The Finale

Glenn on beach in York, Maine

Camden Harbor
Camden, Maine

Grave of the unknown child from the Titanic

Halifax cemetery where over 200 Titanic victims are buried

We left Nova Scotia on Monday, the 12th, and headed across to the Bay of Funday area on the way out. The roads were horrific and the scenery was lame compared to everything we have seen thus far. We did see the area where they have the highest tides in the world. It was, however, low tide when we passed, so it was just ugly basically. We continued on through New Brunswick toward customs. When we got to customs, there was an unusally nice female officer on duty. She came in and looked around, asked all the normal questions, and wanted to know if we purchased the potted plant in the bathroom in Canada. umm, it's fake. It doesn't look anything like a real plant at all. She asked about the weapon, didn't make a deal out of it, and never checked Sparkle's high dollar health certificate. We were off without incident.

We were moving rather quickly attempting to get to a place we had stopped at before called Cobscook State Park. We loved it there before and thought we'd stop and eat something and maybe stay the night. Glenn had to stop and get gas on the way and by then it had gotten pretty dark. As he was leaving the gas station, (whew, back to US gas prices!) he failed to see the curb and PLUNK CLUNK over we went, RV and jeep and all. It knocked the cupboard doors open, cups, bowls, toaster, etc all fell out with a crash. The coffee pot was hanging by the cord from the counter. Actually, little damage was done. Well we got to the park, it was unattended, and you just had to pick your spot and put your money in the envelope and in the slot. Glenn was leary, not knowing his way around back in the camping area. But he plugged on in the darkest dark we had ever seen. Well he made his way through, didn't find a pull through site, and decided to leave. I was bummed.....first of all he had paid 20 bucks! I thought he could find SOMEplace back there that would work. So he tried again, ended up at a dead end...OMG....and it was so dark you could not see a foot in front of you. Well, as I have mentioned before, with the jeep on the back, there is no backing up. So out we went in the dark, unhooked the jeep AGAIN, and I had to drive it and follow him out of thre campground. We ended up closing the curtains and sleeping in the parking lot all night! I was just mad that we paid 20 bucks for it.

The next morning we headed on dowon the coast of Maine. We skipped Bar Harbor because we didn't plan to stay overnight and we would have been trying to find a spot to park in so we could walk around. We went on to Camden, a favorite of both of ours. We got out and walked the town but it was chilly and misting...surprise, surprise,...so we didn't get to eat outside with the pup. But we enjoyed the town for a while and then took back off again. Well don't you know, Glenn hears a "noise". My job was to hang out of the window and see where it was coming from. Well it appeard to be coming from the back wheel. He first decided to wait til we got home and get it taken care of. I knew right away that that would never happen. He pulled into a couple places but neither could work on it but suggested a place a few miles away that could. So we headed there. It was found that the caliper was sticking and had already ruined the rotor and pads. It would be a 2 1/2 hour job but they could do it. 5 hours later andf 700 dollars poorer, we were on our way again. Oh well, no sense lingering on it and letting it spoil the fun we were having. We were lucky to find people to fix the problems right away. So, we have nice new back brakes now before out next trip. What a secure feeling that will be, right? Ha.

The next morning we headed out again and stopped at York, Maine beach, another of our fav places. We had a cup of coffee, hung out on the beach, and headed out. The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful except for the snow that we ran into in Pa. We did see a moose enroute, but it was dead, so it wasn't exactly what I was hoping for! In spite of the few problems that arose, it was a great trip. We saw some of the most beautiful scenery ever and I'd go back in a heartbeat.

This concludes the postings on this trip. Thanks for reading!

Our new RV friends came over and visited a few minutes this morning before they took off and before we left for Halifax. We gave them our "business card" and they plan to contact us when they get back to England.
We headed into the city today and walked around the boardwalk area near the harbor. It was sunny and a beautiful day for a change. We also went to the cemetery that has a large number of the Titanic victims buried there. It was a pretty cool thing to see, but also pretty sad. The grave of the unknown child was pitiful. It had a lot of "trinkets" in front of it....baby toys, a straw hat, bracelet, money, etc. A few of the other graves did as well, but there was a lot of stuff at the unknown child one. It was actually a very interesting place to see.
I learned a few things today. I learned that the Canadian coin for a dollar is called a loonie because it has a picture of a loon on it. The two dollar coin is known, then, as a toonie! So when you see the dollar store, it is called Loonie and Toonie's dollar store.
We were discussing various types of motor homes and the various equipment that can come on them with our new RV friends from England. Glenn mentioned that some of them even come with dishwashers and garbage disposals. Kate had a confused look on her face and Andy said oh, you mean the "muncher".
When we were in Halifax this morning, a Middle Eastern family was marveling over Sparkle, who looked rather adorable in her sweater. The father asked if I minded if he took a "snap" of her.
My vocabulary increased considerably on this trip.
Tomorrow...Thanksgiving Day here...we are heading out. We didn't get invited to anyone's RV or house for turkey, so no reason to hang around and be sad about it. We'll move on into New Brunswick and into Maine, down the coast and toward home. We'll just eat our pumpkin pie all by ourselves. I am thinking of writing a letter to the president and asking if the US would be interested in changing our Thanksgiving to the same time as Canada's. That way it wouldn't be so close to Christmas and things would be a little more spread out. The weather would be a little nicer too. Don't you think that it would work out a lot better that way? Well, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Peggy's Cove, NS

