Spencer Steals a Girl's Lollipop in Saint John

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Once upon a time a family made plans for a vacation.

There was a little mix-up in the name of the city they were going to, 

but luckily it was all squared away before they left home

and lucky them, they were still able to find a last minute 

vacancy in this fine looking establishment. 

And the luck continued when  the next morning dawned bright and clear--

 perfect weather for a boat ride. 

They were a tad surprised (and worried) when they arrived to the boat launching site 

and saw this not-so-lovely paper factory directly across the river. 

But their hope was renewed when they saw that this was the view looking the other way...

They ended up going on a leisurely harbor tour where they relaxed... 

and got to hear all about the fascinating way that the Bay of Fundy and the Saint John River

interact with each other.

It was on the boat ride that they fell in love with the quaintness 

of the small New Brunswickian city 

and decided that they wanted to explore a little more than they'd originally planned 

before driving onto their next destination. 

But first they took a wild-and-crazy jet boat ride that took them 

spinning and splashing 

through the rapids and in process traumatizing a whole flock of cormorants

(and their youngest child).

After they dried off and stopped their knees from shaking, 

they drove to the thriving metropolis of downtown Saint John to eat some lunch.  

I don't know if there was something fishy in that bag of Bugles, 

or if the jetboat ride damaged their noggins,

but from lunch on after things went downhill pretty quickly. 

First Emma started reading the newspaper over some random guy's shoulder.

Then Cami and Adam started fraternizing with a creepy looking dude holding a pinwheel

and even Ellie started trying to share her lunch with a well buxomed lady waiting for a bus.

Even Glen broke out of his normally reserved personality and 

got all chummy with homeless guy feeding the birds. 

As shocking as all of their behavior was, 

Spencer's actions really took the cake.

Or should I say "took the lollipop"? 

It was shortly after he made the little girl cry

that they declared that Saint John had gotten a little too odd for them

and that it was time to move onto greener isles.

The end. 

Stay tuned for more Canadian adventures coming soon...

Minor Details

What's better than finding a good deal on a hotel for your night in St. John's, Canada?

I'll tell you what's better....it's figuring out BEFORE you leave home that you're actually going to Saint John ("saint" spelled out and no apostrophe "s" at the end) in New Brunswick and not to St. John's, Newfoundland!

Whew!   That was a close one for us Canadian novices!

Because if we had rolled into Saint John about 11:30pm and realized that we were 650 miles away from our reserved hotel, we probably would have just kept on driving and missed this...

Saint John, NB lies right where the Saint John River meets the Bay of Fundy.  The high and low tides create a funky set of events that makes the river change its course depending on the tide, giving it the name of "Reversing Falls".  As part of this odd natural occurrence the river/bay has a huge variance of water levels and experiences whitecaps and rapids that have nothing to do with flowing over rocks.   At my Uncle Buddy's suggestion, we decided that taking a jet boat ride in those whitecaps would be just the pitstop we needed on our way from Acadia to PEI.

We only received two minor injuries from the ride (Adam scraped his chin and Glen bruised his arm), but all in all it was a hit for the whole family....except Ellie...who was absolutely petrified the whole time, but later claimed it was her favorite part of the whole trip.  Poor youngest child.

Now we're in this lovely land (this picture was taken with my iPhone out of our moving car)....

where the internet connection is horrible, the gas is overpriced,  and the nearest grocery store is more than 25km away,  but even still we are in love with PEI's simple, but striking beauty.  The rolling farmlands, pine forests, red rocks, and seascapes makes for a truly spectacular backdrop to everything we do here.  Add to that that we ran into long-lost friends here and it has been a highlight of our trip.

Stay tuned for many more pictures to come....


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