Considering this is the beginning of my second full day here in New Brunswick, I figured I should get the next post up before memory starts to fade. My flights on Sunday went just about as well as one could expect. The first leg, from Regina to Toronto, saw me relax with a movie and finish out a book I had been reading. However, once I arrived in Toronto and took my phone off of airplane mode, I was hit with a barrage of text messages and emails, outlining that my flight had been delayed by approximately an hour and a half. Fuck. For everyone’s clarity, I chose the early flight that I did because New Brunswick is actually in a time zone that’s three hours ahead of Saskatchewan. So the later I leave, the later in the day I arrive. Couple that with the fact the airport is about a four-hour drive away from my destination, and landing late into the evening becomes a tiring problem. So that hour and half was going to play on me at the other end. Luckily, whatever issue the airline was having got remedied and it was only a forty minute delay.
This forty minute delay was exacerbated by a missing cabin crew member, which meant they couldn’t board the aircraft until this member arrived. Fucking lovely. I landed in Moncton, New Brunswick at about 6:30 pm, local time. My vehicle booking was scheduled for 5:30 and my big fear was that the rental kiosk would be closed. There are no other means of transportation from Moncton to Campbellton short of paying a cab, which would run me up several hundred dollars. Then, I would still face the issue of being unable to get around for the next week AND returning to Moncton. Apparently, the rental kiosk are advised when there are flight delays and they stay open until all flights with potential vehicle renters have landed. I got the keys to my small-sized SUV and hit the highway. The initial leg of the trip north was pretty uneventful; music, singing, sucking back an energy drink and planning out my week in my head. Then, reality decided to slap me in the face…
I reached Miramichi, a small city that usually considered something of an unofficial halfway point between Moncton and the North Shore, without any issue. Besides some frustrating slow drivers, it was uneventful. I decided to play my cards right and stop at the local Walmart to grab some of the small, travel accessories and I would need for my week. I grabbed a quick snack as well and got back on the road. About four or five kilometers up the highway, I came to a blockade that read “Road Closed.” What in the actual fuck??? For reference, Highway 8 is a North/South highway that cuts through a rather large outcropping of the north-eastern part of the Province. Bypassing it and driving along the coast adds almost two hours to the transit. A police vehicle was parked at the boundary, so I parked on the side of the highway and asked him what’s up. He advised that central New Brunswick was currently dealing with a large wildfire that was burning uncontrolled. By virtue of this, the highway was closed due to the danger.
I started to get the definite impression that fate was trying o prevent me from reaching my destination. If you look at the map above, you can clearly see the area circled in yellow is marked off in red. That’s the portion of highway that was closed off because of the wildfire. The detour? A complicated, involved hodgepodge of secondary routes that included some that brought me back a ways south. If I’d had my GPS on when I left the airport, I might have seen this closed portion and could have planned accordingly. In this instance, since I was traveling the highways I had grown up on, I didn’t bother. I guarantee the damn GPS got activated after that. I drove for almost two hours along this detour before I finally got back on Highway, just outside of a small area named Lavilette. Think that little red dash looks small? Insignificant? Not that very far? Let’s put some of that into perspective for you…
The detour has drivers heading North-East on Highway 11, which during the daytime is actually a beautiful and scenic coastal drive. It also takes significantly longer, since it curves outwards along the coast instead of simply cutting straight through. Once you pass a small village called New Jersey (totally not kidding, we have such a place in New Brunswick), you turn onto a secondary back road at a village called Lagaceville. This brings you to Route 480, which eventually brings you back to Highway 8, where one can continue on their way. All in all it adds roughly an hour onto a four hour drive. To add insult to injury, it was dark, these secondary routes weren’t lit and drivers were going significantly below the speed limit. In the end, I walked into my hotel for check in at approximately 10:30 pm instead of roughly 8:30 pm as I had originally planned. Thank god my flight wasn’t any later in the day.
On the brighter side, my front desk clerk recognized me from my visit in May. He commented on how late I was checking in. Not in a sarcastic or rude way, mind you; just asking about how my travels had been. When I explained, he upgraded me to a room with a king sized bed. While generous, I didn’t need extra bed space as I’m sleeping alone. It would have been better to simply have one of my nights comped. But in any case, generous is generous and I thanked him for the consideration. The room’s A/C was blasting and the room was like a refrigerator. Perfect. I always run hot, so after a day’s travel, this was a welcome temperature. I unpacked my necessities for the night and I c rushed. Hard. It was a fitful sleep, as I never quite seem to sleep well when away from home. But I got some rest and made it through my first night. I had a pretty full day yesterday, But I’ll include that in a seperate post, since it might get too lengthy to jam into this one. Needless to say, these won’t be the last hiccups I deal with during my week…
☯️
The Blogging Buddhist 