2024 Bigger Truck across Canada day 6

Day 6 started off with a blood oath from the previous day, that Kimberly and Jordan would be awake by 8am to achieve a 9:15am low tide hike. We shall not nitpick as to whether or not 9:15 was attained, but let's just say that we were as close as we've ever been to being on time. (editor's note - we were not on time).

Our starting point was Dennis Beach. We snagged a quick photo, then fumbled around for a while trying to figure out how to get down to the beach. Luckily Jordan spotted a trail as we were leaving the parking lot, so we re-engaged and found our path.

Jordan became our fearless leader, and led us down the hill using the ropes - it doesn't look that steep, but it is. Once we made it down to beach level, we were basically on the ocean floor and had the entire place to ourselves. I tracked just under a half a mile that we walked before encountering any water at all, and I bet we could have walked another half mile before the water got above waist level. Absolutely mind boggling.

While we were wandering around, we discovered a few sea creatures uncovered by the receeding tide.

We explored for several hours, and could have spent much more time there. We found a little waterfall that was key in washing off all the mud from our shoes,

then we found a spot for Jordan's penchant for climbing on rocks. This time Kimberly joined her!

we wandered out to the water one more time, and on the way we encountered these seaweed covered rocks. They immediately reminded me of the the rock trolls from Frozen, so much so that Fixer Upper popped into my brain. Don't judge me, I'm a girl dad and this is my life.

We were ready to wrap it up, and like the true nerd that I am, I proposed a quick experiment. I marked a series of lines on the beach at roughly 10' increments, then asked Kimberly and Jordan to time the water crossing the lines so we could see how quickly the tide was advancing. Unfortunate that I didn't have Excel at the ready to chart the data, but it proved to be quite repeatable. I'll let you know when the full lab report is available, but data suggested that the tide was advancing at approximately 6 feet per minute. Approximately.

We finally decided to head back to the Jeep, even though everything was saw was more interesting than the last thing. We then hightailed it into Alma for some gas and a quick lunch. It turns out the gas station is right across from the restaurant we wanted to go to for lunch, so we filled up first and of course I was captivated by the old school Gulf logo. It conjured several classics wearing that signature livery.

From there we headed across the street to Tipsy Tails, which had an amazing view of the Alma harbor. We snagged a quick 'before' pic

In the meantime, while waiting for a table at Tipsy Tails, we checked out the gas station/convenience store across the street. We discovered some product and flavors that I do not believe are available in the US.

I'm not sure the last time I've seen Tang in a store, but I certainly remember the commercials.

After lunch, we wandered down the dock to watch the lobster boats head out to sea. It was remarkable to see how quickly the harbor reached a point that the boats could launch, especially since they were all stranded when we arrived for lunch.

From there we headed into Fundy National Park to grab a quick glimpse of one of the beach overlooks, and Jordan was not down with this program. As we stopped and walked up to the overlook, we learned that even the local settlers were not impressed with this exhibit.

As we were deciding what to do next, Jordan let us know that she had reached her limit. Again.

Finally, we returned to the campground so these two could have their downtime, and I could explore. They shut it down, and I hopped on the fatbike and started to explore.

In order for me to reach the beach, I had to get a bit creative, and cross the stream that I had wanted to with the Jeep earlier. It worked out quite well, except I immediately soaked my shoes during the crossing. It was worth it, as the beach ride was incredible.

The jersey got a couple of compliments during the ride, which was impressive considering I only ran into about 10 people total. Not sure if this thing made me look more American or Canadian.

Once I got back, it was time for a quick shower and an attempt to minimize the horrendous sock tan I had generated.

As we headed into town for a quick nightcap and a sunset cruise, Jordan decided she needed a latte. Few things are more entertaining than watching her try to figure out how to drink this thing.

The last thing on our list was to catch the sunset, so we started hauling ass to the private property beach we had seen before, and as luck would have it we arrived not a moment too soon.

