Bluebird's Nest

The wee babe woke us up when the sun was rising and it was sooooo beautiful over looking the river. I only wish we woke up enough to take a photo.

We fell back to sleep again and then woke up for good around 7:30. John made us sandwiches for lunch and Sylvie gave us some soup and a meat pie. So nice of them.

We had some breakfast and I packed up the car, washed the dishes and got everything ready while the tweenager and the hubby looked after the wee babe and chatted with John. I think John should write a book about all the things that he’s done in his life. I would buy that book for sure.

I big shout out to John and Sylvie for putting us up at their place. We had an amazing time and your place was so relaxing, peaceful and tranquil. I’m looking forward to “liking” you on Facebook and following your tweets. Can’t wait to check out your website and let me know if you need us to write a reference. We’d be happy to oblige.

Totally off topic, there are a LOT of graveyards throughout Canada. I don’t know why that suprises me but it does. They seem to be everywhere and the grave stones all have big colourful wreaths on them. Almost all of them. I guess for me, I would think that a graveyard should be back from the road. If I were to be buried (which I won’t be, I want my ashes scattered somewhere wonderful) I wouldn’t want my body on the side of the road. I would want it set back in the forest or beside the river or lake. Tangent over.

Just past a sign on the side of a church that said “Will your eternal home be smoking or non-smoking?” Bah ha ha ha!

So we stopped in Moncton where the tweenager wanted to trade in her book for another book. Wait, I can’t forget to let you all know that my hubby was pulled over for speeding. I won’t tell you how fast he was going but it was one of those circumstances where you’re coming into a town and the speed limit slows down to 60km from 110km. He wasn’t going 110km I’ll tell you that much. So the cop was nice enough (my hubby was stressing but I kept telling him, don’t worry about it, it was bound to happen at some point and that I had a feeling the cop would take pity on us. After all we’re driving with BC plates in New Brunswick and we’re obviously a family.) So the cop let my hubby go but unfortunately, my mom had not put the right insurance papers in the Sube so we were told that we needed to fax our insurance papers to the Moncton police station or face a $1024 fine. Oh, and the speeding ticket which he waved for us was $292. My hubby said he was done driving in New Brunswick.

Anyway, back to the bookstore. I met the oddest man at the store. I told him so many times that we were looking for a place to have sandwiches which we had made and he kept saying there were a lot of great places for us to eat in town. Sigh… He annoyed me.

We had lunch in a little park and then we took off for PEI. It was a beautiful drive to the bridge. Really nice day and the weather was only about 26 degrees. Cool Atlantic breeze.

We stopped on the other side of the bridge at the tourist info booth and set a course for Cavendish to find camping on the beach.

We weaved through PEI’s countryside and at one point we had to pull over to call my mom to figure out the insurance that was being faxed to Moncton. John had told us that if you pull over, then someone who lives on PEI will also pull over to make sure you’re ok. Sure enough, a woman did pull over to find out if we were ok. Too neat!

We pulled up to the federal campground in Cavendish and grabbed a site close to the beach. It’s really pretty here with sand beaches and refreshing water.

This is the first time we’ve seen the Atlantic! So my hubby and tweenager went for a dip. I just wanted to take it all in.

After our dip, we set up the camp, and had some soup, corn and meat pies that John and Sylvie had given us. We ate for free today!! Which means, we get to savour some of PEI’s treats tomorrow. We’re hoping for another helping of Lobster and to try some of the mussels. There was also talk of some chowder.

Tomorrow we’re going to walk around a bit to check out the countryside and beaches. Also, we’re definitely going to visit Green Gables. Oh and I forgot to mention that we drove through a place called Emerald!! (We have a friend called Emerald so we thought of her. It’s really nice farmland and we thought she would love it there.)

What a picturesque local. We slept all night with the windows open listening to the sound of the rushing river beside us. It was awesome.

A slow moving morning (just what I like) with some great conversation with John. We had breakfast and took off to see his other camp not far away.

It was really cute and rustic. Not unlike his camp that we’re staying at but nowhere near as big. We met Sylvie’s brother and his wife there.

Then we drove to the Swinging Bridge where this rickety old bridge that crosses the river was. I had no problem going over it but the sides of the bridge are so low that it would be easy to go over board so of course I had my mommy hat on and I was letting loose by “Be careful” and “Walk slowly”. It was a very nice view of the river and surrounding land. No moose or bears sightings though.

We stopped off shortly after that to get some supplies at “Macloskey’s” John’s favourite place to shop.

Then back to the camp to have some lunch (sausages) and then we took off for a dip in the river.

So a few things about this river dip. John had us 4 x 4ing through the bush to get to the river and once we got there there were horse flies. I can’t stand horse flies. But the river was really pleasant to swim in and toodle around for a little while in. The wee babe had a great time and the tweenager had a splash fest with my hubby and I.

After that we retired to the bedroom to get away from the flies and the tweenager and I read some Anne and then me and the wee babe had a little nap.

