Terri and Peter's RV Adventures

It was a wistful goodbye to our new favorite place, Prince Edward Island. It’s truly hard to compare to the other provinces we’ve visited: Newfoundland/Labrador, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. It’s like comparing friends or siblings; they each have their own personality, strengths and weaknesses and connect with us with varying intensity and on different levels, physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually.

Every province in The Maritimes has touched us. Universally, on the physical front, there’s the sheer beauty of each place and the dominant color, green; a color we don’t see in California six months out of the year, including right now. And there’s the feature of water, whether ocean, bay, rivers, lakes or ponds. Everywhere you look, you’re likely to find water. Newfoundland/Labrador stood out for its rugged nature, raw weather, windswept vistas, and water. Nova Scotia felt somehow more developed and familiar (maybe it was Halifax’s influence), with a beautiful rolling farm landscape. New Brunswick has the larger cities of Moncton, Fredericton (the capital) and St. John’s one quickly gets into picturesque countryside of pines, rolling hills and of course water. Its proximity to Quebec creates a more French influence certainly in the spoken and written language and yet it has an English countryside feel to it.

But then there’s PEI, which captured our imagination. Driving through the countryside was like being set inside a postcard, with well-tended homes scattered about every few kilometers, perfect rows of plantings in red dirt, white churches with tall steeples and large parking lots suggesting a sizable following, and every 20 miles or so, a town. The place evokes a calmness, a lack of stress, a slower pace where conversations aren’t “getting in the way” of something else more pressing. People are willing to help and seem universally happy. I’m sure there are plenty of depressed people there, as everywhere, but the overall vibe was calm, friendly, and stress free.

I have yet to formalize my feelings about New Brunswick. It was the first province we visited, entering from Maine. Fundy National Park, Alma and the surrounding area was lovely with rolling farmlands, pines and ocean shoreline. Of course, my time in the ER in Moncton wasn’t a high point but then again, I haven’t been to other ERs in other provinces, thankfully. Now that we are back in New Brunswick, this time Shediac, I’ll see how my impressions form after the end of tomorrow. We leave in two days for a final stop in Grand Falls, NB.

Today’s drive was an easy 2+ hours. We stopped at Toy Masters outside of Charlottetown where Junior was supposed to fix our RV door. Fortunately, he wasn’t around giving us the pleasure of meeting Chris, a stocky, kind man with a thick Polish accent. He took one look at the issue, said Airstreams were built to last, and one hinge was just missing a screw. (I know the feeling.) He must have called the office to see what to charge, came back out armed with a screw, some thread cement or whatever, and with a smile and wish for safe travels, sent us on our way, no charge. See what I mean?

Now we’re in Shediac, staying at Parlee Provincial Park. It’s a park like setting and half full as it’s still the shoulder season. It’s not worth detailing, but they essentially gave us two spots for the price of one so we have lots of space on three out of four sides. There’s lots of grass and trees but no water views which is disappointing. I guess we have to drive to the beach. Arriving around 3 pm gave us the leisurely pace of setting up, making an early dinner and relaxing this evening. This is not an every day occurrence and we can both see the value of a mid afternoon arrival.

We have no plans for tomorrow but I’m sure a beach visit will be involved. It’s overcast with a few drizzles but mild. It feels like an early summer midwestern day and evening. We’ll head into town which is just a few minutes away and see what’s around to explore.

I’m thinking of our Newfoundland/Grand Codroy campground friends that we made, Trevor and Larraine, who are from Shediac. They had said they would have invited us for a lobster dinner had they been in town. Now I understand: Shediac claims to be the lobster capital of the world. I think Maine might have something to say about that but I’m not going to insert my claw into that debate. For one, I’m too chill right now. I’m just happy to be in the rhythm of travel and still basking in our recent PEI and Newfoundland experiences. Peter has already said he wants to come back. Me too.