7/11/2011 A Thought About Canadian Crossings

I figured out, when we crossed into the US through yet another new border crossing (new to me), that I have crossed the border in a lot of different places. I especially love that I've been through five different Maine-Canada crossing points. In recent years:

July 2006 with Karen
from Michigan to Ontario: Detroit (return trip through same crossing)


July 2009 with Rodney
from Washington to Vancouver, British Columbia: Blaine, WA
from Vancouver to Washington: Sumas, WA

October 2009 with Dr. Grace
from Maine to Sherbrooke, Quebec: Coburn Gore, ME (return trip through same crossing)

April 2010 with Karen
from Bangor, ME to Saint John, New Brunswick: Calais, ME
from Prince Edward Island to Maine: Houlton, ME

July 2011 with Karen
from Maine to Quebec City, Quebec: Sandy Bay Township, ME (some call it the Jackman, ME crossing)
from Tadoussac, Quebec, through New Brunswick to Presque Isle, ME: Van Buren, ME

4/25/2010 Houlton

Today is our last day. We got up to cloudy skies (nice we weren't going to the covered bridge) and then crossed the border without incident and arrived in Houlton, Maine. It's only about 10 miles from Woodstock, NB, Canada. We stopped at the information center which looked closed but really wasn't.

Check out these great signs. Here's one but there were at least 3 different suggested exercises. My favorite part is the disclaimer at the bottom. (In case you can't read it, it says, "Produced by the State of Maine Department of Transportation (MaineDOT). MaineDOT assumes no liability for personal injuries suffered by travelers who try the exercises.")

We were driving into town to tour the historic downtown when we saw Marden's! I made Karen stop just so she could see what the lady in Canada was talking about. It doesn't take long to figure out what kind of place it is and it's really not my kind of place to shop, but then I found a stainless steel salad bowl for $6.99 and I've been looking for one for a long time, so it was doubly worth the stop.

Historic Houlton is old and quaint. There's a cute pedestrian bridge in town. Not sure what it's really for but there it is. And at the bridge is Houlton's newest attraction, the statue of the moose. We were hoping for the world's largest statue of a moose but we didn't even find a lifesize statue. This little statue is probably 3/4 lifesize. Oh well. It is, however, realistic, with the ribs showing through. (The bridge in the background is the pedestrian bridge.)

We drove (and drove and drove) around looking for a place for breakfast/brunch/lunch. They either didn't look good or we couldn't find them (places that Lee listed) or they were closed. So we settled on the famous (and it is famous . . . I've heard about this from Mainers) Irving diner. It had the most cars out front of any of the places we looked at as well--another good sign.

It did not disappoint! This is the steak tips and eggs breakfast. I couldn't eat it all but everything I ate was delicious.

AND I had heard that the best whoopie pies in the state were available at this diner, so I had to get one. I've had many whoopie pies now and I must admit, this one was pretty good! (I actually couldn't eat it after breakfast, so much later in the day, I finally broke it out and ate half. I finished the other half the next day).

And then we got to Bangor and suddenly we were unpacking the car and Karen was on her way back to Richmond.

4/24/2010 Woodstock

It's our last night. I'm very sad to see this trip come to an end. There really isn't much to Woodstock except its convenience. It's close to the border and on the highway. We stayed at the Best Western. It was very nice and pretty new, so everything was spiffy. We even had a DVD player in our room and a nice selection of DVDs at the front desk. We watched "The Proposal" while Karen packed (repacked). She had to switch from car travel mode to plane travel mode...those are definitely two different kinds of packing.

We drove around town looking for a place to eat but there wasn't much to choose from. I did see a little mall that had the same name as a friend of mine:

We picked Dixie Lee for dinner because it was celebrating its 40th year. There really wasn't any other compelling reason to pick anything. But it turned out to just be an ordinary fried chicken kind of place. Oh well. Afterwards we went to Sobey's grocery store and bought some very expensive ice cream and went back to our hotel room and ate it there while watching our movie. It was an indulgent fun way to end the evening.

4/24/2010 Hartland

What more could you want in a day? How about one more item in the "Guinness Book of World Records" day? Here's the smallest incorporated town in Canada. The town with the world's longest covered bridge is the smallest town in the whole country. Kinda fun.

4/24/2010 World's Longest Covered Bridge

When Karen read about the world's longest covered bridge, we knew that had to be on our agenda. She worked out the details of the trip so we would spend the night in Woodstock which is only 20 miles from the bridge. The original plan was to go there on Sunday morning before heading back to Bangor for the airport. The reality was, we got close to Woodstock before sunset so we thought we would go check out the bridge, see what it was like, maybe get a sunset picture or two, and then know be able to use our time efficiently when we returned in the morning.

Unlike "Bridges of Madison County" and the other storytale versions of covered bridges that we know, this one is utilitarian. It's long and covered and serves a purpose and is in use every day. And that's about it. So we took pictures and decided that was fine. The good sunset photos didn't even include the bridge. ;-) It was the perfect ending to our rather "Guinness Book of World Records" kind of day. We saw the world's largest axe, the world's largest statue of a lobster, and now the world's longest covered bridge. Plus this morning, we drove across the world's longest bridge that crosses frozen water. What more could you want in a day?!

This is the sign as you approach the bridge. I'm not sure what it means, but I think you should beware of buses or triangles.

4/24/2010 World's Largest Axe

A picture's worth a thousand words. Here are four pictures. We were definitely glad we pulled off the highway for this thrill!

