Day 2: Saint John, New Brunswick

The old feeling from my 48 States in 48 Days is back. The feeling, lying in bed at 5:00am, that I can’t wait to get up and get going.  Yesterday covered territory that I covered before, today was going to be all new and the first time to use my passport in 2 years.

I woke up with a text that my Covid test results from yesterday were in and with the help from a nice desk clerk, who had me send my results to his personal email so he could print them out for me, I was off to the border. The border required pre-registering on an App that included a picture of my vaccination card, the printed test results and a “random” covid test at the border. There was only one other car there, so I was through and on my way in no time.

Fortunately, my wireless carrier now includes Canada in the plan. I need to use my phone for directions and for filling out information for the covid test at the border. Some years ago, I was coming back from skiing in Canada with my family. We had shut off our cellular data in Canada, to keep from getting charged. Once back in the US I gave our daughter the go ahead to use her phone. That night, at a ski area in Vermont, about 10 miles from the border, she got a text that she had used $200 worth of international data. My whole family including my brother and sisters, could hear me yelling at AT&T: “I’m in the United States of America I’m not paying for Canadian Cell service.”  I think they let me pay $25 for a retro international plan. My sister and brother never let me forget that.

First stop was St. Andrews By-The Sea a cute little village, known for being Canada’s first seaside resort. I did a walk around and grabbed a cup of coffee before heading to St. John. In St. John I had lunch and visited the 3 sites I had planned, the Reversing Waterfall, the City Market, and Irving Nature Park.  The stops were nice, but didn’t take me long, so I headed up the coast to Fundy National Park.  In the little town of Alma, I got to see large fishing boats at low tide sitting on crates to keep them out of the mud at low tide.  The tides here are so huge that the top of these boats was below the pier, amazing. The boats plan their daily schedule based on the tides.

Pod Cast: This American Life – today’s episode was about the importance of music in telling a story, something that really resonates with me.

Song: Tales of the Phantom Ship, Lennie Gallant (Spotify, looking for songs of Atlantic Canada)

Beer: Moosehead – brewed in Saint John – brings me back to my youth in Vermont – drank me some Moosehead.