Sunday, August 15, 2010

Part 1 of The Muddiest Vacation Ever

Sit down and make sure you’ve got a drink of something handy. This is going to be a long one!! I’m writing this in Hopewell Cape NB and we are on Day 5 of what I’m sure will be forever known as the Muddiest Vacation Ever.



And we are having a great time!!!

We left Wednesday morning at around 7:30 and drove through the day all the way to Edmundston NB.

The drive was uneventful except for traffic through Toronto and Montreal. The highway through Montreal was narrow and filled with huge trucks. I was glad Dave was driving.

We arrived in Edmundston at 9pm Atlantic Time (8pm for you folks back in Ontario!!).

We took it easy the next morning and drove 6 hours to Truro NS where we were excited to find not only a pool at our hotel but a Waterslide too. What a great surprise for the girls. (That's Isobel shooting out the end!!)


We were in Truro for 2 nights and managed to catch the Tidal Bore. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect and was blown away by the speed with which the tide comes through. It is one constant wave about 3 to 4 feet high. Within 20 minutes, areas of the river that were uncovered could no longer be seen. It was fascinating.
Before the Tidal Bore:
The Tidal Bore:
After the Tidal Bore:

On Saturday we were out of the hotel by 7am to head to Five Islands Provincial Park for the Not Since Moses run.

Wow.

It was quite an event. It started with a 1K ‘Basket Run’ for the kids. Both Meredith and Isobel participated. There were children at the starting line crying because they didn’t want to get dirty and it was impossible to do and keep clean. Meredith’s shoes came off at some point. I saw children cross the finish line holding their shoes, like Meredith, or with just one shoe on and some without any shoes at all!! Isobel somehow managed to keep hers on her feet. All the kids got a medal and the girls proudly wore theirs for the rest of the day.


The 5K run that Dave and I did was spectacular.

It was like no other run I’ve ever done before. I must admit, running was difficult and I walked a lot of the course. Of course, it didn’t help that at the start of the race, the mud kept sucking my shoes right off my feet. I’d get one foot stuck and by the time I’d managed to pull it out of the mud, the other foot would be stuck. Eventually, I took both shoes off and ran in my socks until we were out of the muck!!


The next leg of the race was through water that came up just over my ankles, even to mid-shin in some places. It was a great way to wash the mud off my shoes. Do you know how heavy mud can make your shoes?

The views were spectacular. It was a very awesome to be out there, running on the ocean floor, where people can’t normally walk, surrounded by other runners. Everyone was muddy. Everyone was wet. And everyone was having a fabulous time. It was the only run I’ve done where people frequently stopped dead to take pictures of the scenery and each other.
Next we found ourselves running over muddy sand to the turn-around point, where we had to run back through it all again. The water was lower when we got there – more like a puddle by now - but the mud still managed to suck the shoes off my feet. This time I didn’t fight it. As soon as I realized it was happening, I got my shoes off.

I did manage to run the last leg of the race to the finish line. I was soaked – both with mud and with sweat. My muscles were aching. I was hot and tired and my feet were weighed down with mud but it was a great feeling to run across that finish line, even though my time was 55 minutes!! A good 20 minutes longer than 5K normally takes me!!!
We were all filthy and tired. Dave’s shoes, my shoes and Isobel’s all went into the garbage. Meredith’s were new so we washed hers off and they are now sitting in the motel room window stuffed with newspaper.

Did I mention that not only did we run 5K but we also had to hike about 2.5K along a hilly road in to the race site then another 2.5 K back to our car? We were exhausted!! But there was more sightseeing to do. We drove to Hopewell Cape NB with a brief stop in Joggins NS to see the fossil cliffs.

Once in Hopewell we got ourselves a nice seafood dinner and crashed into bed.

Which brings us to today.

Today we went to see Hopewell Rocks which was another spectacularly muddy experience; however, I’m out of time. There’s vacation-ing to be done and I need to get off this computer. I’ll do my best to get it up here shortly. We’re heading to St. Andrews by the Sea NB tomorrow and I’m pretty sure I’ll have a chance to post again.

Later . . .

3 comments:

Nicola said...

SOOOOO AWESOME! I'm in tears for you guys! What an amazing experience! I love the pics of you and Dave ~ so happy! Thanks for sharing! x0 Congrats to all 4 of you!

Lara said...

LOVED your pics and your story to go with it! Sounds like you are having an incredible experience! Wow! Way to go running girl!!

Barbara said...

What an amazing trip for all of you. I'm glad to hear that you didn't get swallowed up in all that mud. I can't wait to see more pics.