Au Canada - Days 9, 10 and 11 - on PEI

Thursday, July 2 - Gaspe, PQ

Days 9,10 and 11 were spent on Prince Edward Island, exploring and enjoying the local flavor and history. Charlottetown is a small, cosmopolitan city filled with historical landmarks, wonderful restaurants, and lots of shopping areas. In addition, the waterfront, which is on the Hillsborough River, has a scenic boardwalk lined with shops and cafes. We also discovered a Factory Outlet Mall, but it was nothing like the ones in the States.



After leaving Charlottetown on Day 10, we headed north to Cavendish, the location of the real Green Gables, where L. H. Montgomery lived and wrote the "Anne of ...." series. Just past Green Gables lies the village of Avonlea, where the "Anne of Green Gables" movie was filmed. We stopped in to visit Avonlea, but with the rainy weather (it was pouring), we decided to move on to other things, such as "shopping" (what else is there to do in the rain?). I managed to pick up a new hat for the rain (see pictures).

Day 11 started out to be another rainy day. In fact, the only really nice day we had was Day 8, when we had "the Lobster Feast". No matter. Our plan was to visit the PEI Potato Museum in the town of O'Leary, which was a drive of approximately 1-1/2 hours from Cavendish. This was a good take for a rainy day. We learned lots of interesting information about the origin of the potato. Did you know that the potato originated in South America? The soil on PEI is very good for growing potatoes. If you notice in the pictures we took, the soil looks reddish-brown. That is due to the fact that the soil here is rich in iron oxide, which, when exposed to air, turns rust-colored. As we drove around the island, we saw potato fields everywhere. They are preparing for the July harvest (the "early" harvest). The regular harvest happens in the fall, when most of the islands potato crop is harvested. Schools close for a week for this "event", so that the children can help harvest the crop. In addition to the history of the potato, the museum had lots of other interesting artifacts. You can see pictures of what we saw in the Day 10 album.

On the return trip from O'Leary, we stopped into Summerside, the other large city on PEI. There was nothing in Summerside to hold our attention, so we cruised the main streets and headed back to Cavendish.

Here are the links to the web albums:

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay9CharlottetownPEI?authkey=Gv1sRgCNne2J-J3Yn2Vw&feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay10CavendishPEI?authkey=Gv1sRgCIL21If9q6OFjAE&feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay11OLearyPEI?authkey=Gv1sRgCNe43Kek2dzpqAE&feat=directlink

Au Canada - Day 8 - The Lobster Feast!

Thursday, July 2 - Gaspe, PQ

As I mentioned in my last entry, this entry will be totally dedicated to our "Lobster Feast". If you remember, I mentioned that we purchased these lobsters just prior to boarding the ferry to PEI. It was less than 6 hours later when we cooked them and absolutely devoured them! Talk about fresh! If you've never had lobster right off the boat, you can't know what you missed.

As I mentioned, these were 3-pound lobsters with extremely hard shells. We steamed them for 25 minutes in the pot, then served them with potato salad and cole slaw and plenty of beer/wine and melted butter! I can honestly say that I have never tasted a lobster as sweet and tender as these were! By the time we were finished, all that remained of our feast was a bowl FULL of shells and most of the potato salad and cole slaw (we were too busy eating lobster to worry about them)! This was the only way to enjoy, truly enjoy, a lobster dinner. We had thought about going out to a local restaurant for lobster several times, but decided to wait until we could buy them fresh and eat them outside at a picnic table, where we wouldn't have to worry about getting it all over ourselves, or looking like slobs devouring them. We had a beautiful evening for eating outside, with the city of Charlottetown across the river and the sun setting over the city, it was perfect! In addition to this being a wonderful feast, it was also a celebration of Kathy Burch's B'day. It was the ending to a wonderful day. Incidentally, this was one of two sunny days on this whole trip!!! But it did not prevent us from doing what we wanted to do and having lots of laughs! Guess we did not escape the rain by heading north.

Here's the link to the web album for "the lobster feast!":

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay8TheLobsterFeast?authkey=Gv1sRgCMSq982jq5mfQg&feat=directlink

Au Canada - Days 7 & 8

Thursday, July 2 - I am finally catching up.

After several days without a decent internet connection, I have finally gotten to a place where I can upload my pictures and create a blog. If possible, I will probably do 3 blogs tonight, just to catch up. We are currently in the town of Gaspe in the province of Quebec, at the Fort Ramsay campground. This blog entry will cover days 7 and 8 of our trip, which were spent traveling into the town of Sydney in Nova Scotia on Day 7, then traveling out to Prince Edward Island on Day 8.

