Nobody ever said it would be necessarily easy!

The amazing sculptures created by the tides in the Bay of Fundy

I rode back from the rocks in this neat little shuttle bus

Bobby awaiting my return from seeing the rocks in the Bay of Fundy

There was nothing shy about these guys at Port Elgin Interpretive site (Gulls, Art)?

Bobby's free to run field in Port Elgin at the Indian Point B&B

View from our Port Hood campsite on the Cape

You haven't heard from me for a few days because of lack of wifi. I'm going to tell you the essentials and then I'll copy in the post I wrote the night before last but the system wouldn't work.

I left the lovely Clipper Ship Motel on the Bay of Fundy with the intention of driving the short way to St. Stephen and crossing over to Maine there. I'm not there yet. As I was driving into St. Stephen I thought about how tough and sticky the passenger side door latch was acting as I came and went from the Motel room. So, just to be sure I decided to turn off into town and go to a "Canadian Tire" which is a great all purpose parts and repair operation all over Canada. My idea was to get a small can of WD40 to shoot on that lock before I went any further. I came back out and when I tried to open the door, no can do.  Well, at least my hunch was right on. That door wouldn't open. So at least I'm just across from the right business. A helpful man came out and fooled with the keys and managed to get it to open. But, similar to the experience with the other door at Salmon Arms in Alberta (I think), it also wouldn't close all the way. That man left and another came and he, amazingly managed to get it to close but not open again. So to the mechanic at CT. He said they couldn't take it until Monday (tomorrow) because he was so tightly booked up. So instead of making it across the border, I slept in their parking lot as I will also tonight. It seems quite safe and they all know I'm there.

I'm already running almost a week late on my schedule so I'm a bit taxed for a decision as to drive on if they can't fix it tomorrow. That would entail climbing over the bed and crawling down into the driver's seat. I can open that door from the inside. So, in close up situations I leave it open a crack and am able to reenter from the front. But  that doesn't become possible too often. Any ideas?

I'm sitting at a Tim Horten coffee house where there is free wifi and I'll stay here another half hour before driving back to the lot I call home. If anyone is getting this as I write it, I'd love it if you'd weigh in.

Much as I consider it a lousy headache to have to crawl over and into the seat, as long as I can exit quickly and safely from that side, I'm inclined to  drive on and cross the border tomorrow. I really can't afford much more delay. I know there is a VW outfit up the road an hour at St. John. They would probably have to send to them for the part. Another question is: If they have the part coming should I engage them to fix the other side while they're at it?  I really have loved driving this vehicle, it's a dream. But this door business seems to be it's Achilles heel. I'm going to post this now in case someone has an opinion.

OK, it's posted, so I'll blather on. Or better yet, I forgot about that post I couldn't get to go from the Motel. That was a lovely site. And to answer my earlier question in the unposted section, I definitely was on the shores of the Bay of Fundy still. The whole way in to St. Stephen was called the Fundy Parkway on some signs. Here's that post, and the next time I'm on I'll give you some of those pictures I took at the "Rocks."

Here 'tis:  I spent most of yesterday exploring the coast of the Bay of Fundy. I'm so grateful that Art urged me to do that. What an amazing place. It is a region of spectacular rises and falls of the tides and the shoreline geology shows all the results of that phenomenon. Many of you know to what degree I am seriously acrophobic. But all my life I have made an effort to overcome that problem. I force myself to go places that make me a bit dizzy. That's if there is something to seriously hold onto. Such was the case when walking down a steep path and seemingly endless metal staircase to see the famous Hopewell rocks that have been formed by the tidal action at that location. I was so proud of myself that I made it to the sandy bottom shore with water lapping and signs everywhere saying that we must be gone from there by 5:00. I will soon be taking the time to study a little book I bought that explains the basics to the layman. I'm so glad that Art suggested I take the time to go there.

Being  back in New Brunswick, the fall colors began to emerge again. Not quite as intensely as in the northern part of the province where I had been earlier in the week and marveled over the carpets of reds, rusts and golds rising up out from between and above the conifers, forming a kind of kaleidoscope of the season's finest. Coming down the steep grades as I was leaving the Fundy National Park the colors played a kind of game along the border of the highway. It was almost as if it had been planned that every other tree was a deep green conifer and then the alternates were like an autumn splash. I'm surprised I don't have a serious neck ache from turning my head from side to side so often in order not to miss something. Even as I drove through mixed B&B/small town/agricultural lands with their neat farm houses and outbuildings, I found myself wishing I could stop and photogaph every other minute's vista. Not possible though. For one reason, they don't seem to believe in wide highway shoulders here. A serious accident could result from all the stops I'd like to indulge in. So making an effort to store all these images in my head with its questionable memory is a challenge I'll have to aim for.

After another consultation at the Nova Scotia visitor's center I had decided to drive through the Fundy park and enter the US. just after reaching the Canadian border town of St. Stevens. As I drove past St. Johns toward that border the five o'clock low sun became absolutely blinding. I grew so tired of trying to hold one of my hands up to block it's piercing rays that I finally took an exit and pulled into an "Irving" gas station, They had a little restaurant there and I decided to have a chowder and salad before moving on or finding a place to stay the night. The waitress told me there was a campground about "ten" minutes up the road and I took off (in the dark now) to find it. After  something like twenty five minutes I still had not come upon the phantom campground and figured I missed the sign along the way. Then I came upon this neat motel perched above the shoreline of a "river?" The campground was supposed to be called "New River Campground." But this body of water looks suspiciously like  a tidal nook or cranny of the bay. I'll find out eventually. I asked the attendant about the campground and she said that it was just a little further down the road but she thought it was closed for the season. I guess the waitress's ten minute drive was my half hour drive. I crawl along, desperately trying to see what the signs along the edge of the road are meant to be telling me in semi-darkness. But my headlights seem to refuse to reveal half of what I should be discovering. It's like "straight ahead or not at all." A good metaphor for something, eh?