PEI to Fredericton

Fredericton Downtown Album

ROAD REPORT: This was a quick 3 hour trip, almost all of it on 4 lane divided freeways. After crossing the Confederation Bridge, I took TC-16 (just because I’d already been on TC-15), TC-2, and TC-102, with a couple of short stretches of connection highways. There were a couple of rough spots but most of it was quite good.

RV PARK REPORT: Hartt Island RV Park and Bucket Club.
www.harttisland.com Good Sam.

On the St. John River, Boat rides, bass fishing, golf driving range, waterslides, mini-golf, canoes, kayaks, walking and biking trails. Excellent park

My primary reason for being here is the Jazz/Blues Festival and that’s what I did. The whole downtown was taken over by the festival. There were free show at various locations around the city center, some official, some free-lance. Pay venues were located in the opera house, many clubs, in tents set up in parking lots and parks. One whole street was blocked off to traffic and became a boardwalk/food court/flea market, complete with some fire dancers.

The festival boasted of 3 full days (Thursday – Saturday) of music at 11 official venues and with 48 different jazz/blues groups. Plus there were numerous private clubs that were featuring blues and jazz performers. There were free shows every afternoon including the Wednesday before the official start and the Sunday after the big Saturday night. The pay venues kicking off around 6 pm, 8 pm, and midnight every evening. If you timed it right, you could attend 4 different shows at 4 different locations (all within walking distance) on any given day. 3 was my max, I never made it to any of the midnight shows.

I attended the following shows:

• Thursday Noon – Kings Place Free Lunchtime Concerts – Charlie A’Court Band
• Thursday Evening – The Playhouse – Yoel Diaz, Bernard Primeau Montreal Jazz Ensemble with the Arthur Leblanc String Quartet.
• Friday Noon – Kings Place Free Lunchtime Concerts – JW Jones Blues Band
• Friday Evening , early – Telus Mojo Tent – Classic Blues Happy Hour with Morgan Davis, Rick Fines, & Jack de Keyzer.
• Friday Evening, late – Boyce Farmers Market – Bourbon Street at the Boyce – La Bande Feufollet, JP LeBlanc
• Saturday Noon – Daily Gleaner Stage, Officers Square – STU Jass Ensemble, Nicole Nelson Band, Bomba!
• Saturday Evening – Telus Mojo Tent – Soul fulla Blues – John Campbelljohn, Jack de Keyzer, Nicole Nelson Band.
• Sunday Noon – It rained so I stayed in and rested up.

As at any festival like this, some were good, a few were excellent, and a few really stunk. I picked up CD’s of the ones that I liked. There were a lot of other artists that I wanted to hear but schedules conflicted. I think my favorite jazz group was the Bernard Primeau Montreal Jazz Band and my favorite rhythm/blues band was JP LeBlanc, a 19 year old teenager that can blow your socks off! If you close your eyes you’d swear you’re on Bourbon Street. He even sings like a Cajun blues man! A kid that young shouldn’t be able to play like that. He also writes his own stuff.

I also totally destroyed my diet by pigging out at some of the local restaurants, primarily seafood and Mexican.

I did do a little sightseeing around town, but never got the chance to hike some of the trails in the area. Guess I’ll have to come back next year.

Weather Report: The weather cooperated right up to the last day, when it clouded up and sprinkled a little.

Next stop, Halifax . I was planning on stopping in Truro to see the Tidal Bore but it’s only about 45 minutes from my Halifax stop so I decided to drive through and come back in the Toad.

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Day 138

Downtown Fredericton