I don't remember why, or who told me, but I was speaking to someone about taking this trip to the Maritime Provinces, and he asked me if we had ever visited the town of Sydney on Cape Breton. We were told that it was considered a small Halifax. On that information, we did make the 1 hour drive to Sydney from our campground. Prior to leaving Baddeck, we stopped in at a yarn shop so that the girls could check out the yarns. While there, Charlie and I were sitting out in the car watching the yarn shop owner's husband preparing to mow his lawn. After spending a few minutes walking around picking up sticks and twigs, he went into the shed, checked out the level of gas in the mower, and decided to fill the tank. He then stepped out of the shed, lit up a cigarette, spotted us in the car, and came over and struck up a conversation with a wise remark about husbands waiting for wives shopping. During the conversation, we asked him if there was anything we just HAD TO SEE in Sydney. He replied that he and his wife only go to Sydney to shop at the mall, so he knew nothing about the town. Great!

Eventually, the girls came out of the shop and we got underway. We took a few pictures along the way, which you will see in the album. As for the town of Sydney, we drove around the town and could find NOTHING of interest to us. We ended up at a Subway shop for lunch, then went over to the local WalMart to poke around. One depressing thing we realized when we got into Canada is that the ONLY place to purchase beer and/or wine is at the Provincial Liquor stores (much like the State Liquor stores in NH and Maine), and, they don't carry TISDALE!!! The moral to this tale is: If you ever get to travel to Cape Breton, don't go to Sydney.

On Day 8, we left Cape Breton and headed to Caribou to take the ferry over to Prince Edward Island. The trip to Caribou was pretty much routine. We arrived at the ferry terminal shortly after 11:30AM, with almost an hour to kill before the next ferry to PEI. As we took our places in line for boarding, Charlie spotted some fishing boats off the the right of the ferry dock, and asked me if we could get over to where they were. After walking the dogs, we ventured out to the docks where the fishing boats were tying up. We were anxious to see if we could purchase "lobstahs" right off the boat! One of the men on the dock told us we could probably get them for about $4.50 - 5.00/lb. We spotted a boat just tying up, so we walked over and waited for them to start unloading their catch. We asked about buying lobsters from him and he said we could. When we asked the price, his wife quoted us prices of $5.50/lb for chix, $6.00/lb for bigger ones. We bought 4 3-pounders for $66.00, bagged them up, then had to run to our coaches to get onto the ferry, as it had started boarding while we were buying our lobsters!

After driving the coaches onto the ferry, we went top-side to make the 75 minute trip across the Strait of Northumberland to PEI. See the web albums for pictures of the trip across. You'll have to wait for the next blog entry for details of the "Lobster Feast"!

Here are your links to the web albums for Days 7 & 8:

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay7ToSydneyAndBack?authkey=Gv1sRgCPWOwbbF_Iif9QE&feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay8TravelingToPrinceEdwardIsland?authkey=Gv1sRgCPuW0ZH5t-i-KQ&feat=directlink

Au Canada - Days 5 & 6 - Halifax to Cape Breton

Monday, June 29 - Cavendish, Prince Edward Island

Finally, I have enough of an internet connection to post a blog. This blog will contain links to the web albums, which took forever to upload with the connections and speed we have up here.

Day 5 - traveling from Halifax to Cape Breton Island. The trip was basically uneventful, with fairly decent weather and dry road conditions. Along the way, we crossed over the Strait of Canso onto Cape Breton Island. While crossing the Strait on the causeway, there were 3 Canadian Naval ships entering the locks, which allow passage from the North shore to the South shore of Nova Scotia. Additionally, there was also a freight train passing us on our right, going in the opposite direction. We tried to get photographs of everything going on around us, but weren't very successful. We finally arrived at the Cabot Trail campground around 2:30PM and got the motor homes set up. Next, we drove into the town of Baddeck to look around. The two K's were looking for a yarn shop in town, which we did find.

Day 6 - The Cabot Trail. After a quick breakfast, we loaded up the dogs and headed out to explore the Cabot Trail. The weather was "iffy", at best, with ground fog in low-lying areas. However, we did see some sunshine along the way. Our first stop was at the Clucking Hen Cafe and Bakery for coffee and a snack. From there, we continued our exploration of "the Trail". A lot of the pictures in the web album for Day 6 are of clouds and fog, since these were the most prevalent things we were able to see. We did, however, manage to get photos of some of the sights along the way. In all, our trip around the Cabot Trail, 195 miles, took us about 8 hours to complete. We returned to the campground around 4:30PM, and spent the rest of the day relaxing.

