The next day, we decided to head about 1 ½ hours south down Route 2 (aka the Trans-Canada Highway). What spectacular scenery we witnessed along the way!
We actually only stopped in 4 towns.
Perth-Andover
Florenceville-Bristol (which was named in honor of Florence Nightingale)
Hartland
Waterville
Perth didn’t have anything that immediately grabbed our attention, so we didn’t stop there on the way down, but we sure were glad we stopped on the way back home! (Yes, I said home. Home now is where our motorhome is parked!)
We stopped in Florenceville and parked in the street. They have a really nice walkway along the St. John River and this sort of odd bridge. Half is a covered bridge, half is a steal bridge. Of course, we had to drive across it! 😊
They have beautiful, sweet smelling rose bushes all along the street.
Hartland was our next stop. We were looking of the World’s Longest Covered Bridge – – and we found it!
View as we were driving down the road. This is the best place to see the entire thing.
That was it. Just the bridge . . . .
Last on the list was Waterville, just a hop, skip and a jump from Hartland. We were in search of the Covered Bridge Potato Chip Factory. It was a little hard to find as there are no signs or billboards around here and we didn’t have an actual street address, but where there’s food involved we seem to manage. You can read all about this stop – probably more than you wanted – in the next post.
We had decided to forego lunch in favor of a larger meal about mid-day. Believe it or not, Blaine does that sometimes now. It’s like a miracle! Anyway, we couldn’t find a single place to eat! By the time we got back to Florenceville, we were really getting hungry! It was about 2:30. Blaine finally found a place – Waterfront Bistro. You can tell by the picture, it was really hard to find! But so wonderful inside and the food? Magnifique!
Waterfront Bistro from where we parked.
Owned by Charles and Shirley (he’s the chef, she serves), the menu had many choices for lunch although most were some type of sandwich. Always one to try something new, I set my sights on “Montreal Meat”. When I asked Shirley what that was, she deferred to Charles, who came out of the kitchen and informed us that it was meat from Montreal. He left and brought us a sample. Thin sliced beef (I think) that was pretty salty, but very good. Blaine ended up with a club sandwich. We both ordered Lobster Bisque to go with it, but I really should have ordered the Oysters Rockefeller soup so we could try both.
Blaine’s lunch. Mine looked the same.
As we were finishing up, Charles came over to tell us about a place off the beaten path. New Denmark. He sat and drew us a map. It’s a good thing. It was definitely NOT a place we would have found on our own! Then Shirley (who grew up in New Denmark) told us the Lutheran church was having a sausage supper at 5pm, but since we’d already eaten, we should stop for Strawberry Shortcake.
After traversing a dam that was being worked on, driving over hill and vale, we came upon the New Denmark museum. It was quite a nice place filled with antiques and pictures of people near and dear to the area. Do you know what this is?
A gas powered iron. One of the few things I’d never seen before.
Further on, we came to the ‘hill’ Charles had mentioned. Hey, it’s only an 18% grade! How in the world do they do this in the winter??? I felt like I was back in Cedar Point!
As were were heading down.
The view of the road from ‘across the way’.
Looks even more daunting!
Then the church. It wasn’t 5 yet, so we kept exploring and came across a strawberry field! We stopped to buy berries, only to find they were ‘you pick’. But since we were obviously from out of town and had nothing to put them in, the owner sent her two grandchildren out to fill a quart basket for us. Wasn’t that nice?!? OH MY GOSH!! I don’t think I’ve EVER had berries that scrumptious! Not a single bad one either, and they lasted almost a week because we rationed them, not wanting them to end.
This is them! Gorgeous aren’t they?
It was kinda weird walking into a church for food when we knew no one there! There was a woman taking money for the dinners, but when we explained who sent us and why, she said just pay what you want for dessert. We got in line – and it was a long line – and stood there wondering what in the world we were doing there. 😊 The shortcake was just so-so. Obviously they didn’t use berries from the place we found!
The Lutheran Church. I’m don’t know if it had a name.
Sadly though, just like most churches we’ve visited in our lives, no one even acknowledged us. When we spoke first, people seemed helpful and friendly, but that was it. I just find that so very sad. Certainly, it’s no way to draw people to the Lord. It’s why I make a special effort to be friendly when I see people who look ‘out of place’. It’s what Jesus would want us to do, I think.