6 June 2015
St. Andrews, New Brunswick
Late last night, after checking what has seemed over the
past week to be the most unreliable and rapidly changing weather forecast
possible, we re-thought the rest of our trip.
The initial plan was to head up to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island
after Acadia. However, it had been much
colder so far than we’d hoped our “summer” vacation would be (hats and gloves
on several occasions). We toyed with the
option of making our way toward Toronto and Niagara Falls instead, or just
heading to Quebec City and then back down to the east coast of the US (Cape May
and the Eastern Shore). After watching
the bonus features of Anne of Green Gables to see a bit of PEI, We decided to sleep
on it and do a 1-2-3 vote in the morning.
I also decided to ask for opinions on Facebook.
Overwhelmingly, the social media vote was to continue onto
PEI and Nova Scotia. I was leaning that
way anyway, since we’d come this far and I doubt we’d ever drive up here again
with this much time on our hands. Our
1-2-3 vote went something like this:
Both: 1-2-3
Me: Keep
Going
Matt: Stay
Here (not one of the options)
I was upset that this was not a real mutual vote! I didn’t want to make the decision, but I was
glad of the outcome. Cape May is do-able
on a regular weekend (if it’s worth the NJ Turnpike trip, blech) and the
Eastern Shore is great, but not really new scenery.
We loaded up and headed out, only to make a 45-minute stop
at a Walmart 15 minutes away to re-stock some kiddo supplies (pouches and
organic milk that quickly turned into more items. I think of Canada like Europe, and I never
know what to expect on the milk-front).
Eloise passed out during that time and when I got back to the girls and
Matt in the parking lot, Sis was on the potty in the Casita. She’s only had that one sunset hike accident
this whole trip. Don’t get me wrong,
it’s great, it just takes more stopping (but my bladder is about on par with
hers, so I’m not always complaining ;).
Our mini-goal was to make it to St. Andrews around
lunchtime, a quaint little tourist town just across the border into New
Brunswick. At the border, we fessed up
to carrying firewood. Big mistake. Eloise’s first steps in Canada were running
around the border patrol building while they searched our vehicle outside. Between that, the Walmart stop, another
peepee/gas stop, and the actual time-zone change, we probably lost over two
hours.
St. Andrews’ weather was exactly what we’d hoped the trip
would be like: a clear and sunny 65 degrees.
We went to the Kingsbrae Gardens, which is a beautiful outdoor walk
through several different types of gardens, but also included two
mini-playhouse villages and a mini-animal farm.
Eloise loved the baby goats and alpacas.
They both loved the mini-playhouses, one of which was built in
1909. Before walking around, we ate
lunch at the café on site, which was very good.
Matty and I both had the special of the day – lobster grilled cheese and
bisque – and the girls split the penne with chicken.
We had such a great parking spot for the Casita, and some
time to kill in nice weather before dinner (we decided not to travel again
until the girls’ bedtime, so we walked to the nearby Algonquin Hotel
Resort. It was a large and gorgeous
tudor-style hotel with an indoor waterslide and an outdoor pool that was being
set up to serve as a wedding venue. This
is one wedding I wish we were able to crash.
The feel of the outdoor patios of the Algonquin reminded me of Carmel
Valley… pretty quiet and relaxed, seemingly casual, but warm and scenic. The wedding site had two large lobster pots
and several boxes of lobsters stacked and ready to be thrown in… my kind of party!
We realized it was 6:15 and headed back to the car at the
Gardens with one sleeping baby, only to find that we never turned the fridge
off of battery charge when we turned off the car. Needless to say, our battery was quite
dead. Luckily the Gardens were open
until 8pm and we had jumper cables.
Unluckily, the one college kid who worked the desk didn’t drive
there. While I went in to use the phone,
a lady in the parking lot offered her car for a jump, but her car was dead all
morning and had just been running for 45 minutes to re-charge, so it didn’t have
enough juice to get ours going. Jonah
(the college kid at the desk) in the meantime supplied me with a few phone
numbers, and Eloise with some markers and paper. He also called a local cab company while I
was on with USAA, and drew Eloise a few pictures. In the time I was on hold, the cabby got
there and for $25 US gave us a jump, just about 1 minute before another guy
offered to help for free. Oh well – it
was dinner time for the girls (mommy included) so the sooner the better…
There were several restaurants along the waterfront in town,
but only one with a flourless chocolate cake on the menu named the “Charlotte
Cake.” So the Niger Reef Tea House was
where we ate. The scenery was pretty –
it was low tide and we ate outside at a picnic table over a grassy hill next to
the water. We were also able to park the
Casita and leave the car running during dinner to recharge. There was a park adjacent to the restaurant
with some cannons remaining from a blockhouse fortification built against the
US during the War of 1812, so Matty got some plaque-reading in on the way to
the restaurant.
The food was fresh and good – Matty had the lamb shank, I
had the salmon, and the girls had a fish-cake.
I told the owner I was just there for the cake anyway. It was better than the one at the Jordan Pond
House; it was dense and almost had a ganache type of outer chocolate
coating. He told me he puts a smidge of
Gran Marnier in the chocolate too, and used to serve it with strawberries, but
has since gotten lazy and just uses whipped cream. He also told me he has a piece every day, (and
immediately watches people look at his belly when he tells them that). I’d probably rank it somewhere in the upper
middle of all of the flourless chocolate cakes I’ve had on my quest; it
probably could have earned a higher spot, but I think he’d just taken it out of
the fridge, and I prefer mine slightly warmed.
We were the last customers of the night, and Sis and I
almost got locked in at closing because he didn’t know we were in the bathroom
for one last potty break before hitting the road again. We got jammies on the ladies and gave them
their milks and headed for the highway.
And what a huge amount of driving it’s been. New Brunswick is like the New Jersey of
Canada: it’s just kind of in the way of getting to better places. This drive is longer than the Turnpike in
mileage, but there’s no traffic, which is a definite vantage point. Or maybe it’s because it’s almost midnight
and we’re still on the road…
Baby Gear Used Today:
Transport:
Transport:
-Car Seats: Britax Advocate + Clek Fllo
-Stroller: Baby Jogger City Mini GT Double
Feeding:
- High Chair: Fischer
Price Folding Travel Chair
-Bottles: Bubba 12-hour cool no-spill mugs
-Utensils: Ikea plasticware
Funny Kiddo Quotes:
Sissy, Dada, and Eloise in a playhouse at the Kingsbrae Gardens:
Dada:
Sissy, can you let me out of the house?
Sissy: No,
you need to stay here and watch my kid because I’m going to leave.
Immediately after going peepee but before flushing at the
restaurant after dinner:
Sissy: Mommy, why are you building
another nest?
Me: Because I have to go peepee
too.
Sissy: We are going to have a
peepee collection!
