Wednesday, October 8/2008

Down to Saint John with the morning sun in our eyes.  The highway is beautiful, and fenced on both sides to keep moose and other wildlife separated.  We think of friends who would still be alive if our roads at home were fenced like this.  Past spectacular autumn colours and down to Saint John, where we spend five and a half hours at the dealership, as they investigate a shimmy, diagnose worn tires, break for lunch and come back to put on the tires - all after the scheduled maintenance.  The tires seem pretty short-lived but we're assured that we've had longer than most (40,000 km).  J isn't impressed, but there's not much option.  The man in charge is overwhelmingly like John Cleese's Basil Fawlty in height, clipped speech, and general angularity of movement, a distracting similarity.  It's not a bad place to wait, though, with comfortable chairs, Globe and Mail, a television tuned to CBC Newsworld, an impressive range of coffees and a computer connected to the internet (albeit with the window light behind it, making it almost unreadable).  I decide, unsociably, to do the crossword puzzle on the grounds that it will probably remain undone if I politely leave it for someone else.  There are other customers waiting, though none for as long as we wait.  One man has only two teeth in evidence and chuckles and grunts a fair bit - in sympathy with our difficulties with the coffee machine or in disgust over the speech Harper is making on television?  I find myself wondering if he can really be driving a Mercedes.  How's that for snobbery?  What has it to do with teeth or articulation?

It's three o'clock by the time we're finished, but we drive to St. Andrew's by the Sea to have our first look at the old Loyalist town.  It's even more charming than we'd imagined.  Frame houses, in pastels and brighter, the oldest of them dating to the 18th century.  It's a pretty harbour - and there's good business in whale watching in holiday season.  Even now, though, the shop fronts along Water Street, featuring pubs, and hardware, and clothing, and souvenirs, are as appealing as candy.  We wander the street and then stop for a bowl of seafood chowder at Elaine's Chowder Restaurant.  Nice, but unevenly distributed - I have far more shrimp and scallops than J - and the bowls aren't big.  There's still time before dusk to look at churches and more houses, including some that were rafted across from the American side when the border was drawn farther north than the owners had expected.  Time for huge ice cream cones and then we're off home, finishing the drive back to Fredericton (about an hour and a half) in the dark.