Bay of Fundy

On Saturday, which happened to be my parents' wedding anniversary, we ate our last breakfast at Grey Havens Inn and left for our next stop on this trip: the Bay of Fundy. Instead of just driving straight there, without paying any attention to what's going around us, we decided to take the scenic drive along the coast of Maine. For a while, it wasn't that scenic, with only trees to look at, but then the coast popped out, and the drive became very enjoyable. Along the way, we stopped in some of the small towns to get out, look around. The first of such stops was in Rockland, Maine, which has this world class art museum, the Farnsworth Art Museum, in town. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to stop, so my mom jumped out and took a picture - as if we did actually go in - and then we drove off. Next was Rockport, not to be confused with the previous town. Here, using a combination of GPS and a guide book my mom had, we tried to drive along this seaside road where a bunch of huge summer "cottages" were said to be located. We think we drove along that route, but since the directions in the guide book were in the other direction (from the town of Rockport), so we still aren't sure if what we looked at was what we were looking for... If it was, it wasn't very scenic for most of the houses were far back from the road and had trees blocking the view.
We actually parked the car in Camden, Maine, which was this really cute town along the coast that was described in the same guidebook. We went to this quaint local coffee shop called Zoot's Coffee, which I think we only plugged in the GPS to make sure we went the scenic route, and I bought an orange and banana smoothie. Strangely, this smoothie was spicy, as if they had sprinkled in some spice like nutmeg. It still tasted good. The next little bakery we put in the GPS to stay on route was a bust, for the address it directed us had a church, but as we weren't very hungry, it didn't really matter. For whatever reason, we stopped at Bangor, Maine and went to Best Buy and Walmart's. I don't know why. Maybe just to say we went there - for now we DO know where Bangor, Maine is (did you read that Uncle "Frank"?). We tried to get a high school t-shirt at Walmart's, but it was all in vain. That would have been a good t-shirt - almost as good as my Watersmeet Nimrods one.
After that rather lengthy stop, we drove up towards the border and into Fundy National Park in New Brunswick, Canada, a drive that was longer than expected. Interestingly enough, all the scenic views of lakes and forests were on the left side of the car, the side that my sister couldn't see because it was locked off by bags. So every time we saw some beautiful vista, we would comment it to my sister, and then say, "Oh, right, you can't see that!" Understandably, she did not like the fact that we kept rubbing that in her face. When we got there at about 9, we found our yurt, which is like a combination of a cabin and a tent, and went right to bed.
Early the next morning, we got up to see the sun rise over the Bay of Fundy. For the few seconds I saw it, it was very beautiful, despite the sandbars where there used to be water because of the low tides. But then - from lack of food the day before (I had no lunch or dinner, only chips and pretzels for snacks) - I apparently passed out. After being forced to eat and drink, and then sleep, I felt much better and had no more problems. The plan that morning was to get cinnamon rolls at Kelly's Bake Shop in Alma, New Brunswick, which is right outside of Fundy National Park, but, alas, it didn't open until 10 AM, so we just had throwed rolls from the Harbor View Market across the street. From there we drove to the Hopewell Rocks, the best place to see the tidal changes on the Bay of Fundy. It was supposed to be a provincial park, but when we got there and saw how it was run, it seemed more like an amusement park than anything. When we got there, the tides were at mid-height, so we could still walk the beach at the one cove with stairs, but not walk to all the other coves from there. So, everywhere else, we went and looked at viewpoints. Still, it was pretty nifty to see the area. Even though we didn't have the time to stay to see low tide, one can imagine just how high and low the water went by the wildlife attached to the rocks. A park ranger even showed us a time-lapse video of the entire tidal cycle and 360 pictures of all the coves at low tide. At the informational building, I learned that the huge range of tides resulted from the funnel shape of the bay and the waves resonance with the Atlantic Ocean, which I didn't know before. I guess you learn something every day. Apart from my fainting spell, the only hitch here was that my brother lost his camera case, but a couple behind us was nice enough to see it and bring it back. After this, we drove back into the United States.