10.10.18 Relaxing and St. Stephens

A wonderfully relaxed day lies ahead of us. Get up at 10:00 am, first check the water level: The water is far out - it's low tide. The sky is gray and so we have a cozy breakfast and then hang around in our living room, always attentive to the water moving closer and closer to us. It's amazing how much the water rises in just 15 minutes.

At 1:30 pm, we decide to take a trip to St. Stephens. There - in the border town to Maine - there is supposed to be a chocolate museum and it must be a nice old town. But first we comb through the exciting Dollarama store on Water Street, then wander a bit in the outskirts to find the golf course. The shop sells everything with a 40% discount, but has nothing for us. The restaurant - with a great view over the golf course and the water behind it - is closed 'closed for the season'!

Shortly before 3:00 pm we reach St. Stephen - Canada's Chocolate Town - which is just under 30 km away from St. Andrews. A completely deserted scene awaits us. No beautiful place at all. The museum closes at 4:00 pm, but of course would be happy to take the full admission price of $10. The chocolate fountain is exhibited - they're all crazy here. For generations, the Ganong family has apparently operated a well-known chocolate factory here and you can buy very expensive chocolates in a shop next door, which we refrain from doing. The museum's gift shop consists of 3-4 wall shelves about 2 meters long, on which everything possible is displayed, but nothing has anything to do with chocolate from this store. Canada's Chocolate Town is a real mockery.

So we drive a few hundred meters down the road by car and on the left hand side there is one of two border crossings into the USA. Just behind the small bridge over the St. Croix River, which marks the border line here, there is a gas station. There is more traffic from the USA to Canada, but strangely enough only from Canadian cars. As we later find out, the price of gasoline in the USA is significantly cheaper than in Canada. We don't have passports with us and we're not drawn to the USA, so we drive around a bit on the back roads of St. Stephens before turning back and driving back to St. Andrews. Just past St. Stephens, we stop at the Atlantic Superstore and stock up on some non-perishable food to enjoy later in our lookout.

Due to the stupid MapsMe app, we also miss the exit because the lady in the device says: Drive straight (emphasis always on the e), when in fact our exit is to the right. So we drive straight ahead and need 15 km to come back, but that takes us into a never-ending construction site.

Today we reach the 'boiling point' at 13°C and by shortly before 4:00 pm we're 'home' again. Eating/drinking on the terrace is definitely not happening today.

Considering that we only have 2 accommodations left (St. John and Lunenburg), I start with a pre-final packing of my travel bag, including a weighing. On the way there, I had just under 19 kg, now I'm already at about 21 kg.

I am sitting in the rocking chair by the window with my tomato soup and watching the tide getting darker. I really liked it here. It's nice that we stayed here for 3 nights.