Saturday morning the alarm went off 6:30.I crawled out of bed after about 10 minutes.Neither Km or myself slept well that night.Our neighbors next door decided to bring their few month old screaming kid who Yes…screamed all night.The worst part about Quebec even though its quite liberal, is that you can´t shoot them for doing that.Neither the kids or the parents! Looking forward to Texas where just about anything goes.

The weather was sunny but still quite cool.We really haven´t experienced hot weather as of yet.Typical danish summer stuff around 17 to 20 degrees. We´ve been without rain with the exception of yesterday so we shouldn´t complain. I put on the coffee and began to get things together. The smell of coffee seems to get Km out of bed and it did once again.Had a quick bite to eat and by 8:30 we were ready to go.Our route would take us along Route 132 which follows the Trans Canada Highway in this neck of the woods.It would follow the St. Laurence River ( Fleuve Saint-Laurent) on the southern side.We were heading in the direction of the town Edmondston in the region of Madawaska, New Brunswick.From here we would head for Grand falls approximatly 50 to 60kms farther.This is where we would make camp for the night.

We turned off Route 132 onto Route 185 which took us southeast towards Edmundston and the Route 144 towards Grand Falls.I just couldn´t wait to see the falls. We entered Grand falls and it was just a matter of time before the falls would appear before us. I´m started to become a little disappointed when we are just about through the area and there is no falls what so ever.I´m thinking that you can´t name a place Grand Falls and there´s no falls.Thats not a nice thing to do to people.Then it appeared. It was no Niarara Falls but it was a falls and my day was made. I pulled into the parking lot so we could get a better view of it.At this point, Km was so tired from the long ride and the lost night of sleep because of the crying kid, that she was not inpressed by anything at this time. She wanted a camping place and it couldn´t go quick enough. I encouraged Km to go over in the shade while i went in to talk with them in the turist office beside the falls.They said there was a camping place just around the corner. We could check it out and if we liked it, set up camp and return here to register.On my way back to Km to tell her the great news, I hearthe crash of a helmet smashing on the ashfalt and then Km limping around.This, funny enough,didn´t put her in a more cheerful mood.Her knee gave out which caused her to twist her ankle.Luckely not to seriously and we left for the camping place.We we arrived to inspect the place, there were only a few people there having a little party.My first impression was that if we were to use this as a base camp, our things might not be here after our first excursion.It was an unsupervised campsite. We have to find a new one. I just had to explain that tactfully to Km.After speaking with the people having a little party, they gave me a couple of names of campsites but had trouble explaining where they were.They don´t use street names when they talk with the locals. Its more of less, make a right turn up at Gregs tractor then on to Jims wood pile by the oak tree and then a left at Minnys vegetable stand.She said it might be easier if I returned to the turist office and asked her for directions to Mulhearns Camping. We did just that and before we knew it, we arrived at Mulhearn´s Camping just outside of Grand Falls.It was a charming little camping place and before long, we were guided out by the owner to our new little home by the sea which was a pond.After we set up camp, we took a trip into town to get some dinner. Once again it was fish on the menu. Fourth day in a row. On our way to becoming fishaterians.

After dinner we made plans to take a short day trip to explore the area. First stop on the list was New Denmark. This is supposed to be the oldest and perhaps the largest Danish settlement in North America. In 1872Danish immigrants were offered 100 acres(tønder) of land if they came to america to be farmers.What they forgot to mention was that it was 100 acres of forest which had to be cleared first. When we mention to people at the camp that we were going there, they assured us that it wasn´t very big.

Next morning after breakfast, we hopped on the bike and headed for New Denmark.We were determined to find some danish speaking people.We rolled into town on almost went through without seeing a soul.We heard that there was a danish museum in this town but couldn´t see it.We decided to pull in to Hansen`s Meat Market and ask directions. The young girl behind the counter tried to explain where it was when an elderly man said we could follow him and he would point where we had to turn.It wasn´t long before we were driving up what we later found out to be Kløkkedahl, and yes, thats the way it was spelt.That also explains Applegaard. This was probably the steapest hill I´ve ever climbed on my bike or just about anything. When we reached the top, we were not in doubt, that this was New Denmark.Just about every house had the danish flag flyingbeside the canadian.We even saw one man on his tractor cutting grass and it was decorated with the two flags. At the top of the next hill we saw the Danish Lutheren Church and the Pastor standing out in the parking lot.We drove in to say hello and to see if this was our first danish speaking person.As it turned out, his name was David Knudsen but didn´t speak a word of danish.He said that the services are conducted in english but they do sing now and then some danish hymes (salmer). He does his best he says to pronounce the words as best he can and hope noone notices if he does it wrong.We mentioned that we were looking for some danish speaking people and he mentioned that they can be found.He said if we liked, we could make ourselves at home and go in and visit the church.We did just that.We did find a danish song book but they were Christmas songs.Then to our surprise, the pastor came in to the church and told us that Clifford was on his way to meet us.Apparently he acts as the local guide. He later told us that in 1990, he advertised on the internet offering himself as a local guide for New Denmark.We were his third customer.We spent three nice hours with him.He had a lot of local stories to tell, opened the museum for us and gave us the tour.Its normally first opened on the 19th of June. We even bought a danish flag from the museum to replace the one we lost on the first leg of our trip.Its laying somewhere on the road between my sister Suzannes and the gas station on Woodbine ave. We were still unable to come in contact with some danish speaking citizens so Clifford suggested we visit the old retirement home. There was one that he knew of who spoke danish.Well… there wasn´t just one but five pensioners who spoke danish.They seemed to be delighted that we came by.Despite the fact that they all spoke danish, the speak english amongst themselves.Tried to get the ladies to start a Hønseklub (chicken club) at let poor Gunner in and they could have their own danish speaking club.We´ll have to return one day to see how that worked out.

