Back home!

Well, that’s the first time in quite a while that we’ve missed doing a daily blog post. I was up early yesterday and on the road, so I actually thought Ruth was going to write something, but she thought I was going to do it when I arrived last night. But I was tired from the days driving and just wanted to visit with everyone.

On Wednesday, I drove 237 kms (146 miles) from Ottawa to Plattsburgh, NY.  Thursday was 505 kms (313 miles) from Plattsburgh NY, to Bangor Maine. Friday was 714 kms (443 miles) from Bangor to Kentville NS. So a total of 1,456 kms (902 miles) over the last three days.

But the New England area is beautiful, even with no leaves on the trees and on a cloudy day. We are going to come back through here with the motorhome in September, and explore a little more and do some hiking. A lot of the rivers are overflowing their banks at this time of year, and you can see by the pictures that they had quite a bit of snow and that it is still melting.

Heading east past Burlington, Vermont

Still lots of snow on the ground!

Stopped for a break in New Hampshire

Swollen river

Beautiful blue sky entering Nova Scotia

Yesterday, I was up early and went to Walmart in Bangor to pick up a few things that are far cheaper in the U.S. than in Canada. I bought two 2 pound bricks of some cheese that we like, and some gluten free Chex cereal that we can’t even buy in Canada. And I had bought some new running shoes while in Plattsburgh. And of course I picked up a case of cheap beer to bring through the border as well.

The beer and the goods I bought were duty free. But that one case of beer was my limit for bringing alcohol across the border, because Canada really likes to soak it to you with taxes on alcohol. However, I also picked up a 5 litre box of wine for Ruth for $13.95 which I declared at the border, so I was sent inside to pay Canadian taxes on it. We have never purposely bought more than the allowed limit, but this time I wanted to see just how much we would be charged. It turned out that I was charged a “Provincial Liquor Markup Fee” of $8.10, and HST tax of $1.50. So the 5 litres of wine cost a total of about $23.55 which is still far cheaper than the $40 or so that we would pay for the same product here in Nova Scotia.

I also filled up with gas before I crossed the border. In Maine, gas was about $3.87 a gallon (about $1.00 per litre) compared to the $1.34 per litre (about $5.00 per gallon) it is here in Nova Scotia. Welcome back to Canada!

So, I caught up with Ruth, Lindsey, Justin, and Cameron last night. I didn’t arrive until just after 7:00pm, and they had a nice roast beef dinner waiting for me! Everybody is doing fine, including Whiskey. She’s not 100% yet, and we think she may not totally recover from this latest incident, but she seems happy and is eating well. She still has a bit of a funny cough occasionally, and her bark still sounds hoarse, but she’s way better than she was. She’s only taking the one medication, for her heart. So she has to wear doggy diapers while indoors, but we can deal with that. Lindsey and Justin and Cameron are all doing well, in fact he went to his first doctors check up and everything is perfect. Lindsey seems like a natural mother, and Justin is sure going to be a good dad!

So, after we get settled this weekend, we are going to take off in the motorhome and start our exploring of Nova Scotia. I think we may head down to Yarmouth area, as we’ve never been there before. Who said you can’t go RV’ing in Canada in April!