Friday 9 June 2017

DRIVING, DRIVING MORE DRIVING AND GETTING ON A FERRY! (Monday, June 6th)

OK! So last night I signed off with hopes of making it to Edmundston.  Well, it would have been an easy goal if we would have planned a bit better.  It wouldn't be that bad if this was the first time this happened to us but no..... Twice on our previous trip we ran the truck to nearly dry.... DISTANCE TO GO indicater =0. However, every other time, we hit the 0 mark with a gas station in sight.  Last night no such luck... We got to a station and it was closed.  With about 40km till empty we kept going. Justin blames it on me because he wanted to just park at the closed station and wait till morning but I didn't think we were far enough to make it to the ferry on time so we kept going and when we got down to ZERO we stopped and I suggested we call Good Sam roadside service to get us some fuel and back on the road.  Not ideal but better than running dry (in our Diesel truck) and this way we could keep going.  So, a nice man brought us some fuel and we followed him to his little garage and we filled up and were on our way.  We really didn't need that hour detour but hopefully this is a lesson learned and we will now fill up anytime we can once the tank is passed the halfway mark.


We parked in a Walmart in La Pocatière, QC at about 2ish.  Setup gaby in bed and James didn't want anything to do with his play pen so being so tired I gave in and he slept with me.  Up at 630 and then on the road by 715.  Big day of driving ahead as the plan was to be in Edmundston last night.  We had a great day of driving.  Our kids really are the bomb when in comes to travelling. We saw a baby moose when we crossed over in New Brunswick.  We stopped for gas and picked up some hotdogs for lunch.  Having to be at the ferry for 2130 we really don't have time for any long stops.  We then stopped in Moncton at a Cabella's where we let Bones out for a good break while Justin got his Cabela's fix.  Mel took that time to get the stuff we needed to bring on the ferry ready to go.  A quick stop at Pet Value and we are back on the road.  Gab started the 'are we there yet?' at about 2-3 hours from arrival which is not bad considering we had been on the road for over 10hours.  Justin was even getting angry.  He had asked me if the ferry was next to cape breton and i said yes so without me knowing he was getting excited seeing the signs indicating the distance to cape breton but when I told gab we had 2 hours to go he was pissed because he thought we were much closer!  Cape breton is huge and sydney is on the other side :)


Gaby with her 'Fun Box' from Nanny

Des muffins de mami pour le long voyage

James s'amuse à manger ses pieds!

We arrived at about... 9ish.  It's a good thing we didn't waste anytime.  Check in was smooth.  I had already made reservations and all that was needed was to check our ID and our veterans card!  The ferry offers FREE passenger fare to veterans and their family! For us it meant nearly a 100$ savings and the lady even thanked us for our service.  Very rare to get recognition here in Canada (unlike in the States) so that was very nice.  We parked the truck and trailer in our loading lane and went in the to the terminal.  I hung out with the kids and Bones while Justin went a picked us up some subway for a really late supper!  The game was playing in the terminal so we got to peak at that for a bit (GO PK!) (disclaimer: Justin will be mad when he sees this - he loves his boy Crosby).  The boarding call is heard so I head back to the truck with the kids and Gab is freaking a bit thinking that Justin will miss the ferry.  He is back in no time and it ends up that we wait in the car for nearly another 40 mins.  We were not sure how we would manage getting the kids and all the stuff up to our room plus bones up to the kennel area.  The staff was super nice.  They warn you that you can't open a stroller on the lower deck where the vehicles are but the man was very accommodating and said we could to get to the elevator and even let justin help me up to the room and then come back to get bones to bring him up to to the kennel on Deck 10.  Both Justin and I know why we weren't in the navy! The rooms are SMALL.  To be expected and we made it work.  Gaby got the top bunk.  I thought maybe James could sleep in his stroller but it barely fit in the room so we decided to put it on the top bunk and we put James on some blankets on the floor.  Justin was very mad at himself with the Bones situation.  We debated a long time if we were going to leave Bones in the truck or bring him up to the kennels.  The thing is, you can't return to your car during the crossing. With the 'rocky' youtube videos we saw of the  we were scared how he would do in the car for that long...especially if we come back thought through Argentia (14-16hr crossing).  Long story short, Bones was freaking out in his kennel and it was tearing Justin apart.  He went back up and tried to get to the truck to put Bones in there but the doors are air locked and there is no way to get back in without special  permission from the captain.  In the end, Bones calmed down and he made it through the night.  We all had a great sleep.

Day 2 was a long day of driving but the excitement of the ferry made us get through it!


Lined up ready to load onto the ferry






1 comment:

  1. Pauvre Bones :( mais contente qu'il s'est reposer... Wow, quelle aventure déjà! So much fun to read!!!

    ReplyDelete