Andy & Gillie's Big Adventure!: Back In The U.S.(S) A. (sorry!)

“Oh, you’re from England! Near London? We have friends who live near London. Manchester, the Smiths? Perhaps you know them: John and Stephanie? No?” Actually, we haven’t had that kind of apocryphal conversation, but some kind of kinship with the Motherland is often mentioned – even people linking with Scotland, which is kind of weird…

Proceeding sedately on from the delightful Acadian paradise that was the Richibucto campground, we headed towards Cape Breton and stayed in a lovely place called Baddeck, where we met a charming Swiss couple who were intrigued by our foccary stick, that we had brought with us all the way from Moab, Utah. It’s on its way out now, though, so a new candidate is being auditioned soon.

Quite how splendid some of the sunsets have been during our travels is hard to describe – and the photos don’t always do them justice, but, hey, we like ‘em. Some people collect photos of fire hydrants, or trees, or buildings, or each other; we like sunsets - and there was a truly beautiful one at Corney Brook Campground in Cape Breton.

Right now we’re sitting surrounded by our washing in a campground at York Beach, near Scarborough (see previous post for comments on unoriginal place names – no wonder this area is called New England!). We had an interesting and pleasant journey through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, stopping in a variety of Walmarts and campgrounds – until 22^nd August…

St John in New Brunswick is famous for being a good viewing point to see the celebrated Reversing Rapids, where the very high tide comes up the St Lawrence river and clashes with the river flowing down from the mountains, causing the phenomenon of the tide pushing the river back upstream. Very exciting (sort of). It was about this time that Gillie started to get toothache. It got so bad that we started to seriously consider her flying back to the UK for emergency treatment, as her insurance isn’t the most comprehensive, but things went beyond that quite quickly and after much detective work we found a dentist who performed root canal treatment – on our anniversary!

There’s a lovely shopping centre in St John where they had a really good cheap books sale for charity, so we spent some time (and money) there, waiting for Gillie to stop drooling (not because of the Novocain, but the young dentist who treated her!) before we went and enjoyed some refreshment at some of the many local boardwalk bars, followed by a lakeside dinner just by our campsite. So all’s well…

Undeterred by this setback and showing an indomitable spirit, we headed for St Stephen and our last stop in Canada – the Ganong Chocolate Museum. Not quite on the same scale as the Cadbury factory in Dunedin, but the end result – lots of yummy chocolate – was the same.

Virtually next door to the factory – along the high street – is the crossing to Calais (pronounced Kallus, of course) Maine. It was raining.

We waited in the queue (refuse to say ‘line’) and at about 4 pm, were in a position to show our passports, with their 10-year visas, to the border guard. ‘How long you folks plannin’ to stay in the USA?’ he said. ‘Until next January, sometime,’ we replied innocently. ‘Well, you’re only authorized to stay till October…’ uh oh. Long story short, what appeared to be a bit of a problem was solved initially by the request for $298 each to extend the stay, which quickly became $6 each when we pointed out that we had been in Canada for two months and they happily stamped us in for another six months – so we’re legal till end Feb 2016!

Xenia is the ancient Greek concept of hospitality, the generosity and courtesy shown to those who are far from home and we have experienced much of this – not least from travellers we have met journeying through this vast continent – we’re not finished yet - and tenuous (and not so tenuous) acquaintances. Stand up Hannah & Jai, Tyson, Barry Heals, Eva & Jeff, Susan, Lymaris, and only today Theresa (not to mention all the lovely people across Australia and NZ – you know who you are). Will let Gillie fill you in on some of these, but had to find a way of getting an ‘X’ in there!

Yet another lovely campground was in Bar Harbor (sic), where the charming Lymaris introduced us to the mysteries of Instagram and became an instant ‘friend’ on FB. Still not sure exactly how all the hashtags work, but may well be posting more pics, as on Sunday last, so watch out for all this ♯♯♯ stuff coming up…(Does anybody know a shortcut for this symbol on Mac keyboards – had to track it down in symbols).

Zappa, sadly, has not featured prominently in our iPod choices by the campfire, but we (I) have managed to find a few more albums that the Zappa Family Trust has issued sneakily (as well as far too many live albums to bother with at the moment), so have been able to keep the collection up to date, sort of. Over 100 now, I think. Enough of this frippery. Gillie’s champing at the bit to get to the keyboard. Stay well everyone, happy hashtagging (?!) xx.

PS Oh deary me!!! Don’t talk to me about toothache! The pain is forgotten when it’s gone, but when it’s there oooooh!! (like childbirth?) The idea was that it would go away if I ignored it… Anyway after numerous attempts to find an emergency dentist, helped by the pharmacy lady in Walmart, we eventually found ‘Mr Wonderful’ in downtown St John, within yards of the lovely bars and cafes that we consoled ourselves in afterwards.

So $600 dollars later I am free of the pesky abscess and infection that came out of nowhere. One of the panic issues for me was that this weekend we are booked into a campsite on Cape Cod, for four nights, to meet up with our good friends Rob, Lynette and their son and his family.

Thankfully I will now (hopefully) be on top form to enjoy the promised delights of lobster and wine (also to have a decent conversation with someone other than Andy!!) He was really lovely to me when I was in pain, so I still love him, even when he rants on about Frank Zappa!

I must just say a quick word about the coast of Maine. It has been a delight to drive through this amazing countryside, charming fishing port villages with beautiful clapboard houses and churches with tall spires reaching up to the sky. Just perfect! Also we have been blessed with glorious weather, to complete the picture.

In amongst all this trauma, we had some lovely news; we’ve been accepted for a six-day house sit in a seaside town between Boston and Cape Cod, beginning on 10^th September. We’ll be living in a six bedroom ‘cottage’ overlooking Massachusetts Bay and looking after 2 dogs and a cat. The house has a wraparound porch (and hopefully a rocking chair!) Can’t wait…

Bye for now

Love to all

Gillie xxxx