I am so sorry, I don't speak French....

We left from the Walmart in Fredericton, NB, this morning.

Miss Kitty started out napping on the footstool, but as soon as Miss Doozie got rolling, she resumed her spot under the drivers seat.

We stopped at the Irving Oil Big Stop near Edmundston, NB and had lunch. We decided not to get fuel there because it looks like it will be cheaper in Quebec.

Something that surprises me: I don't think of northern Maine as being big farming country - maybe it is... we aren't driving through it... But, we are driving through country that is *north* of northern Maine, and there are big farms all over the place. You might be able to see farm land in the distance beyond the highway.

I took this picture from the edge of the Irving Oil parking lot - beautiful farmland.

 When we were in Newfoundland, one of the interpreters from the national park in Gros Morne said that they would normally grow root crops in their family gardens - potatoes, beets, turnips - I think she implied because of the short growing season.

On Prince Edward Island, they seem to be rather famous for their potatoes - the good taste of them is attributed to their red soil (iron rich?). The farmland on PEI reminded me of Pennsylvania - hilly.

In the part of New Brunswick that we were driving through, it was obvious where the road had cut through that there is a very shallow layer of soil on top of rock - it looked like it might be shale rock. Here also we saw potatoes, also corn, and hay.

The Trans-Canada highway deteriorated dramatically on our way across Quebec to the Saint Lawrence today - it went from 4 lane divided to 2 lanes with some passing areas on uphills - and the road was ROUGH, ROUGH, ROUGH!  We're not sure yet what might have jiggled loose on the bus - we haven't discovered anything, except that the entry step was reluctant to deploy. We've been towing the Jeep since we got to the bridge at PEI (it was cheaper to pay for 5 axles than 2 + 3 axles) and so far it is doing fine.

The road improved as we got to Riviere-du-Loup, Quebec, where we're spending the night in a Walmart parking lot.

We have "talked" with several nice folks here at the Walmart - but unfortunately, our French is limited to "Bonjour" and "Merci" - mispronounced with southern Texas accents... Wish we could talk with them - everyone seems so nice!

Interesting language note: in New Brunswick, I mentioned when we entered that there were LOTS of signs that were pictures only, and we didn't know what the pictures meant (http://trekincartwrights.blogspot.com/2016/08/confusing-road-signs.html). The signs on the highway (street names, town names, construction signs) were all bi-lingual - English and French. We found the same in PEI. In Nova Scotia, we saw some bi-lingual which were English and, we think, Gaelic. Newfoundland seemed to be English, maybe some Gaelic on the Irish Loop. In Quebec, the signs are all in French.... no English :-(  I know we should know other languages, but it is kinda scary to be driving this big bus and start having signs that we know are warning us about something ahead, but no idea what it is ("Travaux" = "work" or "construction" we finally determined). Oh well, we'll survive, I'm sure!