Travels with haRVy

This morning we took our host Peter’s official “Campobello Island Sights” tour that he operates twice daily from the Roosevelt Park visitor center. We visited more lighthouses, beaches, scenic vistas, and hiking trails. Along the way Peter provided interesting narrative. His tour really opened our eyes to how much more there is to do on Campobello Island than many realize. We also watched a movie about FDR’s connections to the island and toured the cottage he summered in as a child and later with Eleanor.

After being on Campobello for little over 24 hours, I understand why so many American’s own summer homes here. It is a lovely and peaceful island with little commercial development and very friendly folks.

Later in the afternoon we boarded a funky little ferry to East Island, drove across the island to board a second ferry to the New Brunswick mainland.

We’d been looking or ice cream for days. Apparently Down East Mainers don’t appreciate the stuff as we couldn’t find an ice cream shop to save our lives. We mentioned this to a fellow ferry passenger and he directed us to McKay’s where they offer fresh blueberry sundaes – our first serious indulgence. While there we ran into a retired Salve Regina professor on his way to his summer home on Prince Edward Island.

Afterwards haRVy wouldn’t start! Were we being punished for our indulgence? Here we were right next to noisy Route 1 in a very dusty parking lot with lots of traffic…ugh. The possibility of having to “camp” here for a few days was horrifying.

This computer glitch or “Start Error,” as it says on the dashboard has occurred twice before, so we thought we knew how to reset it. Unfortunately, several tries did not produce the desired result and we spent the next several hours using the blueberry stand owner’s phone to reach the Westy mechanic guru and the owner who helped us with this problem before. We received a suggestion to disconnect the battery, turn the key on, and reconnect the battery while the key is live.

The bad news is that to get the tools Al needed to do the job, we had to gain access to the back doors and that required taking the kayaks down. Oh well, we’ve got nothing but time on this trip, right?

Good news is that it worked! We were on the road again just before dark. Much relieved to be out of there, but apprehensive about how often we might have to deal with this problem.

We finally arrived at the empty ferry dock in Blacks Harbour at 10:30, found a nice quiet parking spot and called it a night.

It seems impossible that we left home just a few days ago. We’ve done and seen so much in that time. We are both already getting used to this lifestyle and feeling quite relaxed, even when we were broken down. Al says he feels like a kid again doing what he wants to do when he wants to do it!

Cool morning – warm, sunny afternoon – cool evening. 37 miles and 2 ferry rides