Travel Day 11 -- Century Farm Family Campground, St Martins, NB, CA (45.351482, -65.544069)
Today was our first full day in Canada and the weather was dreary with rain on and off well into the afternoon.
A couple days ago I noticed the carpet in the storage compartment of our Cougar was wet. Since we have had so much rain, I didn't pay much attention thinking quite possibly it got wet while I had the door open. However this morning I decided it was too wet for too long so it was time to investigate. I found water dripping from the floor above, above and behind some water lines -- not from the pipes but from the floor. This meant the floor under the shower was wet either from a leak in the water pipes or the floor drain. Neither possibility gave me a good feeling. A leak in the floor drain would mean tearing out the whole shower; a major job that could not be done while we are on the road. Hoping that it was the water supply pipes or fittings, I started by removing the faucet fixture from the wall and turned on the water. Bingo! Mystery solved immediately. A small section of plastic pipe joins the hot and cold faucets to the flexible pipe to the shower head. That little pipe was split and leaking. I realized right away what had happened. Last winter when we left California, I drained all tanks, all lines, and the water heater. But I did not blow out the lines. The shower faucets were in the OFF position, so that small section of plastic pipe was full of trapped water. It cracked sometime during the next three months of winter in Ohio.
Saint John is a major city not far from St Martins so Michelle and I took off in search of an RV store and hopefully a replacement part for the shower. We took the shower fixture with us. No luck. While out we stopped for lunch at Holly's Restaurant, in Hampton, New Brunswick. Over a grilled ham & cheese sandwich and sweet potato soup with curry, which I found to be quite good, we discussed our situation and course of action. Michelle had a Greek Flipwhich.
We gave up looking for a replacement part and turned our attention to finding a repair solution. On the advice from a gentleman in the plumbing department of a local hardware store we settled on super glue and "Magic Wrap" rubber tape. Back at the campground, I repaired the pipe and decided to let it sit overnight before reassembling the faucet.
I learned two things today. First make sure to drain and blow all water lines with faucets open when winterizing. The second was a bit of Maritime trivia. The city in New Brunswick where we went today is Saint John. "Saint" is spelled out, never abbreviated. John is singular, never an apostrophe and never an 's'. The city in Newfoundland where we will be in a few weeks is St. John's. Saint is always abbreviated 'St' and John's always has the apostrophe and the s. So we have:
The Brits celebrate late afternoon with tea. Our custom is Happy Hour. This afternoon a few of us congregated with our lawn chairs and liquid libations for an impromptu Happy Hour. Soon there was a couple more; then a few more. It didn't take long for the crowd to grow to almost the entire caravan.
Dinner tonight was one of our prepaid events and was at the Caves Restaurant, St Martins, New Brunswick, Canada. Michelle and I had the Fish & Chips dinner.
One could also have, as an extra, a bowl of their "World Famous" Clam Chowder. Soup and chowder are among my favorite foods so I didn't miss the opportunity. It was delicious but since I had never heard of it, I will record "World Famous" as hype. There was also a great selection of ice cream which was very good and very expensive.
The sea caves at St Martin are billed as a local tourist attraction so after dinner many of us roamed the shore and looked at the caves. The tide was out, the beach of stones was walkable, and the caves were completely out of water. The tides in the Bay of Fundy have been carving these caves for several million years and have done quite a job. They still have several million years more to go.
Thanks to Trish Davis for these pictures of the cave and beach at low tide....
A little tidbit about our location. Century Farm Family Campground is located on the original grant of land issued to Mathias Moran in 1783, and the property has been in the Moran Family since then. The property presently consists of 100 acres of forest land and 25 acres of agriculture land. The homestead was built in 1850 by James H. Moran who hired many of the carpenters that worked at the ship building trade. The ceilings were painted by artists from Italy brought over on the sailing ships that were built in the shipyards located near the beach adjacent to the campground. Over 500 sailing ships were built in this area in the 1800's. The campground is operated now by Byard & Linda Moran. Their family home stands directly across the street from the campground entrance. If it could talk, what would the old house say about the history that has unfolded here?
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