The road less traveled

During the past month's travels our destinations have been locations off the beaten path; not located on the the major Interstates.  Those that have driven me places know that I am a horrendous passenger and hate, hate, hate being with a lot of other traffic on the roads, never mind not behind the wheel of the vehicle.  Chuck and I share driving on our travels, changing back and forth every 1.5 to 2 hr intervals.  Even then I get antsy being the passenger for more than 3 hrs a day and get very jumpy and fidgety.

Starting with our departure from Maine, via Route 9 into Canada, we've not had to use a major Interstate except for very short durations.  The roads are classified as truck routes, so we know we've got clearance for the RV with overpasses.

In New Brunswick, Canada, their Route 2 is mostly 4 lanes, but because it generally goes along outside cities, there are very few points of major congestion along the way.  The provinces of PEI and Quebec were generally two lane roads with clearly marked passing zones (including signage as to when the next passing zone would occur).

Our journey through the U.P. of Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa have been on secondary highways and I've been enjoying the trip so much more than I thought.  We passed by farms and through small towns but still had good roadways were we could be passed by those that wanted to get places faster than us.

With all our travels we use various mapping programs, including one of which gives us options on types of road or conditions (no tolls, no interstates, bridge heights, etc.  Although I haven't used the designation of "no interstates" I just may do that on future trips.  It's been lots of fun.  Here's our journey via Google Maps for the month of June.  Nearly 3,000 miles and no white knuckles.

Images from our day in Old Quebec

Favorite images / sunsets

During all these travels, I've enjoyed having the opportunity to take numerous photographs.  There are way too many to choose any one or two individual shots. And I know I have to limit my selection for "show and tell".  Here are some of my favorite sunsets (sorry, don't do sunrises as 4:00 am is way too early to be getting up in some of the areas we've visitied).    What's your favorite?

#1, #2, #3, #12 - Malpaque Bay, PEI

#4 - #7 - Pipestone, MN

#8 - #10 - West Yellowstone, WY

#11 - Island Park, ID

You meet all types ...

We're having a fun adventure with our Canadian travels at this time due to our location.  We've been in the Acadian Regions of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island (PEI) and have found it interesting to see how well our high school French is doing.  I dropped French as soon as I could in high school, but Chuck says he took it all 4 years.  Reading signs or brochures has been much easier than listening to people speak.  The fortunate part for us has been most of the folks we've met in these regions are bilingual and we've been able to have good conversations.

At a recent community campfire we really had an international gathering.  There were 5 couples represented, 2 from the U.S., 2 from Germany and one from Canada.  The 2 German couples had flown to NY and rented campers on Long Island NY and were traveling to Nova Scotia and PEI.  One of the men had a great command of English, the 2 ladies spoke a bit of English but mostly German and the other man spoke only German.  The other American couple were like us and spoke English and knew a few words but couldn't converse in German.  The Canadian couple were from the Province of Ontario and spoke English also.  Although there were language issues, we all spoke the communal language of camping and enjoyment.

There was another couple at the campground how had been invited to join at the fire, but they opted to not attend. We found out from the German folks that the other couple were also from Germany and that they were on a multi-year trip in their RV.  (Since we're full-time RVers now, Chuck and I did not think the comment too odd about how long the Germans were traveling, but to the other folks who were all part-time travelers, it was impressive.)

The unit the third German couple drove was impressive to us though.  They have a M A N.  It looked very recent and in good condition and we were amazed to learn that the rig is over 20 years old.  It does command quite a view both when you're parked next to it as well as seeing it driving down the road.

We were told that that couple is planning on driving towards Vancouver, BC, then head south through the US before going on into Mexico.

Quand on vous refile un citron...

Northeast New Brunwsick was a lot of fun for us.  We're staying in Caraquet, New Brunswick, which has a very strong French Canadian / Acadian influence.  (according to Wikipedia, 98.5% of the population speak French and less than 1/2 of those folks are bilingual.)  Signs for all businesses, road signs, and everything else is in French.  I only took 2 years of French lessons in High School so it's been a bit of a challange.  But we're doing reasonably well.

Every time I greeted someone I acknowledged them with both English and French so they realized I'm not from around here.  At one of our stops, Chuck and I ended up talking with a couple who have lived here all their lives.  To our luck they were bilingual and we had a nice conversation with us trying to use French and them using English.

The trip to the supermarket was lots of fun.  One staff member and I spoke about what a specific sign meant - turns out the cooked lobsters/ homard cuire for sale in the store were not cooked on location, rather somewhere in town / marche.  She said folks are very particular about where and how the lobsters are cooked.

Some of the oddities in this region though include milk and mail.  Milk can be bought in a 4 Liter bag.  That's right, a bag.  It also comes in plastic bottles, but a bag.  And the cost of milk is a case of sticker shock for us - $6 - $8 depending on where you shop.

The other interesting oddity is the mail.  Instead of the carrier going house to house like most U.S. neighborhoods, we saw multiple community mailboxes - some in the middle of a town, others out along the roads through the villages.

I was happy with how well we got around in this region.  Although it's not where I would want to settle down, I feel I could visit it several times and get by.

As for the title of today's blog....