We thanked Cliffordso much for his time, shared a coke back at Hansen´s Meat and Grocery Store and the we decided to return to Mulhearn´s Camping. After dinner we decided that tonight we were going to have campfire. Went up to the camp store and bought two bundles of wood which he delivered to out campsite 10 minutes later.Played a game of cribbage by the fire and fed our bodies to the mosquitos.They ate well that night.We made plans to move out the next day and head to the Fredericton, the capital city of New Brunswick.

Arrived in Fredericton around noon hour. It was a lovely trip along the western side of New Brunswick.The rolling hills and for the most we followed the St. John´s river.Even though it was a spectacular nature of forest and water, we sometimes wondered how people could live in such a place.Then again, I say the same thing about the west coast of Denmark. Different strokes for different folks I suppose.

We left Fredericton again after a half an hour.The only thing in town was two Universities and a lot of Government buildings.We decided to try Moncton instead. It was an hour drive west of here. As we´re driving, we can see black clouds forming here and there.We somehow manage to steer around them.Okay, until it seemed to be impossible.There was a storm brewing and there wasn´t much to do about it.They were some of the blackest clouds I've seen for some time now.Again we seemed to steer around them when suddenly I had to make a decision.We could with a bit of luck, ride this one out without getting too wet.Gave it a little gas and away we flew.Yes, flew into buckets of rain where a new decision was made.We stopped the bike at the side of the highway, quickly dismounted and began to pass out rain clothes.The captain (that's me) gave Km her raincoat and pants and I the gentleman I am proceeded to help her with her coat.Before I continue, I must tell that before we started our trip we talked about me wearing a backpack for the computer and if it did rain, I would just take my raincoat out over the backpack to keep it dry.As it turned out, we took a trial run down the driveway at my sisters to see how everything felt. Well, the backpack on me didn´t seem to work so it was Km who would bare it now.

Okay, back to the gentleman helping Km with her raincoat.Here I am still thinking that the raincoat goes over the backpack and Km doesn´t understand anything. She tries to tell me that there is a built in rain cover on the backpack. In the meantime, big transport trucks are going by kicking up an amazing spray of water. At this point I insist we do it my way and there´s no time for discussion cause we´re getting soaked.She puts the coat on and then tries to take her pants on. I have my coat and pants on and look over at Km. She can´t bend down to put her pants on because her raincoat is too tight because of the backpack underneath.She keeps lifting her leg up and down and up and down and can´t seem to ram the leg of the pant. With the tight fit, she looked like a mixture of a Ninja Turtle and the Hunchback from Notre Dame. Okay I said. Take it off and I´ll give you mine. She needed more space.We quickly changed coats which unfortunately didn´t help much.Now it was me that couldn´t zip it up. I broke the zipper trying.I then looked at the tank bag which buy this time was soaking wet when Km looks at me and asks why I didn´t put the cover on that.Yes, if looks could kill it would not be me that died.There we stood, ready to mount the motorcycle again and the rain stops.We decided not to take any chances and left the rain stuff on.It´s usually a sure fire way to keep the rain away. There were lots of black clouds lurking around and as we approached Moncton which was to be our next stop, they began to attack again. This time it was from the southeast.After a brief stop for gas, we checked the map and made a tactical decision.There was a route which headed north of Moncton in a large semi circle and then down to the Confederation Bridge which would take us to Prince Edward Island. If this worked we would miss the storm and we would arrive at our fourth province.All the way to Confederation Bridge we traveled along side of the sun.The plan seemed to be working.Km was a little tired so we stopped for a cup of coffee at a restaurant 20 kms from the bridge. We chatted with a lady from Newfoundland who had just spoke with family, who told her that the night temperature fell to -3 the other night.That seemed to convince me that this was a place to avoid. It's a shame though. I would have loved to see Gros Morne National Park.As we left the restaurant, we were warned that we were to be extremely careful if driving that 20km stretch at nightfall.There were apparently lots of moose all over the place