Wet is the word to describe today. It was humid leaving the Red House B&B. I got on the Great Trail and headed to Oromocto. The trail took a jog to the South to avoid having to cross one of the runways of Fredericton Airport.
In Oromocto, I navigated South to Canadian Forces Base Gagetown in order to visit the New Brunswick Military Museum. It is undergoing improvements. One sign of this an eclectic assortment of heavy military equipment parked closely together on a parking lot with no signs to indicate what they are. A clear sign to me that the people in charge haven’t decided what to do with them. They included a militarized Chevy Silverado (or “Milverado”), a Bombardier made Iltis jeep, a Yugoslav tank, a tank retrieval vehicle based on a Centurion chassis, a Soviet ASU-57 air transportable self-propelled gun, a Grizzly wheeled APC, a Husky wheeled engineering vehicle, a Ferret scout car, a M113, a M113 derived command vehicle and a Soviet armoured car. In the museum, a few of the artifacts were clearly misidentified. One was shell for a cannon described as having a calibre of thirty six inches. It clearly wasn’t that calibre and extremely few cannons came close to that calibre.
The rain began in earnest just after I arrived at the Museum. It continued as I had lunch in a restaurant frequently by Canadian Forces personnel. (CFB Gagetown is Canada’s largest military base.) It continued as I rode along NB 102, sometimes getting stronger, and sometimes getting a bit lighter. Unfortunately, despite the road being part of New Brunswick’s Scenic River Route (its symbol a fiddlehead), the scenery was mostly trees. The sight of a bullfrog beside the road was an event. With weather warnings about Tropic Storm Fiona wafting through my brain, I fell into crafting “what if” scenarios. These were a bit troubled as I wasn’t sure what day today was. (I was reassured when I saw the date marked at a gas station.) The Ocean leaves Halifax on Sundays at mid day, so if Fiona wreaked havoc on Nova Scotia, I could change my booking to one leaving Moncton a week earlier. If the ferry at Evandale wasn’t running, I could bugger down to Saint-John, plead force majeure with my remaining bookings, and find a cheap flight back to Montreal.
A small brown and yellowish snake on the road glared at me. Eventually the landscape opened up with a soggy view of the Saint-John River, grown ever bigger.
I finally arrived at the Evandale Resort in drowned rat mode. This proved to be a Victorian building in the process of being spruced up. I signed in and brought my bags into my room. After the first load, I asked the person in charge if there were any old newspapers I could use to put my damp things on as opposed to the floorboards which I judged to be at least a hundred years old. He appreciated the thought and offered some old towels. After deploying the towels and mopping some of the water I had brought it, I had wonderful, hot bath. Afterwards, I signed into the place’s wifi using a password that revealed its age: 1889!
I checked the internet for the latest on Fiona. Still no final landfall, but tomorrow might be drier. However, Via Rail, out of an abundance of caution, has cancelled this weekend’s runnings of the Ocean. That escape route is delayed until at least Wednesday. However, Moncton has an airport.
Yes, I worry too much. However, I think in the present situation, working on contingency plans is throughly justified.
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