Trippin’ Around North America

Did you know that 1/3 of the French Fries in the world come from the McCain's plant in New Brunswick?

September 30

Yesterday was a wash out, literally. This morning we awoke to brilliant blue skies. And mother nature did not even remember what she did to us yesterday.

After a 15 minute ride from our camp we were in Beautiful New Brunswick. Within 50 feet of the border was the second biggest Canadian flag I have ever seen, and yes, the signs are bilingual and readable. At the welcome centre we were told to move our clocks forward another hour to Atlantic Time. Pacific time plus four, Greenwich time minus four. The staff was, again very pleasant and ALL the maps and literature they gave us were in English!

The first stop was in Grand Falls. There is a massive waterfall in the middle of the city, now dammed and used as the hydro source for the area.

The fall was a mere trickle today, most was going to the turbines underground. I really think that we had more water in our trailer yesterday than we saw at Grand Falls today.

Next was Florenceville. Home of the McCain, [potato] empire. A beautiful town in really lovely countryside, where potato growing is the main source of income. We visited Potato World,

stop laughing, Fellette picks these things. It is a museum devoted to the potato growing industry in the area. We had an escorted tour, where we were the only visitors at the time.

Next to Hartland to see and drive on the longest covered bridge in the world, 1283 feet long, single lane.Hartland is a neat little town, something like out of the past, stuck in the 1940's.

New Brunswick has a population of somewhat over 700,000 people. It appears to be mostly rural and is like any other rural area except it is absolutely beautiful country. Small rolling hills with towns tucked off the main roads. We followed the St. John river most of the day. The farms all appear to be very neat and well maintained, almost obsessive with it. The total effect is very pleasing to the eye.

The highways in New Brunswick have so far been the best of any province we have been in. I suppose the Federal money is much more visible in a small province than in the larger ones. I also believe that the Maritimes get a very much larger percentage of Federal money than most others, on a percapita basis. Somehow, because New Brunswick was involved in the very earliest of Canadian history, they seemed to have parlayed that into their hand being deeper into the Feds pocket, and the Feds don't seem to mind it. There are more people in Vancouver than all of New Brunswick.

The picture by the picnic table is our home for the night, by the Saint. John river. [Everything here seems to be a Saint, Sainte, St. or Ste.]

posted by Doug and Fellette @ 1:00 PM