So, I woke up this morning and what do I hear??? MORE Rain!!!!! Geeshhh!!!! We loafed around here a little longer and finally set out to the South Shore area of NS. I'm not saying it cleared up, but I can say that whenever we were ready to get out of the jeep and walk around and area, it stopped for that time. I'm thinking we should be in an ark instead of a jeep. We were still able to do what we wanted, just not in sunshine. Tomorrow is supposed to be great outside.

Our first stop was Peggy's Cove. It was an awesome spot with a nice lighthouse. The setting was very much like something you would see in Maine. From Peggy's Cove we meandered further down the South Shore and visited the towns of Chester, Mahone Bay, and Lunenberg. We loved them all, especially Lunenberg. They were small town fishing villages, but big enough to have a restaurant and a shop of two to look around in. The buildings were quaint and Lunenberg had a lovely harbor area with some nice boats in the water. We had a sandwich at a Subway and sat outside on their upper deck overlooking the water.

Some things I noticed today: The smell outside is often that of wood burning in stoves in the houses. It's chilly up here already and the rain has really put a chill in the air. People are burning their stoves to warm things up already. The whole outside smells either of pine or the wonderful fall aroma of wood burning in the stoves in their homes. Another thing is the grocery store....there are no supermarkets for the most part. All you see are small country type general stores or small convenience stores of some kind. I went into a store today for a couple things and was appalled to see that a 4 liter of milk was over 7 dollars!!!! Eggs were 2.50 a dozen. I tried to buy beer for Glenn and discovered that no store sells it. It can only be purchased at a liquor store. We got lost on the way back and accidently ran into a liquor store. That was unfortunate I guess because the beer was twice the cost that it is at home! Another thing that I find interesting is that every community seems to have a volunteer fire department. I think it's kind of cute. But what if all the volunteers are on vacation or something and there is a fire?

I have also found it interesting to notice the various cultural influences on different areas. You can tell from the names of the restaurants, cities, stores, etc. whether the main influence is French, English, or Scottish. It is evident even in the names of the churches, most of which are Catholic.

Things that we haven't seen since we crossed the border...or have seen little of-

law enforcement...only 2 spotted anywhere

Blacks...a total of 3 have been seen at all

Middle eastern people running gas stations, hotels, etc....almost every place we have seen has been run by locals

thugs

gangs

sagging pants

supermarkets...1 spotted

chain restaurants are very limited

When we finally got back to the RV tonight, the people in the RV next door came over to say they had seen us at the lighthouse today. They are from England and were so much fun to talk to. They had flown into Toronto and rented a motor home and have been touring aound it it through northern US and Canada. As always, talking to people from other countries gives a new appreciation for the good old US. They would LOVE to live here. So we have some new RV friends, Andy and Kate. Unfortunately they are leaving tomorrow. I was thinking that they could be our Thanksgiving Day friends. For fear of having nothing celebratory on Thanksgiving up here Monday, I did buy a pumpkin pie at the store.

Tomorrow we plan to go into Halifax and see a few things of interest. We will likely leave here Monday and head through New Brunswick and into Maine.

Travel Day

We left Cape Breton this morning and headed toward Halifax. On the way, we ended up in a huge traffic stoppage. It was one of those deals where they have a flag person letting so many people through and then poof, up comes their little flag and you get stopped. After being stopped twice, we ended up getting stopped one more time when we were next in line. I offered the cute young man who stopped us a cup of coffee and we ended up making buddies with him and another flag dude. We were stopped for at least 15 minutes so we managed to find out quite a bit about them and the area. Unfortunately, neither of them were very well travelled in their own country so what we found out was pretty much just about their hometown. Oh well, they were nice guys and very appreciative of our mobile hospitality. If they ever leave their area, they will look us up in Ohio. Ha.
We are staying at a KOA just outside of Halifax. It is really beautiful but it looks a lot more like camping-camping than an RV park. It has trees, a river, and all that stuff. Once we get in our home on wheels, it doesn't matter what is outside though...walmart signs, gas pumps, or pretty trees and rivers.
We saw some folks here at the park who have 2 Irish Setters that are just beautiful. We stopped and visited with them for a minute and they are just as crazy as all of them are. I think Glenn was feeling bad that Lucky isn't with us this trip.
We found out that Monday is Thanksgiving Day here. I had no idea that they had a Thanksgiving or that it would be a different day. Now I'm hoping that someone will invite us to their place for Thanksgiving. Isn't it sad that we are going to be alone on Thanksgiving??? I'm going to try real hard to make some friends before Monday.