We finally made it back to the campground, and Jordan had been talking about playing basketball for the last few days. We got in a pretty solid session before a family took over, but we felt pretty good about it and were ready to call it quits.

The wifi/cell signal in these parts is horrendous, so please do not judge the contents of this blog since tonight's entry has taken roughly 3 hrs and many expletives. It would seem that there is a inverse relationship between how interesting the travel destination is vs the quality of wifi/cell coverage. Either way, it has been an amazing run and we can't wait for tomorrow. Cheers!

2024 Bigger Truck across Canada day 5

Day 5 started out similar to most of our weekends, with me getting a free few hours in the morning while the female contingent slept in. This morning worked out especially well, since I got to do some advanced scouting at full low tide, giving me a solid 'before' view of the Bay.

This also allowed for some solo Jeep exploring, which is always fun after driving the Big Truck for 4 days straight.

I was 1 millisecond from driving across that creek, and then I remembered how quickly the tide can change (30-40feet over 6 hours), and thought about the situation I would create for us if I buried the Jeep 25 hours from home with very few recovery options. I decided to do it tomorrow about an hour earlier to make sure the tide was at it's absolute minimum.

Next I found a two track, with no signs about private property or No Trespassing. Assuming New Brunswick isn't full of a bunch of overly zealous gun worshippers like back home (not sure if that's safe assumption or not), I proceeded ahead, and was rewarded with a beautiful beach. It was adorned with a perfectly worded sign declaring it private property, but only restricting camping and stealing. Canadians seem like a reasonable folk.

We would return to this beach later to see the difference in tides, and it was pretty mind blowing. This is where I have successfully avoided attaching a bunch of nerdy tide charts (nice charts guys), graphs, and other supporting data that none of you care about. Just know that it was an internal debate.

After arriving back to a silent campsite, I suggested we head into town for a late breakfast/brunch/lunch. It was met with the most tepid of enthusiasm, but an hour later we were on the road.

The venue of choice was the Octopus Garden Cafe, a quaint little joint with some outdoor seating along a little stream and a lobster roll on the menu. Jackpot.

Fueled up, we headed into the Fundy National Park, our second Canadian National Park after visiting Pukaskwa back in 2015 on our Lake Superior cirle tour. We decided on a couple of short hikes (both of them are now immediately suspicious when I say that, so I now make sure it comes directly from the park ranger or the park map - my reputation precedes me).

First up, Dickson Falls. A short loop with a waterfall as the main attraction.

Next, Shiphaven - a quick out & back with a covered bridge as the starting point.

Along this hike we found one of our favorite features of these Canadian National Parks - they place these red Adirondack chairs in the most interesting overlooks on randow trails or overlooks. I have a similar photo (on this blog somewhere) from the top of a granite overlook in Pukaskwa, so as soon as Jordan and Kimberly saw them, they made a mad dash to recreate the photo.

From there, we headed back toward the Bay, stopping for a quick photo op at the National Park visitors center.

Now it was time to retrace my steps from earlier this morning and see how the tide has changed. Here are a few before and after shots from similar vantage points. As always, photos don't do it justice, but having a 12+ meter difference in water levels in a 6 hour period is pretty jarring to see in person.

Cape Enrage beach (yes, it's real. And yes, Kimberly wants a pic by the sign in the worst way..._)

The private property beach from earlier

While we were back at this beach, the water was finally close enough for us to skip some of these perfectly formed rocks, a favorite pastime of ours.

At this point, we decided to do one last recon to the Hopewell Rocks before stopping for dinner. We were right on the edge of being done for the day or knocking out one more hike. I may or may not have been in favor of one more hike, so we headed for Hopewell. These 'flowerpot' rock formations are pretty iconic images in the Bay of Fundy promotional material, so we were a little hesitant about how touristy they would be.

Between us girls, it was pretty touristy. It was a Canadian Provincial Park (equivalent of a state park back home), so not only did we have to pay, but there were paths for the herds, including a disney-style shuttle, so those pics don't completely convey the amount of oblivious and self centered people we encountered. It was a stark contrast to the entire rest of the day we had experienced. I will now stop telling you to get off my lawn and refrain from blaming everything on TikTok and Instagram.

