New Brunswick

We've managed to stay in the most suburban town ever, shades of Hurst, Texas, just four times larger.  Moncton, New Brunswick is a quiet, family community of about 150,000 people filled with pleasant, courteous, kind Canadians.  This is the 'bilingual' province. All the signs are in both English and French with a very slight size edge towards the English.  The street signs seem odd at first when they are bilingual:  644 Rue Main St. with both the French and English for the type of road (Rue) and (Street). They also have a Mexican Restaurant I have my eye on for our one night stay after Newfoundland - at least I can get a margarita - I hope.

New Brunswick is all about TIDES.  Their biggest attraction is the Bay of Fundy which claims the highest tides in the world.  Above is Herring Cove inside the park at relatively low tide.  Where Drake is standing, will be covered with about 30 feet of water at high tide.  Typically, at this time a year, the tides rise and fall about 35 feet twice a day when the weather is 'normal'.  Unusual storms coupled with a full moon, and the tides can change up to 50 feet from low to high.  At low tide, you can walk around on the 'ocean floor'. The Fundy National Park isn't very dramatic, but it had a beautiful waterfall, Dickinson Falls.  As important from my POV, the trail to it was EASY.

Much more dramatic, and much more fun, were the Hopewell Rocks with their signature attraction, the flowerpots. This is a private operation, not a National Park, so I got to rock hound to my heart's content. I picked up some nifty ones.  (I'm very virtuous about never picking up anything in a park or historical site, but I will scavenge any rock from the side of the road or wherever it's not prohibited.) Anyway, it's the same 'walk around on the ocean floor' concept, BUT they have large rocks the size of 5 story buildings with trees and plants growing on the tops of the immense rocks, thus the name: the flowerpots.  That's Drake standing next to one of the rocks showing 'perspective' for me.  When the tide comes in, the rocks are covered up 2/3rds of the way with water.  A lot of the 'ocean floor' is gelatinous mud making this a kiddos' paradise. (Oh, that reminds me, I ran into someone who, upon discovering we were from Texas, mentioned he had taught school in Texas for a couple of years, and it amused him we refer to children as kiddos - who knew it was so regional?)   The mud is interspersed with caches of the most wonderful rocks.  I spent a lot of time in the Sanibel crouch while here.

This has been an odd stop for me because we didn't go to a single museum.  There really wasn't anything of interest here except for a quilt exhibit at the library which, of course, I went to.  This has been the third 'spring' now in a row.  The first wildflower out are fields and fields of dandelions which are in such profusion they are blanketing the fields and yards.  People actually 'mow' around them.  One man's weed is another man's flower.  When we return, supposedly, there will be lupines in the same type of profusion as bluebonnets - same family - bigger color scheme.

We now understand the 'mosquito' issue we'd been warned about.  Yesterday, we packed a lunch to take while touring around.  Getting hungry, we found a small town with a 'lookout and picnic park'.  We drove up, unpacked the food, and repacked it immediately.  We were both covered with 30% Deet, so we really weren't getting bitten, but the young flies and mosquitoes were literally swarming us.  Even in Houston and New Orleans we didn't experience the 'swarm factor'.  I think this is going to be the first of many of these occurrences.  We are definitely rethinking 'picnicking'.

Tomorrow, we head for Nova Scotia where we have a house rented on the Atlantic Ocean.  It's taken me a week to write this blog, so the Nova Scotia one will probably be out close to this one.

If you want to see more pictures of flowerpots, and the Fundy Bay, here are the pictures:

https://goo.gl/photos/2so7yCown41TrGNs6  - Hopewell Rocks

https://goo.gl/photos/TaiLtETsreQ7sd6fA  - Fundy National Park