Paspebiac-Est was the perfect place to wake up in the morning. The sun was rising up over the water and everything was sparkling. Inside the motorhome everything was glowing gold and silver, just like the water and the sun.
It was such a relaxing morning to look out over the sparkling water and we were dawdling and taking our time. This is the beginning of our third week of travels. Sometimes we have to slow down a little bit and enjoy what we have. An extra cup of coffee while we look out over the water, listening to the birds, and just reminiscing over the past two weeks of our travels.
Even Nicholas seemed reluctant to get out of bed. I went to go make the bed and he had taken up the center of it with his little toy Reindeer. His Reindeer goes with us no matter where we go. He just suddenly latched onto it since last Christmas (it was a present from the grandkids) and he carries it everywhere. He even tries to carry it outside and we won't let him.
We could hear the waves gently lapping against the shoreline, all along the edge of this cliff. What a great spot for them to put this beautiful little picnic grounds, with such amazing views. It's nice when a city or a town designates some of the prettiest property for public use.
The people that had been in the other RV also seemed to be reluctant to leave this morning. They stood outside with their cups of coffee admiring the sunrise, and crawled back inside their RV too. Usually we try to clear out early and find somewhere else to cook breakfast. We don't want to overstay our welcome when a town generously allows overnight parking. There's plenty of room in the lot, but we don't want to ever abuse the courtesy that these small towns offer for traveling RVers.
We finally pulled in the slides and got ready to roll. We knew we would be needing propane soon. Every time we had stopped the day before where they had propane bulk tanks by their stations or stores, they didn't have anybody able to fill our on-board tank. We don't have just the small 20 lb. barbecue tanks that you can exchange like travel trailers or pick up campers do. We have a built-in propane tank underneath the motorhome that needs to be filled from a bulk tank with a hose.
Every station Steve stopped at and went in to ask for an attendant, he was told "PROPANE 2:00 P.M." or "PROPANE TOMORROW". It was almost getting comical that five or six places in a row did not have anybody on duty that was capable to fill our tank.
We did manage to find a Canadian Tire that had an experienced attendant able to fill our tank. It was good to get it filled back up because we had been running the furnace a lot more than we originally expected. The nights are getting colder already in September.
We drove on up to a little Visitor Center that was not yet open. But they had a large parking lot that we could stop at and maybe cook up our breakfast.
Since we upgraded our lithium battery and also hooked up our Bluetti power station, we have plenty of power to run things like our air fryer or microwave. Steve likes doing the hash browns and toast in the air fryer while he fries up the bacon. At the end, I do the eggs. Before you know it, breakfast is served.
We looked over the rows and rows of large bags frozen seafood. Oh I wish we had room in the freezer to bring some of this back home. But we might have difficulty at the border.
I told Steve we should have one of those 12 volt freezer cooler chests and turn it all the way to freeze. Then we could fill it up to the top and bring it all the way home.
Instead, we settled on two frozen hunks of halibut and one big slab of fresh Atlantic salmon. That would have to satisfy us for now.
We crossed over this bridge into New Brunswick right about noon. We were now going to see more agricultural land and less of the high hills and craggy cliffs. At least until we get down to Nova Scotia. So we waved goodbye to the beautiful hills as we crossed the bridge into New Brunswick.
Before starting supper, we walked down along the beach and admired some of the beautiful scenery. There were big hunks of driftwood and craggy rocks here and there among the hunks of seaweed and native flowers. I put some of them in the YouTube video that's linked at the end of this blog.
The people who had been down along the shoreline packed up and left about dinner time. Now we had the place entirely to ourselves.
If they had fresh halibut on hand, we would have bought that too. But frozen would be just as good because it is going to have to wait a couple days before we would cook it anyhow. We were planning on cooking the salmon first tonight.
Oh, they also sell fresh live lobster. But we really don't have a pot big enough to cook it in the motorhome. There was one sad little lonely lobster in the tank. I felt sorry for him.
After we left the fish market, we drove a few more miles into another town. There Steve noticed a bakery. "La Boulangerie" in French. That's his new "hobby". So we parked across the street at the IGA Grocery store, and walked across to the bakery so he could find some new delectables.
This place was more of a deli than a bakery, but they did have some nice items for display in their case. He picked out a few things and I grabbed a couple croissant rolls for lunch. They didn't have any bread or buns like a traditional bakery would. Just a lot of sweet stuff.
Steve was happy to take his little treasures back to the motorhome parked across the street. The day was warming up and we were promised to have some nice sunshine and beautiful weather for the next few days. We had had a couple rainy stormy ones, so this was going to be a nice stretch coming up.
We drove on further in a Westerly direction to get around the end of the Bay of St Lawrence. We really want to go East, but first we have to go West, to loop around the far Western end of the Bay. Makes sense?