I attempted to add photographs to the blog, but the connection is too slow, and they will not load. Anyway, you can see all the photographs in the web albums. Here are the links:

http://picasaweb.google.ca/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay5HalifaxToBaddeckNS?authkey=Gv1sRgCOvJp-jKuoXe6QE&feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay6TheCabotTrail?authkey=Gv1sRgCKuWxqSlx5XJCg&feat=directlink

Au Canada - Days 2, 3, and 4

Wendesday, June 24 - Baddeck, NS

Here we are at the entrance to the Cabot Trail. I have finally gotten the opportunity to blog, so here goes! I will not attempt to place any pictures here on the blog itself, because once again, I have a spotty internet connection.

On Saturday, June 20, we visited Hopewell Rocks on the Bay of Fundy. This is the area in which the highest recorded tides occur. We arrived at the park at low tide, which you will see in the pictures taken here. We visited the mud flats, Diamond Rock and Flower Pot Rocks. If you look at the pictures we took here, you can imagine how high the water level rises at high tide. In fact, there are signs here warning visitors about when they can descend to and walk along the ocean floor here. The tide rises so rapidly in this area that a person could get stranded once the tides begin to rise.

Here are the photos from Hopewell Rocks:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay2HopewellRocksNB?authkey=Gv1sRgCNWRxfHnzObNIw&feat=directlink

On Sunday, we left Hopewell and headed into Nova Scotia, bound for Halifax. We arrived in Halifax late Sunday afternoon, and just relaxed after the long drive. On Monday morning, we headed into Halifax at 8AM in order to catch the 9AM Grey Line bus tour of the city. We took the "Deluxe" tour on a double-decker bus, which took us through the city of Halifax, hitting all the historic points. The second part of the tour took us through the area of the city which was destroyed by a horrific explosion in Halifax harbor. At 9:05 on the 6th of December 1917, a French munition ship exploded in Halifax harbor, (Nova Scotia, Canada). This explosion was so vast that it killed over 2,000 people and completely flattened two square kilometers of northern Halifax. This was the greatest explosion of the Great war, and the largest man-made explosion until the dropping of the bomb at Hiroshima in 1945. As a result of this disaster, when the area homes and businesses were rebuilt, every building was constructed using stone, cinder block or brick, so as to prevent any similar disaster from causing so much damage.

From here, we visited the cemetery where 209 of the bodies recovered from the Titanic disaster are buried. The gravestones here are arranged in the shape of the bow of a ship. Many of the stones have no names inscribed on them, because the bodies were never identified. Some of the identifications weren't made until 50 years after the Titanic sank, when DNA identification was available to match the victims to families. In all, our tour took 3 hours, and was very interesting and informative.

Here are the photographs from Halifax:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay3HalifaxNS?authkey=Gv1sRgCKPxtPWLyt_OvAE&feat=directlink

On Tuesday, we spent the day visiting Peggy's Cove and Lunenburg. On the way to Peggy's Cove, we stopped at the Memorial to the Swissair Flight 111 crash, which occurred about 7 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia on September 2, 1998. At Peggy's Cove, we were met by 8 tour buses, which had just let their passengers off to walk the streets of Peggy's Cove. There are only about 5 roads in Peggy's Cove, and we only drove on one - the one where all the bus passengers were walking. The buses let the passengers off at the Visitor's Center, and they walked up to the Light House parking lot, where the buses were waiting to pick them up. These people were like cattle being driven down the road - they would not move to the side of the road so that cars could pass. We practically had to run them down before they would move over.

From Peggy's Cove, we drove on to Lunenburg. This was quite a quaint town to visit. There are many little shops and lots of restaurants there, and the food was excellent at the little restaurant we chose for lunch. We all ate seafood, which tasted like it had just come off the boat. While sitting in the restaurant, I noticed a tall ship moored in the harbor named "Picton Castle". I photographed the ship because I recognized the name as the ship which a former Manchester High School student sailed on for about 6 months. His travels were chronicled in the Manchester Cricket, detailing his trip, similar to my blog!

Here are the pictures from Tuesday's travels:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay4PeggySCoveLunenburgNS?authkey=Gv1sRgCOLG_uvqxcHiDA&feat=directlink

This morning, Wednesday, we left the Halifax area and traveled on to Cape Breton Island and the Cabot Trail. We are staying in the town of Baddeck (pronounced b'deck), at the Cabot Trail Campground. Tomorrow morning, we will tour the Cabot Trail (all of it, 195 miles), so be sure to check back for the details.

So long for now!

