Go to Newfoundland: All You Get is Turkey

 

 

Eastport is about as far east as you can get in the continental United States, and is just across a narrow channel from Canada, and our phones didn't know where we were;  GPS confusal. Mine made weird noises, then shut off. Rose's said she was being charged a $2.00 "global fee" for every text she made in Bar Harbor. Bought some cheap US gasoline before getting into the line of cars waiting to cross the border into Canada. The female Canadian border officer asked us questions like, "…where are you going?”(that was easy) "…how long are you going to be in Canada?", and "…what is your license plate?" Rose and I answered pretty much simultaneously, and gave somewhat different answers. But it was enough to arouse Canadian Border Officer suspicion, and the lady, who seemed so nice, then gave us a yellow slip of paper, and told us to pull to the side for an "immigration check." We waited in line while customs officers pulled bottles of liquor out of peoples cars, and made them pay a stiff tariff. When our turn came, some Canadian Officer dude began asking us more questions, while checking his computer. He took me aside, like it's some kind of big secret, and asks me about the time I got in trouble, almost 50 years ago. The incident in question shall be from here on, referred to as “THE HUBCAP CAPER.” Yeah, so what? I was a juvenile. But he wanted more, and kept pressing me for details. So he's searching more stuff on his computer, and then he says, "Come outside, we're going to have a look at your stuff." So I told him that everything is carefully packed in waterproof bags, and that this is a real pain in the ass. We've been here almost an hour already. So he says, "It won't take that long." So I open up the main compartment of our "T-Bag", and start pulling out black plastic garbage bags, and setting them on the outdoor table near the building. And I'm angry, and all the cars in the line are looking, and I reach into the dirty clothes bag, and pull out some underpants, and I hold them aloft and yell, "Hey, Rose…this is in the wrong bag." And I move the item to the correct garbage bag, and start digging around for more. Then I pull out a blue pair of skivvies, and hold them up and say, "this is in the wrong bag, too." And now, everything is on the table, and he's going through the saddlebags, and he finds Rose's big bag of pills. And he holds them up for a second, like he found something good, then puts them aside, and moves to the other saddlebag. And he digs down through my rain gear, and my extra shirts, and finds my 1955 Boy Scout First Aid Kit. And you could tell, he thought he found gold! He ripped off the rubber band that holds it together, and looked inside, and you could see the disappointment on his face when all he found was bandages, mercurochrome, and aspirin. They finally let us put our shit back together, and let us leave. By this time we didn't even want to go into Canada. But we did. We got on route 1, and headed east. This is a good smooth road, with a speed limit of 110km/hr. (66mph). So I just set the cruise control to 68mph. There was no traffic, and the miles just melted away to St. John. We got a cheap motel room in the city, and went to eat at the restaurant near the reversing falls. And the fog rolled in off the Bay of Fundy and obscured the view, so we went back to the Hillside Motel and drank some whiskey. Oh, and we lost an hour crossing from the Eastern time zone to the Atlantic, when we entered Canada. It seems like it’s always foggy in St. John, and it seems like I always drink too much when I’m there.

thorough search of motorcycle

Fog rolled in off the Bay of Fundy; we got some Canadian money out of the ATM at the bank in Pugwash.  Cape Breton Island, and The Cabot Trail. We took 19 north and tried to get gas in Judique, but they only had "regular." To no avail, we searched for gas in some of the small towns along the way, and I thought I might run out, until we found the Irving station in Mabou. Bought some whiskey from the local distillery in Mabou, too, and met some bikers who spoke only French…”oui, oui”, said the woman with the tight leather pants… oui, oui. We rode north to Cheticamp and stopped for lunch: fried clams and lobster sandwich. Heading north on the western side of the island, ocean so blue, clear sky with white, puffy clouds, and bluffs, yes, bluffs, carved out of the mountainous terrain. And the road ahead was smooth, with easy curves for miles ahead. But after we reached the northern most part of the island, the road became more wooded, with "moose crossing" signs, instead of ocean views. And then there were sections that were bumpy from frost heaving, and I thought, again, that we might run out of gas, so I pulled up to the pumps at a gas station in Cape North, but it turned out to be abandoned. But we stopped anyway,  to take a picture. So, I’m posing with the nozzle, and a  new Toyota pulls in, and stops on the other side of the pump. It was an old couple, real old, old farts in a Toyota, and the man who was driving rolled down the window, and he thought I would pump him some gas. I told the dude that it was a joke: we were just taking pictures, but they didn't understand, and his wife got real serious. "We need gas," she exclaimed..  Very Serious. So I told them that there was supposed to be a gas station somewhere near North Cape, and they left, angry, ahead of us. A few hundred feet down the road, there was a fork in the road. The fork to the left looked good so we took it. We were right behind the angry old farts in the Toyota. And then there was construction, lane closure, single lane, and the old people were stopped there in front of us, and the old lady had the window down, and was asking the clueless flag girl something, probably about gas. When the flag girl turned the sign around to let us proceed, the old people went through the construction, but I refused to go until the flag girl used her radio to find out if there was gas that way. Traffic passed me as I sat on the side, and then, a minute later, she told us that, indeed, there was NO GAS, so we made a u-turn, and took the other fork, and found a small station a mile down the road, but they had no high test. The people there were nice and they told me that I could get high test in Igonish, and told me how far it was. I figured I could make it, and blasted off down the highway. I feel bad for those old people; buzzards probably got 'em. The bumpy roads from Dingwall, down through Igonish, and Wreck Cove, made riding a chore, but we got onto route 312 and rode out onto a spit of land to wait for the ferry. The ferry was small, and the water it crossed was only about 100 yards wide, but it saved us probably 40 or 50 miles, and only cost $5.50. We rode onto the boat, sat on the bike, and we rode off. Maybe a couple of minutes, and we were on a fast highway, route 105, going over Mt. Kelly, and rolling into Sydney, the capitol. We rode around downtown, and found a place that advertised "Best Rates In Town," got a room, and went down the street to The Governors Pub And Eatery, where we had scallops, mussels and salmon, beer, wine and rum cake. A group of bikers from Manitoba came in and were seated at the table next to us. We'd seen them at the ferry, and then again at one of the gas stations, so we struck up a conversation right away, and the other folks in the restaurant must have thought that we'd known each other for years. There was a "pub" upstairs at the restaurant, and musicians were pounding out some lively Celtic fiddle. Rose and I pounded a few pints of ale at the bar, before heading back to the hotel, which Rose said is haunted. There was a strange painting in the upstairs hallway, of a young girl in a dancing costume, with her hand on her hip. The man at the desk said not to drink the water, or use the ice cubes, as there was a city-wide "boil water advisory." Well, we still had some Jim Beam. We found out later that this place had a bed so saggy, that when you lay down, you roll into the crater in the middle.