We rolled along the southern edge of the Bay of St Lawrence. Twisting and turning our way along the edge of the water through little villages and seaports. There's a lot more shipping going on in this area then up on the Gaspe Peninsula. Almost every town has some type of harbor or seaport along the shore. We also have a lot more large logging trucks rumbling on past. Many of them are double towing with a big trailer behind loaded up with huge logs.
Of course that's why we noticed down in the New Brunswick there's a lot more of the hardwoods mixed in with the pines. That gives us some beautiful colors coming up and some wonderful contrast in the countryside.
The weather was cooperating quite well on our trip. We have really only actually had a few days of rain. And they've really been at night more than during the day. That's the best way to have a vacation when the nice weather during the day is when you want to move around and do things.
We rolled along, mile after mile. It was beautiful watching the scenery unfold in front of us. Everything is going quite well now that the motorhome tire sensor was fixed and the cargo trailer tires were swapped out for new ones. Let's hope that there's no other reason to have a malfunction or breakdown. It was time to concentrate on why we were there. To explore and enjoy.
By the time we hit about 150 miles, we thought we might want to slow down and find a spot to rest for the afternoon and evening. Besides, we wanted to cook our fresh salmon.
As we neared the community of Belladune, off to the left there's a little Wharf Road leading to the Belladune boat ramp. It's so tiny you almost miss it. We drove back towards the ramp, which is in disrepair at this time. So nobody really is using the area and RVing people have been known to spend the night there. The village has thoughtfully included a porta-potty and a garbage can and a street light at the Wharf.
There were two cars there when we arrived with some people picnicking and playing on the beach. But the rest of the area was totally wide open for us to park wherever we wanted.
For some reason the end of the concrete on the ramp has buckled. I'm not sure if it's going to be repaired or just be discontinued. But for sure, there wouldn't be any fisherman coming to load or unload boats with it in this condition.
We got set up in the beautiful sunshine. The crickets were chirping in the grass and there were butterflies fluttering around from blossom to blossom near the motorhome. The gentle lapping of the waves on the shore was peaceful and soothing. This was going to be a great place to spend the night.
Yes, I took a picture of the little porta potty
and trash can and street light.
I upload these to an app called
Park4Night
that helps other travelers find spots like this.
Especially if you are a van dweller or a car camper, having a porta potty and a trash can is really important for an overnight stop. We don't need those things when we are in our motorhome, because we are self-contained.
It was so beautiful and relaxing to be out here in such a nice quiet place. So much better than staying in a busy city or crowded campground or even a provincial park. I am really glad that we are finding places like this to stay overnight.
Oh, I am mistaken. We did have a couple of these little guys come to visit...
Nicholas really didn't understand seagulls. One flew off and he thought he could jump in the air and fly after it. They were pretty darn big birds, he said, and he didn't think he could follow them. Fortunately, Steve has him tightly clasped on his long flexi lead so he can't get away.
There were so many things to sniff and explore on that beach. Nick really seemed to enjoy wandering along and learning new things. He doesn't like the water, but he sure likes the sand. Even gives a couple spurts of joyful digging and flinging it all over, which he never does at home in our dirt.
It was time to prepare our fresh salmon from the Atlantic ocean. I put it on a tray with some tin foil and a light coating of cooking spray. Then we spiced it up with some of our Harvest Blend Seasoning. It's like Mrs Dash with no salt.
Ingredients: dehydrated onion, garlic, carrot, tomato & parsley, spices (including mustard), lemon & orange peel, citric acid, natural flavors, silicon dioxide added to prevent caking.
Steve set up the air fryer outside. That way we wouldn't get a fishy smell in the motorhome while we were cooking. Like I said before, it's nice now with our larger lithium battery and our Bluetti power station that we can use electric appliances like this. He put the fish in and relaxed in his chair with a beer while he took care of the outside cooking duties.
Inside the motorhome, I was able to run the microwave to steam up some ears of corn. I also made us up each a crunchy salad to go along with our meal. We sure like to eat good when we travel, cooking our own food and usually try to stay healthy. Not counting Steve's bakery treasures this morning...
The salmon cooked really well. Being a thicker piece we had to test it and decided to cook it just a little bit longer. It came out perfectly on the second try. Flaky fall apart delicious flavor without any fishy taste at all. We could really tell this was fresh salmon.
We were treated to a glorious sunset out over the water. The crickets were chirping and we relaxed outside with our beverages until the sun had set below the horizon.
It really was the end of another peaceful day of traveling in such a beautiful country. We are so thankful that we are able to do this now at this time in our lives. Yes, we are pinching the pennies and the diesel cost is quite expensive. Today we had fueled up at $2.85 a liter which converts over to $7.68 a gallon. And yes, that is after the exchange rate from Canadian to US currency. But this is a once in a lifetime trip, and the more that we find free places like this to camp, it saves on our budgeted $35 a night Campground fee that we had originally planned on. So it all evens out in the end.
And it's so worth it...
Here is the YouTube video that goes along with today's blog:
156 miles traveled today
1,870 miles traveled so far
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