Bye, bye PEI

I awoke to the sound of silence…well at least no sound of rain. Since we had a fairly long drive ahead of us, I decided to move quickly to pack up things, so skipped the coffee and went right to work.

As I emerged from the trailer, the air was filled with a maritime mist and everything was sopping wet. The mat we place outside the trailer is soaked through and normally dries quickly given a little sun and hot weather, so we just packed it up wet and stowed it.

As we drove out of the campsite, I decided a Tim Horton’s was in order, so we headed back to Charlottetown – a big mistake. There is no where to park a truck and trailer and we ended up parking on the side of a narrow street covering the side walk with the 4-way flashers on.

After we reached the TransCanada and pointed ourselves towards the Confederation Bridge, Connie pointed out to me that we could have bypassed the city entirely. I responded with a smart comment about wanting to spend a little more time experiencing this beautiful city. I immediately sensed her displeasure with me and then Zach chewed me out and strongly suggested it was time to stop with the negative vibes. I decided holding my tongue for a good while was in order and concentrated on the driving.

When we reached the toll both, the young lady said “that will be $64.25.” Within 10 minutes we reached the other side and New Brunswick and within minutes the temperature began to rise. Shortly thereafter a trucker came up behind me and began flashing his lights. I pulled over and he pointed toward the roadside. I waved to say thanks and got out to check what was up. We had lost our bumper plug on the passenger side and the drainage hose was dragging on the highway. A little electrical tape and a few minutes and we were back on the road again.

We made our way toward Fredericton and stopped about an hour east to gas up and have a bite of lunch. When we opened up the trailer, we found the floor covered in water and the carpets under the dinette soaking wet. We looked for the cause but found no immediate culprit, so assumed it was the mat, which is placed in the storage compartment accessible from the outside and adjacent to the dinette.

When we arrived in Fredericton, we searched for a spot to park right downtown and were fortunate to find the parking lot behind the old Legion was empty. When we opened up the trailer again and found more water, we moved the sopping wet mat to the back of the truck.

On our way through New Brunswick heading east, I had been messaging with my cousin Charlene, who lives in Fredericton. I arranged to meet with her, her husband Tim and daughter Amy-Lynn on our way back today. They were kind enough to join us down town and save us from trying to find their home and a suitable parking spot. Before they arrived, we walked around the downtown, checked out the music store and tried to find a license plate (unsuccessful again).

We spent about an hour with Charlene, Tim and Amy-Lynn…it was so great to catch up.

After leaving Fredericton, we headed towards Edmonston, where we will spend one night before moving on to Montreal. On the way, we encountered a massive thunderstorm, first with pounding rains and then with hail. The hail was so loud, we were yelling at each other in the truck and couldn’t hear a thing.

We are staying a provincial park just outside of Edmonston. It has fresh water, 30 amp power, a swimming pool, laundry and a Sani station. Pretty impressive. BC Parks perhaps it’s time to step it up a notch.

PS as I’m writing this, it has started to rain again. I think it is a thunderstorm, so likely will be short.