Ottawa to Edmundston

I haven’t got much time to write this because I’m working off battery power right now and although my laptop is awesome, it’s also a beast (starting to be a trend huh?) so it takes a lot of battery to run.

So we are just leaving Edmundston. It’s 11am (Atlantic time) and so far no mishaps…well only one for me to report, but I will discuss it later. The drive to Edmundston yesterday was fairly uneventful, although it was certainly expensive in terms of gas…the prices keep going up! They were something like $1.19 in Ottawa and in Quebec we paid $1.26! Owning a beast of a vehicle is pricey, but we just gotta roll with it (I keep telling myself this!). Also, we sleep for free. 

Tired after arriving in Edmundston

We followed Doug from Ottawa all the way to Trois Rivieres where we finally ate something for dinner (burgers and poutine!). Doug was full of words of wisdom for us. He couldn’t stop iterating how important it was for us to be safe…and to always choose the safe option if we had any sort of choice (so cute!). Julie and I were mostly paranoid about hitting a moose at that point, since the number of signs on the highway had been steadily increasing in frequency. But Doug and I parted ways, all frowny lips from already missing each other (cheesy I know) and then Julie and I were off, all on our own. It still didn’t feel real. Actually it still doesn’t, even after waking up in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

Yep, we are official camper travelers. As recommended to us by a bouncer at what appeared to be the only club in Edmundston, we joined a slew of campers in the Wal-mart parking lot last night. We were both very tired, brushing our teeth and hitting the hay almost immediately. The bed was gorgeously comfortable! Two layers of lovely foam! We both slept beautifully, and there was a nice breeze coming in so we weren’t hot at all.

Other campers sleeping at the Edmundston carpark

We woke up this morning to grey skies and Julie’s alarm clock. Both of us were still exhausted, so we took our various pills and went back to sleep for another hour. At 9am, we heard this pecking sound, only to look up and see that a wasp was banging itself against the skylight over our head. I sat up, observing the wasp. Then I noticed that we had another wasp in our vent just two feet from the skylight. I got up to retrieve the flyswatter. I’m not a fan of killing things, and I especially have a fear of swatting wasps because they can be pretty aggressive, but we couldn’t be driving with them. Well these wasps were made of rubber, I swear to god. I hit them over and over again, and they just got right back up and buzzed around angrily! I finally killed both of them, and once the deed was done, Julie and I got dressed. We took a little browse through Wal-mart for any needed supplies and then headed out for the Tim’s for breakfast. Julie was driving.

When we entered the Tim’s parking lot we were surprised at how busy it was. Busy with New Brunswick license plates that is. It seemed that the Tim’s we’d chosen was a popular hub for man-dates (there were a couple big groups of guys just chillaxing. It was pretty neat). Anyway, as we pulled into the parking lot, we remembered that it was important for us to back into a space in case we needed help with jumping or anything (though the van is finally running beautifully…she really likes highway driving!). So Julie said she would back into the parking space at the back of the parking lot so as not to hit any cars.

Parking at the back of the Tim's parking lot

It’s really a good thing she chose to do that, because she ended up backing right into the fence around the garbage that was right beside the parking lot! Okay, she didn’t back right into it. But she did scrape the wood and broke our gas cap right off! Hahahahaha. 

"Backing into parking spaces is my specialty"

It was hilarious. She says it was just an esthetic improvement she’s been wanting to make to the gas cap for a while. 

What the gas cap looked like before...kinda

I’ll admit, by breaking the silver handle covering off, she has made it suit our van better. Its orange rustiness goes well with our bumpers and side-view mirrors! 

Beautifully orange and rusty gas cap!

Hahaha the best part though was that there was a full drive-through line up right behind us when Julie pulled into that wooden fence, so everyone got to witness it. But Julie was totally cool about it, and she took it in stride. And the best part? The gas cap still works. :-)

-Nicole