The Cabot Trail

We spent nearly the entire day on the popular Cabot Trail. We headed up the East coast which was pretty, but nothing spectacular. However, as we got nearer to the northern edge, the views of the coast were incredible. We ended up traveling the entire Cabot Trail, in spite of the lousy weather. While the scenery was amazing, we were a little disappointed not to find some interesting villages similiar to the ones we love so much in Maine. When they say village here in NS, they mean a teensy little berg. We were hoping to see a few large enough to walk the town a bit and get a cup of coffee. Tomorrow we are heading down south in NS, close to Halifax, and check out the coastal spots down there. There are actually stars out tonight so we hope that tomorrow won't be rainy and gloomy.

New Province, New Look

View from campground we are in

We left this morning from Woods Island, PEI, on the ferry to Caribou, Nova Scotia. The ride was about 70 minutes and was uneventful. I was amazed at how many vehicles they shoved on that boat. Huge semis, several motor homes and campers, and tons of cars were on there and it wasn't even full. We arrived in Nova Scotia and still had about a couple hours drive to get to Cape Breton Island, which is the northernmost area of Nova Scotia. There was a noticeable difference between NS and PEI. The colors are much more advanced and bright, the mountains are higher, roads are steeper, and it just looks overall different. We are going to spend a few days at Cape Breton. There is a national park here that is supposed to be lovely and a scenic drive called Cabot Trail that is very famous. It is nearly 200 miles of steep cliff type driving so it will take a while to see lots of it. There are supposed to be lots of moose in the park as well as bear and other cool animals. When we leave here, we hope to go down to the main area of NS and see what is there as well. Halifax has a few things I'd like to see.

It finally stopped raining....until just NOW. Luckily it is supposed to be done by tomorrow morning but the wind gusts are to be up to 80....not mph fortunately, but kmh. I THINK that is about 50 mph. In any case, Glenn RUSHED out and put the awning down.

We are really anxious to see more of Cape Breton tomorrow.

The Day of the New Starter

We got all ready to leave today, dog and her equipment packed in the jeep, and when the key was turned, all we heard was "click click click". Assuming the battery was dead....and not a clue why it would be....Glenn got a neighboring camper to jump the battery. Nope, didn't help. Next thing was to try to pop the clutch and get it started...which involved pushing. Oh yeah, pushing. Of course at that moment it decided to start misting again. So we pushed and tried to start it a few times...finally it was ME pushing and HIM starting but yep, we got 'er. So we headed to the camp office, had to leave the jeep running of course so we didn't have to push again, and Glenn got some info about a place to have it looked at. We headed to a service station on this very remote island and the peeps were as nice as could be. It was determined that it wasn't the battery, but the starter. The started had to come from Charlottown and oops, the mechanic had a dr. appointment, so we were told to come back in a couple hours. So the mechanic and the wife of the owner came out and pushed us to a hill so that we could pop the clutch again and get it started....and then we rode around touring stuff we wanted to see for a couple hours but couldn't turn the engine off...or ONE of us would have to push again! It worked out fine. We went back and hung out in the station with the locals there, learning stuff about the island. It was kind of like Mayberry. One hour and 300 bucks later and we were on our way. We saw as much as we could and plan to take the ferry to Nova Scotia tomorrow morning.
Things that we observed about the island: The colors change later than they do in Maine surprisingly
Dirt roads are quite common here
The dirt and sand are red
Most of the land consists of rolling hills of farmland that end at the sea
The people are all nice, friendly, helpful, and most have accents of some kind
The woodsy areas smell wonderful- a mixture of the varying kinds of pines and something that smells minty
A fishing village consists of a couple house, a few shanties, maybe a restaurant, and some boats
Most often when you come to a named town, it is difficult to tell where exactly it is. Sometimes you see the sign and not much else.
There are tons of lighthouses on the island, many of them still working.
Trying to follow a map is next to impossible here. Nothing seems to be to scale, all the roads are tiny, many dirt, and the roads and names of the towns are so small on the map you need a magnifying glass to see them.
Apparently July and August are the main tourist months. There is virtually no one here right now and many restaurants and stores are closed for the winter.
Winter seems to be qualified as anything that is not July and August!
The bridge to get here is the longest bridge in the world over ice.
It seems like most of the farmland might be devoted to growing potatoes.
Overall, this island is a very remote, serene, downhome place. "Lobster suppers" are advertised many places including churches, restaurants, etc.

