Acadia National Park and Entering New Brunswick

Wednesday, May 9, 2018--Bal Harbor to St. Andrews-by-the-Sea to St. John

Yesterday, I forgot to mention the breakfast at our B&B in Magog.  It was really something special.  The husband-wife team who operate the B&B are both former hospitality workers--her in hotels, and him as a chef including stints at several ClubMed locations.  He cooked our breakfast.  We started with a bowl of freshly-made yogurt with chopped strawberries which was served with two warm mini-muffins--one blueberry and the other pina colada.  Next came a plate of three kinds of local cheeses served with toast, melon, and grapes.  Then we had a choice of egg dishes.  Wes choose to have French toast with bacon, and I chose a crepes stuffed with an apple/current mixture with bacon.  Finally, we had creme brulee.  We were served fresh juice and hot coffee with it all.  It was really a nice start to the day.

The first half of today was spent at Acadia National Park just outside the town of Bar Harbor.  We drove through the park stopping at various spots to enjoy views and to see natural phenomena--Wild Gardens of Acadia, Beaver Dam Pond, Sand Beach, Thunder Hole, Otter Point, and Jordan Pond.  We also hiked on some of the Carriage Trails that are the routes that were taken by the horse-drawn carriages when people visited in the 1800s.  There was fog over the water just beyond the coastline making it impossible to see features away from the coast, but it was sunny and warm everywhere else.

We left the park around noon and headed for Canada.  It is a long, slow drive.  Speed limits tended to be between 45 and 50 miles per hour much of the way.  Across the border in New Brunswick, we headed to St. Andrews-by-the-Sea.  It's a quaint old town much like Bar Harbor that was founded by loyalists to the British government who moved there after the United States won its independence.  We saw the Block House there, a small fort built to protect the community from the U.S. during the War of 1812, we walked the downtown area seeing the quaint inns, shops, restaurants, bars, etc.  We drove through residential areas with old mansions and beautiful old churches. 

It was 17:00 by the time we reached our Travelodge in St. John.  We were tired from the exercise, the sun we had gotten, and the long trip.  It happened to be "Pizza Wednesday" at the hotel, so we each ate two slices of pizza from the buffet the hotel offered, walked next door to explore a supermarket, then returned to the room.  Wes was sleeping by 19:30. 

During our travels yesterday and today, we have had several wildlife encounters.  Yesterday, we had to stop for a moose to cross the road.  At the park today, we had to do the same for a wild turkey.  In the town of St. Andrews, there were several deer to the side of the road.  We've also seen mountains with snow, beautiful beech and pine trees, what looked like huge areas of heather, green fields, etc.  So far, it's a great trip with weather that is much better than we expected.