Our Canada Vacation - 2021 (page 2)
by Philip Goutell
© 2021 Philip Goutell
We now had one day to pack the car and get ready to leave. All the testing and arriveCan app had been on Tuesday. We would be leaving early Thursday morning. By midday Wednesday I had cleaned out the back of the van, packed all of my own stuff except my travel bag with toothbrush and cell phone chargerand was waiting to pack Jan's stuff. As evening approached, rather than being engaged in packing, she was sitting on the front porch chatting with Maureen and Mario front next door.
Now this did make some sense. Mario was working on a major construction project for us that would be finished while we were away. Maureen, hopefully, would take in our mail and water Jan's plants. So that was all good. But the packing? When was that going to get done? I had a pretty good idea.
That morning a truck had pulled up to the house and its trailer degorged a lawn mower. The rider announced that he was here to mow the lawn. That was good. Jan had been working to find someone to mow while we were away — and possibly clear snow if wee should go away again at Christmas — and mow the following summer when we went back to Canada again. In spite of seeing lawn services at all the neighbor's houses, it hadn't been easy to find one that return a phone call and showed up to make the arrangements. When Jan finally got this fellow — through a referral from a commercial lawn service — the joke was that his price was more modest than what we had been paying in the past. And now, here he was to do the job. Not just talk but action. So I had to relax a bit over Jan's planning and timing. But when 10 PM came — my bedtime — the bed was covered with Jan's stuff and the lights in the bedroom were bright. I decided to try and sleep a bit in my chair in the living room. Tomorrow would be a ten hour drive to Bangor, Maine, and Jan would probably be asleep the whole time.
I didn't sleep very well in the living room but I must have gotten some sleep for when I woke up and went upstairs a little before midnight, the bed was mostly clear and Jan was ready to continue working in her office and the hall. I crawled into bed. The lights went out. I slept until the six o'clock alarm. When I got up, Jan's stuff was packed and ready to go into the car — a big relief. We were on the road by 9:15.
The drive to Bangor was smooth; no delays, no traffic jams. Unusual and nice. We arrived at Howard Johnson's about 7:15, ten hours after we had left Walden. The room was a bit smaller than those in the large, now shuttered motel across the street (which was already in the process of being converted into something else.) We had eaten at two stops driving up through Maine so we just crashed. Maggie was allowed to sleep on the bed. She's been a good traveler. In the morning we were on the road by about 7:30.
Howard Johnson's had given us breakfast bags. Unfortunately the breakfast sandwiches were frozen and required microwaving but we had already checked out of our room. Driving Route 9 to the border we did enjoy the banana and muffin. Driving through Beddington we did see some signs of activity outside the Small's house — a few pickup trucks in the driveway. Once again due to time constrai8nts (and the early hour) we couldn't stop and say hello. We hadn't seen Margaret and Don for several years and hoped they were well. We had fond memories of her as organist and choir director at Union Church. And I had done some website work for Don when he was teaching at West Point.
We stopped briefly at the Irving station where Route 9 joins Route 1, a little outside of Calais. I had an ice cream sandwich to help me wake up. Then on to the border — "St. Stephen, 3rd Bridge" — arriveCan had to show the exact border crossing you would be using. As for time, I had gone with 11 AM for the app and we reached the crossing at almost exactly 10 AM Eastern Time — which was 11 AM Atlantic Time. The time zones change as you cross from Maine into New Brunswick.
At the border our paperwork was fine. We were asked a few obligatory questions about guns, bear spray and such and, unusual, "What are you bringing into Canada?" — "Guitar, computers, clothes..." The officer pointed out that seasonal visitors tended to forget the rules about importing stuff that was dutiable. We assured him that on this trip we had no such stuff — and we didn't.
We were almost at the "Welcome to Canada" line we looked forward to hearing when he handed us two boxes and announced that we should pull up to this tent set up ahead for random covid testing. The woman who had one our tests apparently had not been given this experience when she entered Canada.
So now we were in Canada. But instead of merrily motoring up the One to St. John, we were pulled over in front of a pop-up covid testing site... and told "It wouldn't be long." It wasn't exactly quick.
There were maybe two or three other cars with us and a van inside the tent. I had no idea what we would be in for only I hoped it wouldn't take long as we were trying to make the ferry. Having undergone three tests for covid already, I knew it was just a matter of a swab up each nostril, a couple of swirls, and done. The white van seemed to be spending a lot of time in the tent.
One of the waiting cars was released and sent on its way. We were moved over a slot. The van in the tent was finished with and drove out the other side of the tent. A pickup truck was guided in. We were now next in line. I was impatient and agitated. But we waited.
