OOPS
Well, not everything on a trip of this duration can be expected to go completely smoothly. Today I had a booking on the morning ferry sailing from St John to Digby, NS. Or thought I did. My suspicions were aroused when I looked at the confirming email last night - whereas on the telephone at the time of booking I recalled the ferry sailed at 8pm the email said 11. Nice I thought, time for a little catch up on sleep. I had just done three pretty long days and could do with the shut eye. Crossing into NB meant I was now on Atlantic Time so had ‘lost’ an hour anyway.
So when I awoke at my regular 03.30 it was now 04.30 and I had trouble getting back to sleep. Fast forward as few hours and I received a call from André Thiffault - I am to visit him and his wife and border collies today. He had realized that what had happened - I had been booked onto the return sailing not the outward! I leapt out of bed, fed and dosed Ben with his meds and got us into the van with our luggage in record time. As fast as the van could carry us to the terminal and we arrived with 2 minutes to spare for our sailing in thick fog. Needless to say we were not allowed on and had to rebook for the 14.15 hrs sailing.
After the highs of yesterday - no pun intended - this little setback was not going to get us down and we returned to the hotel for a nap! A word about the hotel. It was the Holiday Inn Express [HIE] in downtown St John. I have stayed at HIE s many times and collect their points because there is an HIE reasonably close to Mosport racetrack. This HIE is without doubt the best I have ever encountered by a country mile, period. Just finishing up a major refurbishment that has it looking very European the hotel is staffed by some of the friendliest staff I have ever encountered. We arrived yesterday just as the weekly free BBQ had finished - but that was ‘no problem’ and Ben and I sat in the gorgeous evening sunshine enjoying BBQ and, for me, a glass of wine. All this in the unhurried company and good conversation of the David the General Manager who personally retrieved hot dog and burger and cut them up for Ben! Talk about service. I had heard of the legendary hospitality of the residents of the maritimes and now I was seeing it at first hand.