Au Canada - Day 1 - Campobello Island, NB

Friday, June 19 - Calais, ME
Today is the first recorded day of our travels with Charlie and Kathy Burch. We traveled out to Campobello Island, the summer home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This is truly a beautiful place! It was easy to understand why FDR referred to Campobello as "my beloved island". His parents, John and Sarah Delano Roosevelt, first came to the island in 1880, and loved it so much that they purchased 4 acres of land and built their "cottage" on it. FDR first traveled out to Campobello at the age of 1, in 1883. As a boy growing up, he spent his summers here, watching the local fishermen and learning to sail with his father. As he grew older and married, he continued summering on the island with his family, eventually purchasing a cottage next door to his parents. This became known as the Roosevelt Cottage. As you will see in the pictures, they did not live ostentatiously. There was no electricity and no telephone service on the island. Water was stored in tanks in the attics of the cottages and gravity-fed to the bathrooms. The climate here in the summertime is very mild, and was a great way to escape the heat of Boston and New York, which is where the first American businessmen came from who bought and built up most of the land here in the mid-1880's.

FDR contracted "infantile paralysis" (polio) here in 1921, at the age of 39. After five weeks, he was transported on a stretcher, across the bay to Eastport, ME, and was transported to New York for treatment. He only returned to the island three more times after that, in 1933, 1936 and 1939.

From the cottage, we traveled out to the tip of the island to East Quoddy point, where there is a lighthouse. We took several pictures of this spot, since it was another great sight. We did not venture all the way out to the lighthouse, as the tide was rising, and, at the rate of 5 feet per hour, we did not want to get stranded out there until low tide.

Tomorrow, we will travel into New Brunswick at St. Stephen, then proceed along the south coast to Hopewell Cape. This is where the highest tides in North America are recorded. Be sure to check back for pictures tomorrow night, or Sunday morning.

That's it for today's adventures.

Here's the link to the photo album:

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay1CampobelloIsland?authkey=Gv1sRgCIyd9JeHy-GmAg&feat=directlink

Potpourri

Tuesday, June 2 - random thoughts on a variety of topics

Since my last entry, things have been fairly busy around the new homestead. I've painted a couple more rooms, repaired an outside electrical outlet, helped wash windows and plant flowers in the window boxes we inherited, started to unpack boxes of stuff in the basement so that we can move down there, and also so we can find our tools! In addition, we've bought and hung several pictures, shopped for chairs to put in our living area (have not found anything, yet), and finished our list of address change notifications.

Today, I visited my urologist for my annual check-up, including the inevitable "prostate exam". Question - why do all male urologists have fingers like tree stumps? Yeowch! That was at 9AM this morning. This afternoon, I had a dentist appointment to fix a tooth I chipped a couple of weeks ago. Turns out I need to have two crowns done, so today, I spent 1-1/2 hours in the chair while he ground away at the two teeth needing crowns, plus the two teeth below those, which needed to be ground down to accomodate the crowns! Sheesh! He was drilling in there for 35 minutes! Thank goodness for novocaine! Here's a dental question: why do dentists start talking to you after giving you 4 shots of novocaine? Apparently, they've never tried to talk with a mouth full of novocaine. I mean, you can't move your lips, your tongue is numb so you can't form words that make any sense, and, even if you could, it's extremely difficult to talk when your mouth is full of devices like drills, suction tubes, gauze pads, fingers, etc. Add to that the fact that he had a dental student working in the office today, so he wanted her to observe and assist with the process. As a result, he spent so much time explaining the process to her, and why he was doing certain things, the novocaine started to wear off while he was drilling!!! Had to give me a couple more shots to finish up. I have to go back in a couple of weeks to get the permanent crowns put in. I can't wait!

Tomorrow, the dogs go to the groomer, K has a meeting at 8:30, and I WAS going for a haircut, but that will change. We will probably drive up to Kittery, ME to the Crate & Barrel outlet to look for a couple of items K wants for the house. It's supposed to rain tomorrow afternoon, so that should be an exciting drive.

Changing the subject, I've/we've become addicted to Subway! We are especially fond of the Spicy Italian footlong. At $5.00 a pop, you can't get a cheaper lunch for two that is both delicious and plenty to eat! Ours is loaded with pepperoni, Genoa salami, provolone cheese, and topped with lettuce, tomato, pickle and green pepper, then seasoned with oil and vinegar! Oh, yeah, I forgot the bread! We like the Italian herb and cheese bread, and we DO NOT get it TOASTED! I totally recommend this sandwich, or any $5.00 footlong at Subway. Great!!

That's it! I'm through rambling! The Sox are up 5 - 1 over the Tigers in the 7th and things are looking good tonight. Dice-K was his usual - walking batters, but then pitching his way out of jams. Look out, Yankees! Here we come!