Saturday, August 18, 2007

Together Is the Best Place to Be, Day 16: Cook's Two!

Nova Scotia 2007
Day 16: Sunday July 1

Copyright(c) 2007, Jim Beachy

Happy Canada Day, Canada!


Since we’re several hours ahead of schedule on the homeward leg of our journey and it was nearly midnight when we finished with the bike last night, we sleep in, finally rolling out from Moncton, New Brunswick just before 10:00 AM. It is another crisp and brilliant morning. “Isn’t it better to start with a clean bike?” I ask as we roll out.

Last night at dinner, Peter Shearer suggested I make the crossing into the USA at Rt. 1 rather than at I-95. I was pretty skeptical because the last time I did that, Rt. 9 in Maine was a long, nasty stretch. But he said it’s been nicely paved and has had some truck lanes added. Yesterday as we were rolling through the North Cape of Prince Edward Island, Kitty said wistfully, “I wish we could take roads like this all the way home.” I remark that we could, that there are indeed roads like this all the way home, except we’d need a lot more time. So I decide to give Kitty one last partial day on two-lane roads and take Peter’s suggested route.


I reroute the GPS and we take the Trans-Canada Highway westward, soon picking up Rt. 1 toward the border crossing at St. Stephens/Calais some 275 km (170 miles) away. It’s a nice mostly four-lane road running through mostly wooded territory but occasionally finding its way through valleys lined with farms and cattle.


When I think of the Bay of Fundy, I usually associate it with Nova Scotia. But there’s a whole other shore to the Bay — it would be the nature of a bay, after all, to have two shores. The west shore of the Bay falls against New Brunswick and even the northern reaches of Maine in the US. Nestled along the shore of the Bay in New Brunswick is the town of Saint John. As one might expect, there’s a bridge in Saint John. I see the bridge on the GPS map. But we aren’t prepared for the toll: 50 cents. Normally, not a problem. You drop two quarters in the hopper and you are on your way. But I have only bills in my wallet, and any change we might have is locked in the trunk in Kitty’s purse. Not to worry, there will be an attendant, right? Wrong. All the gates are unattended. I hesitate at one of the gates, trying to figure out what to do. Cars are lining up behind us, and now I can’t even back up to try to pull off to the side to figure out a plan. The toll gate is up, so I finally shrug and just ride through the gate. I watch my mirrors to see if we are pursued by the Bridge Police, but nothing happens. So there you have it: I’m an admitted Saint John Toll Gate Crasher. “I’ll be happy to mail them the 50 cents, US,” I tell Kitty. Just give me an address.


By about 12:45 PM we’re at the US crossing, except it’s now an hour earlier because we get our hour back when we cross into the Eastern time zone. St. Stephens in New Brunswick, Calais in Maine. We park at the duty-free shop and walk half a block to a money-exchange place that is open even on Sunday, even on Canada Day, to exchange all our Canadian cash into US equivalent.


As we sit on the bridge astride the Canada-US border awaiting our turn in US Customs, I decide to switch my GPS back to US mode. I press the “Speak” button to hear one last instruction from British Emily Version 1.40, and then call up American Jill Version 1.80. Once again the GPS reboots and the familiar Jill voice is back when I press “Speak.”


“I’ll miss Emily!” says Kitty. “I liked her accent. She’s a little too laid-back, though.” I laugh because I had thought that too. However, Emily’s calm voice guiding us through the downpour running out of Baddeck was very reassuring. Jill is more energetic, a little louder, a little higher-pitched, a little more incisive with her comments. Now that I think of it, that sounds very American, doesn’t it? Along with retrieving Jill from her week-and-a-half sleep, I reset the GPS to Statute units (miles) and Eastern time zone.


We clear US Customs with only a few questions and showing our driver’s license ID, and we’re through the checkpoint where we pick up Rt. 9 to Bangor, Maine. As Peter promised, the road surface is great and it’s a nice road even though it’s mostly hemmed in by trees.


I have tried very hard while in Canada to acclimatize myself to the metric system. I’ve gained some understanding of Celsius temperature, but the mileage and kilometer conversion just doesn’t come easily. I’ve tried to comprehend British Emily’s instructions and the distances on the signposts as well as speed limits, but try as I might, I still have to do a rough conversion in my head. But now, with the “normal” statute miles displayed on my GPS, I’m strangely disoriented and keep trying to convert to kilometers. Perhaps I did better than I thought.


In Bangor, we refuel before catching I-95. “I’m sorry, but I think we’ve seen the last of two-lane roads until we’re 40 miles from home,” I tell Kitty. I review the GPS and realize that, because we’re about a half-day ahead of schedule, we’ll pass near Cook’s Lobster House this afternoon instead of tomorrow morning. “Wanna do Cook’s again?” I ask Kitty. The light dances in her eyes and I know she’s hooked.
When we’re in Brunswick, we usually stay at the same motel, so I pull up the phone number from the GPS listing, call and make a reservation. So it is that, after dodging numerous local little showers that never quite make their way to where we are, we find ourselves after a short 395-mile day once again sitting in Cook’s Lobster House gazing at the quiet harbor framed by the famous Harpswell granite-block bridge. We are having yet another fresh hot boiled lobster feast including mussels, lobster stew, choices of vegetables, and all that stuff. I order a 2 1/2 pound lobster and find that my lobster-eating technology is sadly deficient. His right claw is bigger than my hand and, after exhausting all possible means at my disposal to crack it and sustaining several lacerations in the process, I have to call the laughing waitress to send it back to the kitchen where they apparently use a sledge hammer to crack the thing.


“If you had to see a snake in exchange for eating at Cook’s, would you do it?” I ask Kitty.
She thinks for a long moment. “If he were very far away, yes, I would!” she laughs. That, my friends, says all you need to know about Cook’s Lobster House. We have to keep eating lobster because someone has to keep checking to make sure it’s still the best food in the world.



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