Road Trip, Part Three of Four
Twelve hours of driving in the rain brought us to Amy’s dear friends, Sara and Scott. Amy told me that they lived just across the road from the St. John River, but in that dark hour of midnight, she could have told me the entire cast of Heroes parties naked across the road and I couldn’t disagree. The sound of water rushing lazily past could have been an indication. But then again, who knows how hard the cast of Heroes parties?
Sara’s parents were in the driveway right behind us. We hadn’t made it into the house yet when we’d been hugged and greeted like long-lost relatives (the good kind). I knew then that we would have a good time, just as I knew that Sara’s parents, Haze and Bonnie, were my kind of people.
After Sara’s husband Scott had us settled, I relaxed as Amy fell into easy conversation with her friends, catching up on everything that had happened in the past 6 years, up to the past month, in which Sara, just 32, had opened her first restaurant in a train car.
Amy and I were both excited about the novelty of eating in a train car, and I had visions of Corner Gas characters with a Mel’s Diner type crowd to engage in some New Brunswick banter. too bad Amy wouldn’t understand the Corner Gas reference.
When Sara returned from her restaurant that first night, she brought with her four small bowls of something I now call Nirvana, but which Sara calls chocolate crème brule. After one bite of that unbelievable morsel of Heaven, Amy and I shared a look that said, “We will eat at this place before we leave, and do everything we can to kidnap the chef.”
Daylight brought stunning beauty. Once outside I walked about 40 feet and stood on the bank of the St. John River. Gorgeous, lush, multi-jewel-toned trees reflected on its surface as it coursed by. Scott joined me for a moment and pointed to a haunted looking, barren, very dead tree looming overhead.
“I’m surprised there are no eagles there today.”
“Eagles? As in BALD eagles?”
“Yeah, some days there are half-dozen up there.”
Now, as much as I love Canada, there is still a strong US root in me, and the national bird, the bald eagle, in California, is as elusive as electing a non-actor to government office.
Amy and I flipped like 6-year-olds on Red Bull. Scott’s words changed the whole purpose of our road trip for me. I HAD to get a picture of a bald eagle before I left. HAD TO. It’s like getting a picture of Big Foot, or a unicorn, or Britney Spears looking good.
The following afternoon, Haze and Bonnie offered to take Amy and I on a ‘bumble’. A bumble is N.B. speak for wandering-aimlessly-and-loving-every-minute-of-it. Haze promised we would constantly be on “eagle watch”, just for me.
And the day went, as we wandered to the top of hills, to the banks of streams, to covered wooden bridges and suspension bridges, but saw no eagles.
Until Amy and I drove away two days later.
But before Amy and I took fabulous photos through the sunroof of my car, we ate in a train car and saw three moose. More on that next time.
Twelve hours of driving in the rain brought us to Amy’s dear friends, Sara and Scott. Amy told me that they lived just across the road from the St. John River, but in that dark hour of midnight, she could have told me the entire cast of Heroes parties naked across the road and I couldn’t disagree. The sound of water rushing lazily past could have been an indication. But then again, who knows how hard the cast of Heroes parties?
Sara’s parents were in the driveway right behind us. We hadn’t made it into the house yet when we’d been hugged and greeted like long-lost relatives (the good kind). I knew then that we would have a good time, just as I knew that Sara’s parents, Haze and Bonnie, were my kind of people.
After Sara’s husband Scott had us settled, I relaxed as Amy fell into easy conversation with her friends, catching up on everything that had happened in the past 6 years, up to the past month, in which Sara, just 32, had opened her first restaurant in a train car.
Amy and I were both excited about the novelty of eating in a train car, and I had visions of Corner Gas characters with a Mel’s Diner type crowd to engage in some New Brunswick banter. too bad Amy wouldn’t understand the Corner Gas reference.
When Sara returned from her restaurant that first night, she brought with her four small bowls of something I now call Nirvana, but which Sara calls chocolate crème brule. After one bite of that unbelievable morsel of Heaven, Amy and I shared a look that said, “We will eat at this place before we leave, and do everything we can to kidnap the chef.”
Daylight brought stunning beauty. Once outside I walked about 40 feet and stood on the bank of the St. John River. Gorgeous, lush, multi-jewel-toned trees reflected on its surface as it coursed by. Scott joined me for a moment and pointed to a haunted looking, barren, very dead tree looming overhead.
“I’m surprised there are no eagles there today.”
“Eagles? As in BALD eagles?”
“Yeah, some days there are half-dozen up there.”
Now, as much as I love Canada, there is still a strong US root in me, and the national bird, the bald eagle, in California, is as elusive as electing a non-actor to government office.
Amy and I flipped like 6-year-olds on Red Bull. Scott’s words changed the whole purpose of our road trip for me. I HAD to get a picture of a bald eagle before I left. HAD TO. It’s like getting a picture of Big Foot, or a unicorn, or Britney Spears looking good.
The following afternoon, Haze and Bonnie offered to take Amy and I on a ‘bumble’. A bumble is N.B. speak for wandering-aimlessly-and-loving-every-minute-of-it. Haze promised we would constantly be on “eagle watch”, just for me.
And the day went, as we wandered to the top of hills, to the banks of streams, to covered wooden bridges and suspension bridges, but saw no eagles.
Until Amy and I drove away two days later.
But before Amy and I took fabulous photos through the sunroof of my car, we ate in a train car and saw three moose. More on that next time.
