Saturday in Moncton

Today was the wedding! But it didn't start until 3, so we'll come back to it. :-)

We started the day off by being very touristy. We looked up things to do in Moncton and did two of the things that the locals probably scoff at because they see it all every day. First, we drove a few minutes down the road to the Petitcodiac River. Up here in the far north, the tides are much higher than they are at home. In the case of this river, the tides in the ocean actually rise considerably higher than the level of the river. This causes the water in the ocean to flow back up the river. This is called the Tidal Bore (you can't really see anything in that picture, so read about it at the bottom of this page). So...naturally, we wanted to see this wave of water coming upstream.

We looked up the schedule of when it would happen and drove to the river at that exact time. But, it turns out that it starts at the ocean at that exact time and didn't reach Moncton for almost another hour. We walked along the riverbank and were about to turn back when we spotted the wave, slowly making its way toward us. It was an amazing sight. The water forcibly changed direction and began flowing backwards. And you could almost watch the river rising. Way cool. :-)

Next, we checked out Magnetic Hill (didn't get any pictures, so read about it near the bottom of this page). It's a phenomenon called a gravity hill where, if you put your car in neutral, it appears to roll backwards uphill. We paid the five bucks (three dollars in real US money) to drive in. Then we waited our turn to drive to the bottom of the hill (yes, I had to give the car gas to drive downhill). When we got to the bottom, quite literally, the car seemed to drift backwards uphill. It was extremely cool, even though I know how it works. Shelsy called it, "Magnetic-freakin'-awesome-hill." :-)

After that, it was time for the wedding! Finally, the real point of this trip! :-) We took lots of pictures and videos, but they're all on the camera we neglected to bring a cable for, so you'll have to wait to see them until we get home. But it was a beautiful ceremony. It was in a Baptist church that was gorgeous on the inside with a massive pipe organ, stained glass windows, and a vaulted wood ceiling. Heidi and Tim looked really happy and everyone seemed to have a good time. The reception was fun, albeit slightly awkward due to a tough crowd that didn't laugh at anyone's jokes. :-)

On our drive back, we took notice of the amazing sunset and decided to find a good spot to take some pictures of each other with the red clouds in the background. We found an empty church parking lot at the top of a hill and pulled over. Well...that turned out to be a bad idea. Mosquitoes reminiscent of those in Jumanji swarmed all over us within seconds. No joke. These things were huge and wouldn't be stopped for anything. I no sooner stopped swatting and another would land on my hand. We could feel them biting through our clothing. It was awful. We rushed back into the car and (I am dead serious) they bounced off the windshield trying to get at us. It was seriously like something out of a movie. We are never moving to Canada.

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