Sunday July 16, 2000

I thought driving was supposed to be cheaper than flying...

I woke up at 8:00 am Sunday, which was a bad idea, but I made the best of it and finished packing. Once I felt sentient again, I called my friends to find out when they wanted to leave; we settled on 10:30 am.

After checking out, I went to the gift shop to see about an ambulatory breakfast and settled for a Rice Krispies snack, a bag of smoked almonds, and a bottle of water. I smoked my first cigarette of the day and met up with my road-trip companions, and we headed out.

We realized we had planned to stop in Bedford at Pete's Frootique some time after we passed the most convenient route there. On the highway we took an exit that looked promising, but wasn't. Eventually we figured out where we were and headed to the store, in the Sunnyside Mall, and realized that had we waited one more exit we would have been fine. Hopefully that's the last time they'll ever let me be a backseat driver.

Pete's Frootique, as I've probably told you before, is a wonderful store that started out as a greengrocer's in Saint John, New Brunswick, and has become a small chain of boutique food stores here on the east coast. Pete Luckett has some of the most amazing produce; I counted 5 different varieties of pears alone. I picked up some Asian eggplants and a lovely ripe starfruit (the regular grocery stores generally have tiny, unripe starfruit which are sour sour sour). I also stocked up on imported foodstuffs from Britain, such as various Cadbury chocolate confections, and other items I can't find at home, such as a jar of jackfruit in syrup, one of chopped lemongrass (quite often the stuff in stores here is half dried out and therefore worthless), dried Chinese black mushrooms, and bagels (they promised "Montreal-style"; we'll see). I also picked up a sourdough baguette and a sour cream and chive baguette (they underbake their baguettes slightly so you can finish them in the oven at home). Oh, did I mention they give a 5% discount with a CAA/AAA card?

Piling back in the car, I dozed intermittently until we arrived at the ferry terminal in Pictou, Nova Scotia. We had decided to take the ferry rather than the bridge to avoid the construction work, and pulled in a half-hour before the next crossing. We would have planned to get there earlier so that I could have coffee or lunch with AC*SE, but he had been delayed getting back to Nova Scotia and was running behind on the things he had to do.

The ferry arrived from Prince Edward Island on time and began unloading. When it appeared to be done, the waiting vehicles began to load; however, it was very slow; they were only loading one lane instead of two. After a while we saw more cars coming off the ferry even as loading continued; we figured that either somebody had stalled their car and was blocking everybody behind, or one of the moveable decks/ramps had jammed.

Harsh judgement? This was the MV Confederation, which has had its share of problems. After it was built, Northumberland Ferries Ltd. discovered that the docks that had been built to accommodate it were too small, so its launch was delayed while they expanded the docks. Then, that same summer, they managed to ram the boat into the dock. I'm glad these people don't operate an airline.

Finally on, I asked a crew member what had happened, and was told that nothing at all had gone wrong; the simultaneous loading/unloading was standard operating procedure to make things go more quickly. Not that I've ever seen them do this before.

The crossing was uneventful; I had a slice of pizza in the cafeteria and then went out on the deck to smoke cigarettes and pass the time. This year they'd begun providing musical entertainment, reflecting the culture of the region, according to the brochure. When I checked it out in the E deck lounge, there were two guys playing guitars and singing 70's and 80's top 40 music, which seemed an odd tribute to the Celtic/Acadian/Mik'Maq people of the region.

We finally got off the Ship of Fools and pointed the car Charlottetown-ward, except we stopped at a nursery on the highway and started buying stuff for my patio and my friends' garden. I had my eye on a stone planter and a stone Buddha, but we were near capacity, so I settled for a hanging basket of Purple Stripe, while my friends bought tomato cages and numerous annuals. It was at this point that we realized that we had probably spent more money between gas, tolls, and shopping than if we'd just flown to Halifax, as evidenced by the fact that my friends had $10 left and we needed to buy gas.

We eventually made it to town, where we spent quite some time unloading my bags, parcels, and plant and stuffing it into my apartment. I bid them farewell and am wondering where the heck they had room in their garden for tomatoes, since it was already full last time I saw it.