Off To St. John’s New Brunswick

I was up at 7:00 am and on the road by 8:00 am. The forecast wasn’t in my favor, but I wanted to see if the Cutler Coast Public Reserved Land was doable. I made it back to the reserve entrance and spoke to two woman coming out. There was heavy fog everywhere and it didn’t look like it was going to lighten up anytime soon. I decided to cut bait and make my trek to Newfoundland, the Northernmost part of my East coast trip. It would take days to reach the island.

The trip to Sydney, Nova Scotia (NS) would be close to 10 hours.  I decided to overnight in St. John’s New Brunswick a six hour drive. 

Before I left the Cutler Public Reserve, I made a reservation for the Rockwood Park Campground in St. John’s. This was a AAA recommended campground. They told me they had Wi-Fi and a table where I could sit . I was on my way at 9:30 am.

Last night, I downloaded the ArriveCan app and entered my passport data and proof-of-COVID vaccinations. They make it easy. To get the passport data in, press a button to scan the passport. All the fields are automatically populated. The app also requests your current address, telephone number, and license plate number.  An address in Canada is required, which was the first campsite I would be staying at. I was told this information is needed in the event a random COVID test is done so they can reach you. At this time of the morning, I was the only person in line. They already had all the information I had entered last night in the App. The same questions were asked as yesterday and I was on my way in a few minutes.

Lost on a dirty road in the middle of nowhere.

On this day, I wished I had the “Avoid Dirt Roads” and “Avoid New Construction” features in Google Maps. Along the way, I made a wrong turn and missed the fact that the App had rerouted me in a 23-mile loop over dirt roads. There was only one delivery truck on this road in either direction. There were homes along this route, but most were just barely inhabitable. Some of them didn’t look like they had electricity, a few had propane tanks.

Eventually, I made into St. John’s, a bustling coastal city with a large paper tissue factory, and huge shopping areas. I went directly to the campsite just to check it out.

They gave me a site on the side of a hill. It had the pitch of a toddler’s sliding board. I couldn’t image how to setup a tent on this, let alone sleep on it. I asked for another site, and they told me I could pick any tent site because I was the only tent camper.

Starbucks: What Makes You Happy board.

I decided to sleep in the car because of the rain. I wanted organize some things. I drove over to the campsite “workspace” that had Wi-Fi. It was the laundry room and didn’t have a table. Rather, it had a shelf about four feet up the wall and the Wi-Fi didn’t work. I asked about the Wi-Fi at the entrance and they told me it sometimes needs to be reset and they could do that in a few hours. I had seen a Starbucks on my way in and decided to go there for Internet access. I was surprised to find that there were two Starbucks in St. John’s. The connection was really good and the music even better. I kept Shazaming all the songs they were playing.

I wore out my welcome at Starbucks and decided to go over to the Costco to get a few supplies (Nature’s Bakery fig bars, unsalted cashews, a year’s supply of toothpaste and razors). After standing in line, I didn’t have any cards that worked. Costco doesn’t accept Visa (WHAT?). They told me I could get money from the ATM with my Visa. There was something wrong with my PIN code and I couldn’t grab some much needed cash. Many places don’t take credit cards in this area of Canada.

In stark contrast to the Starbucks board above, driving through town I came to a stop light. There was an old guy standing there, no sign, hands to his face, trying to avoid the driving rain. He had a few white hairs left and looked like he was just barely hanging on. I was overcome by sadness just imagining what he must be going through. I wondered how he could have come to this point? I wondered if there were local services that could have helped? I still had no cash or I would have hand him some money for a meal or whatever he needed.

It was now 7:30 pm and I was getting hungry and didn’t want to prepare something in the rain. There were several restaurants across the street and I decided to try the make “your own pizza”. I ordered a small 10” barbeque chicken pizza with a side salad. It was good and filling. They closed at 8:30 pm but the young Chinese woman running the place didn’t say anything until almost 9:00 pm. She told me she had to cleanup and then catch her bus home (a forty-minute ride). I apologized and inhaled the remained of my pizza.

The decision to sleep in the car was the right one. The fog was getting heavy again and everything would be soaked.