Cheers to New Brunswick

Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name… 

A couple of weekends ago I decided to make the trek from my home in Ottawa, Ontario to my home home in French Village, New Brunswick, to visit my folks for an extended weekend. This time around, to make it a more interesting route than the main highway through Canada, instead I drove through the little roads of Quebec and Maine to head out to the East Coast. I spent the night at a little motel in Woburn just adjacent to the Canada US border, before doing the second leg from there to mum and dad's.

This was the first time I had brought the Boxster along this route that I know so well (having travelled it for the past 30 years!). It's fun to visit old little bits of twisty roads in this new car, remembering what it was like to drive in my two CRXs, my Civic SiR, my RSX, my M3, and my two S2000s along the same topography.

As predicted, the calm of the Boxster cabin and the poise of the chassis over even a few rough patches made the drive out there completely painless. Even in the tiniest backwater stretches, there are not many rough roads along the way at all…the quality of pavement in these back-country portions of the US is truly amazing.

The purr of that flat six, the bark when you rev-match to downshift, and the deep growl as you jump on the throttle, makes winding your way through the back roads intensely enjoyable, and I made it to mum and dad's not feeling fatigued at all.

I parked the Boxster in the carport, in a space 'specially dedicated for it by mum. Switching off, I listened for a minute in the silence to the plinking of hot-engine-now-cooling sounds, and gave thanks for another safe and pleasant transit.

With that nice beginning, a lovely weekend ensued, with zero demands other than cups of tea, conversations with the folks, walks with Molly and mum, and even a timely F1 race to watch. We puttered in the garden, and I hardly took the car out for more than a brief sprint in to Costco for some supplies or something.

Dad and I took 'the back way' into Saint John for an errand or two, but otherwise the beauty sat hunkered down in the shade, just waiting for the return leg of the trip. 

Rummaging around in the barn made me think of those places where dusty old neglected sports cars get unearthed and end up as 'barn finds' on Bring a Trailer or YouTube as some restoration project. Hard to imagine my 718 being forgotten here for someone to discover 50 years from now. But what a find it would be! There's definitely room back here, just throw and old tarp over it and quiet that rumble for a few decades. What a waste! Not a chance I say!

Monday morning rolled around all too quickly, but I had decided to do the 1000 km back to Ottawa in a single day given just how easy the new car is to drive long distances. Dad suggested a different route for the way back - somewhere I hadn't travelled in many, many years.

Instead of cutting up through the Sugarloaf region of Maine, to the Quebec border near Lac Mégantic. Instead I would head further west from Bangor, winding my way towards New Hampshire and ultimately up through Vermont, where I headed northwest to Quebec just south of Magog. 

The first part of the drive along the Fundy coast, and even in along the airline route towards Bangor was pretty foggy, no actual rain. Again, zero hassles at the border made the drive that much more uneventful. Beyond Bangor the skies lightened up so I put the top down as is only right and proper in a gorgeous red convertible.

'Red' is definitely eye-catching and a New York State trooper took an interest while I was stopped at a Subway grabbing a bite. He just wanted to give me a friendly warning that the speed limit up through the particular valley ahead of me was only 40 mph and not higher. 

"Son, the speed limit is 40, you can do 50…but not 51. If you do, my friends up there will have a chat with you."

Talk about a nice piece of community policing! He didn't have to go out of his way to give me that piece of advice that's for sure! Bravo New Hampshire State Police :-)

The drive west is always a bit annoying towards the end of the day as you are heading directly into the sunshine, and as I reached the outskirts of Montreal and the bit of traffic that I encountered there, I was wishing for another total solar eclipse!

The sun dipped below the horizon soon enough though and I drove the last two hours along the route from Montreal to Ottawa with the top down and the tunes cranked. Something about driving in the early evening in the air is just so invigorating.

I made sure to stop in for a quick spray wash to get rid of the majority of the bugs encrusting the front of the car before I put it away for the night. 

All in all, it was a successful and enjoyable quick visit that demonstrated this car is just made to stretch its legs on such trips. 

There will be many more of these…

~ Luke