Stay tuned for notes from Nova Scotia.

Coastline view early evening in a mist

One of many lighthouses on PEI

Red fox, one of many on PEI from what we hear.

Sparkle, hiding because Glenn was vacuuming

Sparkle showing her excitement about looking for a moose

Days 1-4

We have finally arrived at a place that has internet available so I will attempt to give an account of the trip thus far. We haven't really begun sightseeing the places we set out to see, but I'll update you on a few things that have taken place prior to the actual fun stuff.

Day 1: We left home in the afternoon today, Oct. 1st. (Happy Birthday to my sister, Sharon!) Lucky got to stay at Jodi's this trip. We didn't want to leave Sparkle for two reasons: Jodi doesn't deserve to have to take care of a puppy and we didn't want to leave her in the middle of her training period. We are pretty sure that Lucky was happy to be away from her for a while. She drives him CRAZY. So it's sort of a vacation for him as well!
When we left home, gas was 2.12 a gallon. By the time we stopped for the night in Punxatawney, Pa., we had to pay 2.44 a gallon. We looked for Punxatawney Phil, or Ponce de Leon as one of my former students referred to him as, but no sign of him. We spent the night in a luxury suite at a Flying J parking lot. Clean bed, bath, and food was great. ha.


Day 2: FINALLY...we managed to get through the state of Pa. GEEZ, that is a wide state! We crossed the Delaware just like George Washington and headed into NY, then Mass. It was an uneventful day basically. We selected a fancy place at a travel plaza on Mass. Pike.

Day 3: Note to self...attempt to avoid all turnpikes and toll roads w.hen in the motor home. A regular car driver would never guess how much more RV drivers have to pay to travel these roads. We went across a mile bridge that carried a toll charge. Cars were a buck. We paid $5.50 for and RV towing a jeep. This came up several times today and it became very annoying. I'm pretty sure we didn't enjoy driving that road that much more than the folks in the cars.
We are noticing that the colors in Mass. are getting brighter the further north we go. As we moved into NH and then Maine, the foliage was spectacular. We spotted a moose in a river but passed it too quickly to get a photo.
We selected a lovely Walmart to shop and spend the night before crossing into Canada.
It's been proven many times that if I allow my eyes to veer from the road for a minute, Glenn takes a wrong turn. If I go to make lunch, we end up on a byway to who knows where. This time, I went into Walmart to get him some cold medicine and in that short time, he managed to attempt to turn the motor home around in the parking lot and got stuck in a place that he couldn't get out of. He ended up having to unhook the jeep and another person who was staying there also came over to help him out of the mess. I was gone 15 minutes and it was a mini disaster. This is why I don't take a lot of naps.

Day 4: We got up and headed toward the border this morning. We were fully prepared, had all the rules covered, etc...so we thought. The customs officer asked a couple questions, checked our passports, and casually asked if we had anything else in the vehicled that he hadn't mentioned. Glenn told him upfront that he had a weapon. MISTAKE. We were well read, had all the rules covered, had the correct forms filled out....and he wants to know why he has a weapon. Since the rules we read said that it was ok to have certain ones to protect yourself from wild animals, he stated that as a reason. Uh, no? He said that wasn't a reason. He said that Prince Edward Island doesn't have any animals that would hurt us. hmmm. So he said Glenn would have to leave the weapon there. Well I knew THAT wasn't going to happen! So we said we weren't coming back that way. So he suggested that we go back to Maine and SHIP it home!!!! Finally Glenn said well, what if I was going to go skeet shooting? At that, the officer invited him in. After conferencing with another officer, they agreed that we had covered all bases, followed all rules, tried to be honest, and let him pay his $25.00 and turn in his forms, and proceed with his weapon. I was very annoyed that they didn't care one bit about the puppy that we had taken to get checked by Dr. Joe and that she had a health certificate to make sure she didn't get confiscated. Nor did they care about how much alcohol we had OR the fact that I had made the bed very nicely so that when they came in and checked us, we didn't look all trashy.
We arrived on the island late this afternoon. Gas is 91 cents a liter...I think that might be about 4 bucks a gallon. yikes. Glenn asked about paying with American money, etc, and they said it was PAR. We think that might mean that our money is near the same as Canadian right now but we aren't really sure!
We are at the Cavendish KOA and it's been raining like crazy so we don't really know what anything looks like here. We have Wifi, but not cable. Glenn managed to get a couple channels on TV and it took a little while but he finally realized that they are in French!
Tomorrow we plan to take the jeep out and follow the drives along the coastline. From the little we saw so far, it looks amazing. We are hoping to see fishing villages and lobster fleets and lots of colors. Hopefully I'll be connected enough to update this frequently.