Nova Scotia

We drove north from Maine and eventually hit Canada.  I have to say that both Rachel and I felt the border crossing was intimidating.  Of course we did not have any reason to fear that they would detain us, the worst thing we has was 6 beers in the cooler and other food, nevertheless we both commented how obviously cautious they were.  I wish they could have one line for criminals and one line for the 99% of us who just want to live honestly but as a French Canadian might say, se la vie, at least in modern times.   

After we crossed the border, we stopped at the first visitors center in New Brunswick.  The woman was very helpful and she pointed out a few things we might be interested in on our return trip along the southern coast.  After we left, Rachel read some of the information they gave us on the history of the province which was modestly interesting.  The most notable item was a somewhat self-deprecating joke where they acknowledged their unofficial nickname, the drive through province, which held true for us. 

I think there are probably 1-200 people in the whole province of New Brunswick which took us about 6 hours to cross.  Even gas stations were far and few between and Canada’s apparent ban on commercial billboards really focused your attention on the dense pine forests.  It was beautiful and a photo in any direction would have made an impressive and wild looking postcard however we took none, at least on the way in. 

Rachel found us a Wal-Mart and we stopped to get a pay as you go phone and travel clock.  I still don’t understand why but they had problems processing our credit card.  They kept asking me if my card had a chip.  I tried to answer no but I felt just a little like Joe from Idicracy when Dr. Lexus is struggling to figure out why Joe does not have a tattoo.  Thankfully, the guy in electronics was finally able to ring me up with the phone in electronics but when we went to the main registers, the woman was unable to ring us up which was a little embarrassing as well as unnerving.  We thought that perhaps the first Canadian transaction triggered a security freeze and since the ATM would not take our card either, we might be stuck unable to purchase even gas for an emergency turn around.  Like I said, I was really worried.

We called the bank and confirmed there was no security hold on our card, was eventually able to activate our pay as you go phone and found an ATM that would accept our card all from the parking lot of a Tim Horton’s, the major Canadian coffee shop.  I pulled a lot of Canadian money out of the ATM and we finally ate at a place called St. Hubert’s (kind of like a Chick-Fil-A) that served gravy with their chicken sandwich and fries.  Why you would want gravy on fries I am not certain but it is apparently a thing up here.  They have a French word that begins with a “p” for it and it sounds like the intended result is similar to chili-cheese fries.