What a low key, slow paced, relaxing day. I haven’t had a nap in the middle of the day in ages and it was just such a perfect setting to do so. I can understand why John and Sylvie bought the place.

After our well-deserved nap, we headed outside to take in the afternoon sun. Sylvie’s brother and wife came back over for dinner and we talked in French and I understood a lot of it! I even got a compliment that I can speak quite well!!! I was glowing with pride.

We had an amazing dinner. Ham, coleslaw and a typical French-Canadian been dish with molasses drizzled on top. I had to go back for seconds. Of course the hubby and I were playing pass the baby as that is her witching hour but the other people at the dinner table didn’t seem to mind and they even took her for some relief for us.

After dinner we cleaned up and headed outside again. The tweenager tried her hand for the first time at flyfishing with the help of Trefle. I was really impressed. It was pretty cool to see her down in the river throwing the fishing rod in the low sun. She said that it hurt her hands after a while.

The bugs were insane at that point so we retreated inside and chatted for a bit longer. I finally got the wee babe to sleep again. We had some ice cream and then headed outside to take advantage of the fire place that John has. We chatted and watched the fire flies. The stars were so bright (thanks to the absence of light pollution) and when the moon rose it was a beautiful orange colour.

Not long after that we said our goodbyes to Sylvie as we wouldn’t see her in the morning retired to bed.

During the night I woke up to get a drink of water. I walked quietly to the kitchen and this eerie sense of someone watching me came over me. I started to freak myself out and think that maybe there was a ghost in this camp. I tried not to look anywhere else than I needed to for fear that I might see a ghostly apparition. After making it back to bed, of course I couldn’t get to sleep and I swear I heard the sound of a door shutting far off in the house. I told the story to John and I hope he has a good sleep tonight as he’s going to be in the camp by himself tonight

EXPENSES:

Sleeping: At the camp at John and Sylvie’s camp
Wee babe disposition: A lot of squealing and screeching but all in all pretty even keel.
Injuries: Two horse fly bites. One for the tweenager (drew blood) the other for the wee babe behind the ear. OUCH!
Weather: Sunny and about 31. Cooling off in the river was great.
Stress level: Relaxing, but a little stressful for the swinging bridge.

Hmmmm… I’ve had shitty nights sleep lately but this one takes the cake. It’s not too often that I breast feed the wee babe in the middle of the night and then she wakes up again when I put her in her tent. Sigh. Totally annoying. On top of it, it appeared that one of my milk ducts was blocked. A little uncomfortable. Sorry if that’s T.M.I.

We woke up and got dressed and then went for breakfast. And what a breakfast it was. They don’t call it a BnB for nothing. Just check out the photos to see the gourmetness.

After indulging in riverside splendor, we set off on our 5 hour trip.

Another time change puts us at 4 hours ahead of Victoria. And now only 5 hours behind Switzerland. Losing time sucks though.

So we had a free lunch somewhere in New Brunswick near some falls and a zip line. Free lunch as we made sandwiches and granola bars followed by chocolate cookies with double stuff.

Then we continued on until we hit Fredericton where we met John to take us to his camp. (As you can see the day was pretty uneventful besides playing ‘Name that Tune’, trying to keep each other awake and reading ‘Anne of Green Gables’.

We made it to the camp and it’s AMAZING. It’s not what you would think of when you think of ‘camp’. It’s more like a fishing/hunting resort. It was built in 1948 and has 8 rooms. It’s right beside a river with an artesian spring for it’s water supply.

John and Sylvie are great hosts. We sat around and had a beer and then I gave the wee babe a bath. We followed that with Atlantic Lobster. Man-o-man was that delicious. Sylvie explained to us how to best get the meat out of the lobster and we were up to our necks in lobster juice.  The only crappy thing was the wee babe was being a little fussy (can you say cry-fest) so the hubby and I needed to trade off every once in a while which meant cleaning our grubby paws off.

We followed that with salad and potato salad and then with strawberry ice cream with strawberries and cracker. The whole thing was soooo yummy. I couldn’t ask for more.

We’re staying in two rooms (me, the hubby and the wee babe in one and the tweenager in another.) with a bathroom that is shared between them. But we had a choice of whether we wanted that or a room with two beds. This place is HUGE.

I’m so enamored with new Bruinswick and the cost of real estate and land. I’m almost convinced I want to buy a little piece here and build a yurt on it and rent it out. I just need to work a little on my hubby to make it happen. He’s all about the yurt right now but he’s still stuck on the west coast as to the location of it.

Tomorrow we have great plans to tube down the river (it’s my turn this time), check out a suspension bridge and just enjoy the day.

EXPENSES:

Sleeping: At the camp at John and Sylvie’s camp
Wee babe disposition: We think she’s having issues with her teeth but she’s pretty great as usual.
Weather: Overcast and about 29. Nice for lunch and the air-conditioned car.
Stress level: Fab.