Editor’s note: Mark Bradford is contributing occasional posts from his diary on traveling the country with his wife Wendy while they rent out their Mishawaka home for six months.
Day 18 of our 180-day sojourn
July 14 — Bay of Fundy, Canada
From a remarkable sunset on the top of Cadillac Mountain last night, where all is at peace, to a smelly, small motel room in Canada in a town that can best be described as remote. The scenery has certainly changed in the last 24 hours for Wendy and me.
Such is the life we are living these days as we go places we have never been before and we try to keep our costs low.
After three remarkable (and expensive) days in Bar Harbor, Maine, we drove what became a nine-hour (was supposed to be 5 ½) trip to Canada. We arrived in the much-lauded Bay of Fundy between the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and a wonder of nature neither of us had even heard about until a week ago.
Wendy had talked to somebody who had talked to somebody else whose cousin had said she had heard that the Bay of Fundy was the greatest thing ever. So, here we are in a little town called Edgett’s Landing. If you don’t know where that is, it is a suburb of Hopewell Rock, sort of.
The motel we are staying at is on the lower end of quaint, which puts it on the higher end of annoying. Two nights here and I will be ready to bolt the place before sunrise on Saturday.
Our room has the odor of that room you used to have when the carpet got wet and kind of molded. We were given the old style room key and discovered they were giving us a full bed (which for me is way too small) so they were nice enough to give us a small queen-sized bed that is really worn in. Did I mention no air conditioning yet? And how about the fact that our room is toward the back and so we were told to park on the grass and walk up a steep hill to our room. There is, in fact, no parking lot in back.
And don’t even ask me about the TV and the Internet. Or the ants.
So, quirky (annoying) it is and quirky (annoying) it will be. I’m thinking we went too cheap this time.
So why are we here in Edgett’s Landing? Well, the ocean tide here is supposed to vary 40 feet from high tide to low tide. Every six hours or so, the “beach” is a mile wide. Six hours later, there is no beach. So, it gives Wendy the opportunity to see the “bottom of the ocean,” something that I find “less than fascinating.”
The good news is we are missing all the horrible weather that seems to be striking all around us. The last two days have been dry and sunny and driving has been easy. So we are thankful for that.
I am enjoying reading all the comments on our Facebook blog. I hope you enjoyed Wendy’s pictures of last night’s sunset on the top of Cadillac Mountain. I normally dislike sunsets and often Wendy has to drag one of her friends or go solo to Lake Michigan to watch the event. But last night was truly special. When the sun finally disappeared, several people in the crowd clapped.
Maybe that is something we all should do every day. Thank the sun for keeping us alive and thriving. Might change a lot of the way we view things.