The pickup truck was faster than the van. now it was our turn. We were guided in. Masks on. Window down. A large lady began giving us VERY PRECISE instructions and quickly and firmly corrected me each time I deviated.
The boxes we had been given went on the dashboard. Hand sanitizer was required — I didn't have any so Jan provided it. Then something like an iPad was passed in the window and I was told to fill out the screen — while wearing a mast with my glasses fogging up.
I think the questions started with "name." That was easy enough. Next was civic address — "Address in Canada" as the lady emphasized. That was a bit of a worry. We knew our street number was 1227. When we had first bought the house nineteen years ago, it was 1227 Lower Clarks Harbour Road. But more recently it had become either "Centerville South Side Road," "Centerville Southside Road," "South Side Centerville Road," or "Southside Centerville Road." For the phone company and Eastlink, our internet provider, they could work it out. But Switch Health — our tester of the moment — could not. None of the above names showed up in their database, and we had to have a civic address that matched their database.
The way it worked for civic addresses was that you type in your address and the iPad had to strike a match with the address database. Each time I typed in a variation of our address, the computer came up blank. I became more and more frustrated and agitated. Were we going to be denied entry into Canada because their database didn't seem to include our address? It occurred to me to take a look at Google Maps. I remembered to turn on "mobile data" as I wasn't connected to WiFi. This reminds me that we were handed the tablet before we went into the tent but couldn't start filling out as their WiFi signal wasn't strong enough.
Anyway, opening Google Maps, looking at the recently found column, I immediately spotted "S. Side Road" — with a "1227" number. Impossible! But when I mentioned it to the woman she said "Try it." Bingo! We were in! "S. Side Road"? What a joke. But it got us through the electronic part of the routine. Entering phone and email were simple.
But now for the box on the dashboard. I don't recall the full sequence of instructions but we hand sanitized, opened the box, extracted the swab, twirled it up our nostrils. Mine tickled and I gave two huge sneezes — into my mask — but she didn't flag me for that.
The swabs went into a vial, the extended portion was broken off to shorten the swab to fit in the vial, the vial was sealed and put into a bag, the bag was then cleaned on the outside with an alcohol swab before handing it through the window to our guide. I was told I would received an email when the test results were ready. I mentioned that we wouldn't have internet until the following Tuesday but that I was gold, would not be a problem. of course they would contact us if anything further was needed. Now we could go.
The drive up to St. John was relaxed. As it turned out, in spite of our delay at the border with the covid test, we had plenty of time to make the ferry. Our planning had been good.
At the entrance to the Bay Ferries terminal we were directed to the booth, not the terminal, for our ticket. This was standard. Having reservations we always got our ticket at the booth, except perhaps during a very slow season when there would be more trucks than cars. We paid for the extra passenger — me — and then, before being handed our boarding pass, wee were given forms to fill out that would be collected when we entered Nova Scotia. Covid forms. We'd fill them out on the boat.
As usual, as soon as we were on the boat and parked, we headed for the cafeteria. Because of covid we weren't sure what we would find. As it turned out, the cafeteria was active but all food and drinks were behind clear plastic shielding and we had to order the items that we wanted, but they were still offering a variety of daily specials. I think I had some fish and french fries. Jan probably had the fish chowder. As usual, the food was good and it was our first real sit down meal since leaving home. Once satiated, we returned to the seats where we had left our stuff and took a look at the Nova Scotia covid forms. They called for a 14-day quarantine.
I was prepared to ignore this little nasty. While we had given Canada our quarantine plan, I wasn't prepared to execute it. If we had known we were to quarantine we would have stocked up on food before leaving Walden. While I fussed and fumed in my head, Jan was more sensible. She talked to the lady at the information counter and found that fully vaccinated people were excluded from the 14-day quarantine, although there had been no mention of this on the form. When Jan reported back with this information, I relaxed.
Driving off the Fundy Rose in Digby we were guided into a line headed to the covid checkpoint. An RCMP officer was collecting the forms. We noted that we had been vaccinated — which he had probably known from seeing our NYS license plates. We were waved through (not everybody was waved through) and we were on our way to Guy's Frenchy. Except for Nova Scotia's mask requirement, we were free to go our way. In this time of covid, wearing a mask while shopping was a small price to pay. In the days ahead we saw very, very few people indoors shopping without masks. Nova Scotia was taking covid very seriously — and there had hardly been any cases on the South Shore. They wanted to keep it that way.
Oh, what about the rest? We shopped Frenchy's, we stopped at Sobeys — and the liquor store (which now sold marijuana) — and we were home. The real vacation had begun.