Lithium Grease

Woodstock, New Brunswick

Today was a maintenance day. I sprayed lithium grease on the Bounder's self-leveling hydraulic jack piston arms and fashioned a clamp to hold the tailpipe from the big V-10 in place. The bolt securing the tailpipe broke when I put to RV in the ditch in April. The bolt did not lend itself to a replacement solution so Mrs. Pred recommend a plumber's pipe clamp, which seems like it should work. The self-leveling jacks were a puzzle. One had a very obvious grease fitting and the other three did not. I'll look again later after I buy a grease gun.

We did laundry all day in the RV's little Italian washer/dryer and washed both the Toyota and the RV. Mrs. Phred cleaned the RV furniture and vacuumed out both vehicles. We made a trip to the local ATM for Loonies and on to the grocery store. Food prices seem to be 50-75% higher here than in the states. Wine and gas are definitely about 40-50% more.

I think the higher prices mean that the American dollar is greatly undervalued in relation to the Looney. Canadians should be slipping over the border in droves to buy gas and groceries, moving the exchange rate away from near parity. On the other hand, we need Canadian resources so much that our purchases of minerals, wood and oil have driven down the relative value of the American dollar.

This campground is a Passport America. That means that they offer 1/2 price camping to those of us who are Passport America members. It's on the lake formed when the St. Johns was dammed to generate cheap and clean electricity. The office has a bar and slot machines. They provide free and fast wifi to campers. They even let us wash our vehicles, which is usually verboten. As you can see from the pictures, the views from the BBB are great.

The Campground is called Cozy Cabins. It's in Woodstock. Definitely use it if you get up this way. It's right where I-95 terminates in Canada, 120 miles north of Bangor. The guy that just pulled in next door teaches at a University in Georgia. He's moving fast with two kids, a wife and a chocolate lab. We talk tenure for awhile. I got it. He's up for it. I give him my fifty cent copy of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". I always give it away like a Mormon hawking the small truths that I cherish. Maybe it will help him with tappets or children?

We're not terribly hopeful about telephone service or wifi as we move on up North to the remote Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec. Maybe we'll call Kenny today and wish him a happy birthday a couple of days early.

Potato World

Woodstock, New Brunswick

We went to the "Potato World" museum today. It rocked me back on my heels. The massive explosion of human knowledge and technology is nowhere more evident than in striving to understand how to grow a simple potato. A lovely five-sided potato flower waves over the New Brunswick fields in Spring.


Potatoes were discovered in Peru on the west side of South America in the 16th century and exported back to Europe. There they were largely regarded as poisonous (since they were a member of the nightshade family) until French peasants began to cultivate and eat them. Irish immigrants brought the potato to New Brunswick.

The branches of knowledge necessary to successfully cultivate and market potatoes in the modern age are mind-boggling. One must know how to rotate fields, cross-plow to prevent erosion and it help to have a tractor plugged into a GPS with a digger measuring the yield of each square meter so that the proper fertilizers can be applied in a remedial manner.

The knowledge gets deeper and thicker with certified seed crops and genetically engineered species of potatoes that are resistant to dozens of blights and weevils. The technology needed to make french fries efficiently is so lovely and crisp that it's like a diamond glowing in the center of my forehead.


Both Mrs. Phred and myself are deeply moved by them museum and suddenly an epiphany strikes us that we both can trace our impossibly improbable existences (the combination of a specific egg and sperm in a place and time) to emigration caused by potato blights before we (mankind) brought the potato under a semblance of complete scientific control.

The potato produces more protein per acre than any vegetable other than the soybean. It produces more energy per acre than any crop other than the sugar beet and sugar cane. A medium size potato is 100 calories and the skin has many essential vitamins. Compare this and the taste of french fries with 300 calories for a cup of rice and you begin to understand why I regard the potato as the "king of vegetables".

My mind is reeling from the complexity of cultivating the potato. The hierarchy and depth of knowledge that goes into the french fry and the potato chip is a blinding beacon reminding us of the value of the scientific method and the hyperbolic explosion of human knowledge.

We also saw the world's longest covered bridge today in Hartland, N.B. It's 1292 feet, about a quartermile...a top fuel dragster could hit well over 300 MPH from a standing start crossing it...


We're making a run to Bangor in the morning to stock up on the pills I need to keep my blood pressure down. We have a wonderful campground here with free Wi-fi on the banks of the St. Johns river. There are four tennis courts about two miles down the road in Woodstock. Maybe I'll score a win over Mrs. Phred?