it, so we will limp along and hope things stay together until we get back to the states in about a month. Keep your fingers crossed!

Here are a few more pics from our day…