4/24/2010 Nackawic

It was a lazy afternoon and for the first time, I took a nap. Most of the time we were yacking together or listening to Anne of Green Gables on the CD together, but today I took a nap. When I woke up, we were on a side road, no longer on the highway. When I asked where we were going, Karen tried to tell me but she kept laughing. She was really chuckling so hard, she couldn't get the words out! We were heading to Nackawic. And the reason she was going there was the highway sign said it was the home of the World's Largest Axe.

Here's Nackawic. It's a beautiful, pastoral little town. It's hard to imagine that there's going to be a giant axe! Even if the axe is a disappointment, we were glad we got to see this cute little place.

This is in the park where the World's Largest Axe is located. These docks were out on dry land and not in the water (presumably for the winter). It reminded us of the docks at Camp Rocky Point!

4/24/2010 Magnetic Hill--The Movie

Here's the video we made on our 4th time up the hill. I don't think anything would ever capture the sensation or the experience, but we tried.

Remember, these were the instructions on the sign that was in the previous post:

INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Drive in right lane to the bottom of hill.
2. Pull over into left lane beside white post.
3. Place vehicle in neutral.
4. Release foot from brake.
5. Guide your vehicle backwards up the hill.

4/24/2010 Magnetic Hill

When we read this in Lonely Planet under the description of places to go in Monctoc, we knew we had to go. "At Magnetic Hill, incredibly one of Canada's best-known (though not best-loved) attractions, gravity appears to work in reverse. Start at the bottom of the hill in a car and you'll drift upward. You figure it out. After hours and out of season, it's free. It's a goofy novelty, worth the head-scratching laugh, but all the money-generating, spin-off hoopla now surrounding the hill overglamorizes what should be a minor attraction. Family-oriented attractions include a depressing zoo and a good water park."

That description was so dead on it was amazing! Right down to the "goofy novelty, worth the head-scratching laugh." We laughed and laughed and laughed ourselves silly.

We found the place.

We read the directions.

We tried it, but didn't figure it out. We watched others do it. We tried it again. We were so incredibly successful we just didn't know it. And we did it again and again and then one more time for a total of 5 times. It was an absolute hoot!

4/24/2010 Shediac

From the time we got off the bridge, I was hungry. But there was no place to eat. I kept checking Lee's list and everything was behind us or far away. Finally we just pulled over at Shediac. We didn't know what would be there but we figured there'd be something. We found a place called Bayou that was playing Country Western music in the background and had a small section set aside for slot machines. There were 2 pool tables and a vending machine. It was an odd place. But I ordered the house specialty of fish and chips made with local haddock and it was delicious.

But the best part of Shediac was THE GIANT LOBSTER!

4/24/2010 Confederation Bridge

It's free to take the bridge from New Brunswick to PEI. It costs $42.50 for one car to take the bridge from PEI to New Brunswick. The toll booth takes credit cards. We were able to find a few places to take pics of the bridge before we crossed it.

This really is a long bridge. 12.9 km is very far.

And after we got off the bridge, we saw this cool moose sign for me to add to my collection of moose signs.

4/24/2010 Cavendish and the Land of Anne

Off to Cavendish! This is the beautiful country side that inspired the book Anne of Green Gables. Neither Karen nor I had ever read the book, but we knew that everything in PEI was all about Anne, so we listened to the book on tape in the car. Even though everything was closed (and I mean EVERYTHING) because "the season" doesn't start until May, it was still beautiful country and just what you would expect based on the book. The soil really is that red. It's like the Red River in Texas. The redness of the soil is due to its high iron-oxide (rust) content. It looks brown in this picture but it's a rich red.

The house that inspired the book was actually the author's grandfather's cousin's house. It is now in a national park. And it's only open Sunday through Thursday. Wait, that means it's closed on Friday and Saturday?! What's up with that??? Oh well. We were able to get this close to the house and take pictures. Maybe that's enough.

As we left Cavendish, we put Lee on his "no highways" setting so he would find scenic routes. In Clinton, we found this "panorama park" that was a dirt road circular driveway. But it was a beautiful view.

We've been enjoying the witty language of Lonely Planet. Check out their tongue-in-cheek honesty describing this area:

"Anyone familiar with Anne of Green Gables might have lofty ideas of finding Cavendish as a quaint village bedecked in flowers and country charm; guess again. While the Anne and Lucy Maud Montgomery sites are right out of the imagination-inspiring book pages, Caendish itself is a mishmash of manufactured attractions with no particular town center. The junctions of Rte 6 and Hwy 13 is the tourist center and the area's commercial hub. When you see the service station, wax museum, church, cemetery, and assorted restaurants, you know you're there. This is the most visited community on PEI outside of Charlottetown and, although an eyesore in this scenic region, it is kiddie wonderland."

"If you haven't read the 1908 novel, you really should try while you are on the island -- not just to enjoy it, but to try to understand all the hype."

"If you're traveling with kids or just have a fascination with kitch, you could try some of the many other establishments that cluster around Green Gables on Rte 6. All are open daily form July to Labour Day. Black Magic Indoor Blacklight Mini Golf fulfils lifelong dreams of golfing in the dark while the Fantazmagoric Museum of the Strange & Unusual takes you far from Anne's Land to the sands of fake Egypt and a detailed replica of King Tut's tomb. Kids will love Jurrasic Bart's Dinosaur Museum & Petting Farm to look at dinosaur remains and the highlight: Jurassic poop."

"There are more opportunities than these to explore your inner kid so bust out the credit card and enjoy."