Took route 4 out of Sydney, down along the Bras d' Or Lake, and left Cape Breton Island on the Canso Causeway. I like that…Bras d’ Or. As we were passing the lake, I tried to see the bra shape. We hit Halifax at about ten after four, just in time for rush hour, and we crossed the toll bridge, and headed downtown to the historic district. Narrow streets, bottlenecks, jammed up and no place to park, so I decided to get the fuck out of there. Just a little bit of "conservative lane splitting" did the trick, and I found myself out of the downtown, and headed north on route 102 to Bedford. We found a Howard Johnson’s, and wound up getting the last available room, and paid less than the advertised price on the marquee. After unpacking the bike, we went over to Oliver's, the hotel restaurant, where we ate some lobsters, and of course, beer.

The next morning, at Olivers, we ran into a biker couple from Montreal, that we'd seen in Cape Breton. They were telling us a story about their motorcycle trip to Newfoundland: 16 hours on the boat, sea sick, and someone comes back to the cabin with egg sandwiches. Everywhere you go in Newfoundland, they said, all they have to eat is turkey. Turkey sandwiches. We all had a good laugh, but they were heading towards Digby, and we were going to Peggy's Cove. I would have liked to ride with these folks. Go to Newfoundland. All you get is turkey. Funny mutherfucker.

most favorable waitress: Chinese restaurant

We took some nice photos of the rocks and the ocean, and the "most photographed" lighthouse. When the tourists started to roll in, we rolled out. Got on route 102 north, through Truro, and onto 104. Stopped at the New Brunswick border, near Sackville, ate some lunch at a German schnitzel place, and went to the welcome center, where Emily helped us get a cool room in the city of Moncton, right near all the bars, with secure motorcycle parking, and at a very good rate. Thanks again, Emily! We stayed at The Delta, and Jaime, the valet, hooked me up with a great spot to park my motorcycle. Moncton is cool! Went down along the river and came up on Main Street, and walked around until we found some good live music at a beer joint, down an alley. We got a pitcher of beer for $11, and sat out in the warm evening listening to music. Drank some shots of Sambucca. Left that place, and found another, where the band was playing Jimi Hendrix songs. We had some more beer and some tiramisu, and actually danced our way out of that place, onto the sidewalk, and back to the Delta. Danced...

It's always good to lend a hand

Sun shining, short sleeves, but as we neared St. John, the air got colder, and the fog rolled in. It's that damned Bay of Fundi, again. And we had to stop, twice, on the shoulder, to add layers for warmth. I don't know if this is the place to mention this, but it is my observation that women in Canada wear their shorts, shorter and tighter, than in the USA. A dirty old man's observation. When we got to St. Stephen, the line of cars to the border was, literally, a mile long. And it would move approximately one car length every 2 minutes. So I'd shut off the bike, so it wouldn't overheat...air cooled engine, you know...re-start, move 8 feet, and shut it off again. I probably took a year off the life of my starter, but we answered all the questions right, and breezed through the checkpoint. When the woman asked me if we brought anything back from Canada, I said, "only a hangover," and she waved us right through. “Go ahead,” she said. And we were back in the USA. We bought some cheap American gasoline. There, high test in Maine was about $4/gallon. Canadian high test, which was sold by the liter, wound up costing about $6/gallon. We rode south on US 1. It felt good to be helmetless again!  We stopped in Eastport again for lobster, then continued south to Machias, where we got a room at the Bluebird Motel, right next to the deli/package store, where a cold six pack of PBR cost $3.99. Saw some old friends who were camping near Jonesport, and just as a heavy shower came through, they showed up at our room. It was good to see them and we talked, in room 107, about lobster, and motorcycles.