It's A Comedy Of Errors!

 

Last weekend, I decided to go on a short jaunt and take a look around New Brunswick, Canada, just because I can...  I had a place to stay for a couple of nights in Fredericton, my friend Donna and I had been in the military together in the eighties and had stayed in touch over the years, so I was all set.  Or so I thought...

Now there is one little thing about me that is really relevant to know before you read the post, I literally have no natural sense of direction.  I could get lost in a shopping mall and have! But that's never kept me from driving around looking at scenery... I tend to think it just adds to the mystery of a trip if you don't really know where you are and how to get there.  But I've become very good with maps in compensation...

Well, I've done the road trip from Halifax to Fredericton quite a number of times, so you'd think it would be a no-brainer.  But I sometimes get inventive and veer off on weird tangents. 

And what they say about artists is true, they are eccentric, no way around it!  In some way or another, you're going to feel a twilight zone around at times when dealing with them...  And I'm no exception.

On the spur of the moment,  I figured out I was bored with the old route and decided to drive down the west coast of Nova Scotia and maybe take the Digby ferry across to Saint John, NB.

What the heck, I'd do it different this time.  Didn't check any schedules, as that would be a copout, sigh....  By the time I got there, it was just before noon and I found that the ferry didn't leave until four and it was an exhorbitant price. If I turned back around and continued driving back up the coastline, I could beat the ferry and get into Freddy Beach at the same time anyway. 

Not a problem, right?  Except I got lost going back up the coast around the bay of Fundy and ended up losing a couple of hours going in circles. It was beautiful, but by the time I figured it out, (I had to break down and actually check a map) I had added a couple of hours on to my trip.  Happens. 

I guess I could be the poster girl for GPS if I applied, but I hate being told what to do (pigheaded and five years in the military!) so I actually have one that I have never used.  Just couldn't bring myself to download that software and call myself lame at navigating! (No offense meant to Donna and others who swear by their GPS's)...

But I made it and saw some very beautiful and artistically inspiring scenery, not to mention sunsets, and I was very happy to arrive...

The next day, we all got up and went on our originally scheduled tour down to St. Martins, New Brunswick...  Or we tried.  On the way, just an hour outside of Fredericton, we heard a snap, clang and a crash and the muffler was dragging.

Oh this was hilarious!  I was so glad I wasn't driving this time, I'd just taken ribbing the night before on how I was pretty good at extending a short trip with inventive driving and unusual circumstances and this time, I wasn't in the driver's seat!  After I stopped laughing, we got out and looked at the problem. 

I looked at her trunk and really stopped laughing, booster cables, one screwdriver, no rope or wires, and one very sad emergency kit that was aimed toward first aid!  How could people drive around like this?  Ah well, not everyone is mechanically inclined, and she's not an ex-technician but an ex-finance clerk, so I guess it makes sense.  If I need help with financials, I'll call Donna, but not for anything like mechanics or practical things that require some type of tools...

So she called a garage and we found out that it would cost, cost, cost to tow, and while she was doing that, I found the muffler clamp so it could be wired up to get to a garage, saving her money...  It would still take 45 minutes and cost over a hundred bucks as it was. Yuck!  I'm sitting there, thinking it over, and decided I couldn't take it anymore... I asked her how much were her booster cables worth.  Ten bucks on sale... Alright!  Now we're talking!

I stripped the cables, jury rigged the muffler clamp back into place and she called off the towing guy.  She told him her friend was a former technician and mentioned my solution.  He laughed, called me 'inventive' and told it should work fine for a short jaunt.

We made it to a gas station and I bought what I could find, brass snare wires of all things, and wired it up tighter and it sounded better than ever!  So we decided to continue on to St. Martins.  No guts, no glory, right?  And it worked out fine, it was hot and sunny, I think we used up our set of weird things to go wrong by then and were due for a break...  If you want to take a look at the caves of St. Martins, which are well worth the trip, muffler or no muffler trouble, you can follow this facebook link and look at my shots of it.

After we'd worn out St. Martins, the T-shirt lady showed us the latest area attraction, the literature on the Fundy Trail... 

Ah well, onwards we go!  It was also beautiful, but I want to go back again to see that with the tide out next time. Here's a public Facebook link on that one as well if you want to take a look...

The next day, I was going to drive straight back to Halifax as I'd promised Donna I would!  But well, I tried, but ended up taking a side trip up to the Miramichi en route just to see if it still looked the same... It did, and then I went home!  Can't be too predictable now, can I?

Images (photos and paintings by Teresa Young):

1. Unnamed abstract - Oct.2003,  2. Map of Maritimes, courtesy of Google,  3. Covered bridge near St. John, NB,  4. Sunken Treasure - Jun.2001,  5. Blue Emotions - Jul.2002,  6. Caves of St.Martins, NB,  7 and 8. Fundy Trail, NB.