We then decided to hightail it back to town, grab some dinner and retire to the campsite. The remainder of our trip is a bit up in the air, as we are deciding where to go once our time is up in Bay of Fundy. As we were discussing dinner plans while ripping through the Canadian countryside, we noticed things got very quiet where they would normally be filled with jibber jabber.

We grabbed a quick dinner in town, stopped at Holy Whale Brewing Co for a couple of takeout beers to power this blog entry, and called it a night.

Cheers!

2024 Bigger Truck across Canada day 4

Day 4 dawned with a bit of anxiety and a whole lot of hope. We needed to get to St-CYR RV which opened at 9am, hopefully find a towbar in stock that would work, then find whatever hardware we needed to cobble together the attachment to the Jeep bumper. A tall task, made a bit more difficult with the whole French language thing.

When we arrived, we came in with the bumper adapter that we use, and as soon as the first word came out of my mouth, the guy at the parts counter put his hands up and called to a sweet old lady, who turned out to be incredibly helpful. Her broken English was so much better than our very broken French. Between the 3 of us, we arrived at what they had in stock, which turned out to be almost exactly what we needed. Of course the bumper adapters wouldn't work without some custom redneck engineering, but luckily there was a Home Depot 10 km away.

We headed over to the French Home Depot, went foraging for the hardware aisle, and were immediately greeted with this.

I have to say, seeing the aisle title I was a bit disappointed to find out that it wasn't filled with Fast & Furious, Tenacious D, and RAD merchandise (and perhaps some Nicolas Cage stickers). Instead, we would settle for a couple of old men who did their best to help me MacGruber a pile of washers, bolts, hitch pins, and disregard for instructions into this masterpiece that we will never speak of again once we are back in the US of A. Kimberly deserves a ton of credit for helping me piece this together in my heightened state of anxiety to get on the road.

After some tense moments on the highway, anxiety gave way to anticipation, and we were back in the standard mode of transportion.

Now our attention turned toward the 8 hours of driving in front of us, with the end destination of Alma, New Brunswick. Along the way, we saw some distinctly Canadian sights.

Traffic became more and more scarce, and eventually we felt like the only vehicle on the road. The winding 2 lane road with a single yellow line started to feel a bit like the old motorcyle trips out west, and just as I was thinking that, Kimberly said "Hey, I know I'm usually pretty comfortable with your driving, but I feel like you might kill us." I assured her I was driving under the speed limit, and she assured me that she was not interested in the speed limit given the size of our rig. Here is the road we were on during said exchange.

The other thing we discovered during this drive, as a testament to our American ignorance, was the existence of the Atlantic Standard Time Zone. While we were driving, our ETA jumped by an hour, and all of us were quite intrigued to realize that this tiny pocket of Canada has a time zone 1 hr ahead of the Eastern Time Zone. Jordan and Kimberly instantly commiserated about how this would not help their eternal desire to sleep in.

As we approached our campground, we passed through Fundy National Park, and also saw a black bear just chilling on the side of the road. We did reach one scenic turnout before exiting the National Park, and finally jumped out to see the bay at low tide and get a sneak preview of our next few days.

When we finally arrived at the campground, the first time unhooking the Jeep with the new setup was a breeze. We rolled into site 6 at West River Campground, and were pleasantly surprised. It was definitely meant to be, as our site had a raised planter bed of vegetables just like the one Jordan has been tending back home. No surprise, but she was immediately out there watering and weeding.

By the way, that lobster boat you see in the background, Jacob Boy, is apparently available as an AirBNB. Jordan, after about 20 minutes here, spoke a near blasphemous statement - "This is my new favorite campground, it's now number 1 over Pentwater". Bold statement. All in all, given the circumstances, today turned out as well as it could have. We now have the next few days to explore the largest tidal range in the world. Cheers!