June 16, 2019 – June 26, 2019

We arrived at Tim and Tasha’s place and were greeted by Tasha’s father, Gerry, who, along with Tasha’s mom, Cathy, lives in a nearby house. Tasha was at work, and Tim was on his way home from the airport where he had gone to pick up Randi and Amy. Gerry told us they would be back soon and that we should make ourselves at home. Just then, Tim rounded the corner and came up the driveway.

Hugs all round, maybe the odd tear, some more hugs. We got our camper set up, Piper met Tim and Tasha’s dog Vinny, an energetic one year old blue merle australian shepherd who is absolutely beautiful! He and Piper totally hit it off. They played chase when outdoors, and when indoors, Piper hogged Vinny’s toys and sat on his bed…okay, maybe Piper has a bit of “only child” syndrome. Luckily, Vinny is a very good host dog and knows how to share with his doggie guests, so there were no issues.

We spent the next few days catching up, eating delicious meals, and enjoying Tim and Tasha’s great hospitality. The weather was a bit challenging, and when it wasn’t raining the mosquitos could be overwhelming, but we were kept entertained and the time passed quickly.

We went camping for a few days near Miramichi and had a huge lobster feed at the campground. No need for fancy lobster cracking tools when you have wrenches and hammers at hand!

It rained a lot while we were camping, and, again, the mosquitos were intense. Derek and I ended up breaking out the mosquito coils that we had drug with us all the way to the bottom of South America and back, and laughed that we hadn’t felt the need for them until we had returned to Canada. Apparently it’s a pretty bad year for the bugs.

Randi’s cousin from Truro took the bus to Miramichi for one of our nights of camping, and it was fun getting to know him. And then the group started to get smaller. Amy needed to return to Calgary early for work, then the next day Randi’s cousin returned home.

Tasha took Randi, Derek and I to the Hopewell Rocks in the Bay of Fundy for a fun day of walking on the ocean floor while the enormous tides were out. On the way home we stopped at a brewery in Moncton and had some beer and some snacks.

That evening when dinner was ready Tasha announced that she didn’t feel very well and wouldn’t be eating dinner. Then, in the middle of the night, Derek realized he was also feeling sick. Both Tasha and Derek had symptoms of food poisoning. Could it have been something on the appetizer platter that we had ordered in Moncton?

The next day I drove Randi to the airport, stopping along the way for Randi to buy some lobsters to take along on the plane ride home. Seeing her off was much easier this time than in Belize, as I knew I would be seeing her again in just a few months.

Derek and I had intended to continue on that day, but Derek was still feeling very weak, so we stayed an extra day and he rested.

A day or two later we heard that both Randi and Amy had fallen sick as well, which ruled out the food poisoning theory as Amy had not been at the brewery with us….must have been some sort of flu.

We had said our goodbyes to Tim and Tasha the night before our departure, as they were going to be heading to work early the next morning. We packed up, had showers, did a load of laundry, gave Vinny a big hug, and headed back out on the road.

We had intended to go to the far southeast corner of New Brunswick but got stuck in St. John. We had stopped to see the Reversing Rapids, thinking that we would take a quick look and then continue on, but then we found out that there are 3 distinct phases of the rapids; high tide, when the rapids reverse, the mighty St. John River being pushed up stream by the incoming tides of the Bay of Fundy; low tide, when the St. John River gushed through a narrow channel, causing whirlpools and crazy water; and slack tide, a short 20 minute period when the St. John river and the Bay of Fundy have equal force and the water goes completely glassy.

We had arrived about an hour before slack tide, and high tide, when the falls reverse, was going to be later that evening. We decided to blow off the drive further south for the day and found a nearby campground so that we could see this great phenomena again that evening and in the morning.

The weather forecast for the area was poor. We googled Cape Breton, and it looked better…we decided to head for the sunshine, turned the truck north and headed back into Nova Scotia.