Day 1 Our Cross Canada Tour....From East to West

Written By Sharon A. Layton-Pollock

Day 1...July 18, 2006


The morning was bright and sunny as my husband, Richard and I, made our last minute check to make sure we had everything we needed. We started the engine of our new Lexington class B 25.5 foot motorhome, pulled out of our drive in Salisbury, New Brunswick, waved to our neighbours, we were off.

Richard and I had been planning this trip for some time and decided 2006 was going to be the year to see our own country from coast to coast. As I said, we live in the beautiful village of Salisbury, population 1,700, with it's lush tree lined streets and friendly people. We are just 15 minutes west of one of the major centres in the Maritimes, the City of Moncton. To learn more about Moncton check out www.moncton.localintheknow.com

Earlier I had e-mailed all the province's tourism departments requesting information. But, that is as far as we went with preliminary planning. We're just going to wing it! We have given ourselves two months, where we stop, what we see and which route we take we'll pretty well only know the night before.

The first thing we discovered is that this is a great time of year to travel. Up through Hartland and Woodstock, field after field of potatoes were in full blossom, how wonderful. Farmers were busy everywhere cutting and bringing in their lush crops of hay. Corn fields are a rich green with their blossoms just beginning to show themselves.

By 3:30 p.m. we're in Quebec. The countryside still much like that of New Brunswick. We stopped at this little camp site the far side of Riviere-du-Loup. Once inside of Quebec we get this feeling of allienation, we can't read the signs, most people cannot understand nor speak English. This reminded Richard and I of
when we had our motel business in Hopewell Cape, N.B.. Many of our guests were from Quebec and I'm sure they felt somewhat the same. But we all managed then and we managed today to get what we needed.

After getting settled into our site, I took a walk over towards the lake. The man who ran the camp ground came over to give me directions to the pathway to the lake. I asked if one could go swimming in the lake, he didn't have a clue what I was saying. He began talking to me and I didn't have a clue what he was saying, so I thought sign language would work. So I began to do the over hand stroke as thought I were swimming through the air. Now, in order for one to completely understand what happened, I have to tell you, this man was at least two feet shorter than me and I out weighted him by at least 100 pounds, well, maybe more. Anyway, I think I scared him. He waved his arms around and said a few more things and was gone. I sketched a picture of the lake later, but never went for a swim.