On the road again...

 

 

Woke up to pouring rain again….was NOT going to stay another night so we just started getting ready to go.  Just about the time we had to do outside stuff, the rain eased up to just sprinkles and we hit the road…..10 minutes later, we were in rain and fog again.  All day long. 

 

The trees are absolutely beautiful in Maine.  Even with the rain and fog, they just glow…they would be out of this world with the sun shining on them.  It was another non-eventful driving day.

 

We stopped at a Rest Area in Maine for lunch.  Huge, clean, efficient place.  Hookups for truckers to rest overnight and keep their a/c; heat going.  Huge gas/diesel pump areas.  Burger King.  Nice, clean and plenty of room to maneveur  around

 

 Now, having said that:  Evidently, Canadians don’t pee.  All of our driving along the Trans-Canada highway (fantastic road), there were no Rest Areas; few towns; no pulloffs.  The only rest area sign we saw was for a Circle K truck stop and they had no diesel pumps….he had to squeeze into the car lanes to fill up.  There was truck parking (as in rest), but that was it.  We drove for miles and miles before we found a place to pull off (on an exit ramp to nowhere).  The Canadians could learn a lot from Maine and its Rest Areas/Welcome Centers.

 

We were  in Maine most all day .  With a short jaunt across New Hampshire and into Vermont where are staying the night.  Lovely states.    But there are just too many people up here.  On this cool, rainy, foggy day,  the freeways are packed.  Where are they going?  And there are hands sticking out everywhere….tolls, tolls, tolls.  I think we stopped 5 times to pay a toll….and the tolls ran from $2.50 to $7.00….they seem to think a dually truck  has 3 axles because it has 4 back tires.  Expensive but good roads.

 

Just as we exited the freeway and began across New Hampshire, it stopped raining and we glimpsed the sun a little.  The trees were beautiful.  My pictures don’t do the colors justice. It’s hard to take a good picture on the fly. We were on a winding two-lane road through the back country of NH….gorgeous drive. 

 

We got to Hidden Acres RV, Dummerston, Vermont….okay spot.  No cable, no wifi.  It’s quiet with only a few people here.  Nice staff.  It started raining again just as soon as we got the RV off the truck….no satellite. 




We drove out to a local covered bridge over the West River.  The highway out to the bridge meandered along the river.  The bridge is the longest in Vermont. 

 

Then off to a grocery store for a few items. Had to take this big butted truck down through this little, little Vermont town of Brattleboro.  Twice.  Crowded, small streets, lots of people even in the rain. 

 

 Edra, we’re having nachos tonight.  Then will just sit and read and listen to the rain.  It’s just like rain on a tin roof….I do hope it’s not raining again in the morning when we get ready to leave. 

 

 

Pumpkin Patch again

The ultimate in laziness.  We have absolutely done nothing today....well...we did vacuum but that takes all of 5 minutes.  It's rained, misted, and been an all around dreary day...loved it.

Found the Arkansas ballgame on the internet and listened to another tragedy.  Oh my.  I read a book, Ronnie took a nap, got on the computer...just did nothing.  It was wonderful.  And now we are ready to hit the road again tomorrow.

We're off toward Dunnerston Vermont for an overnight.  We have altered our plans a bit and are going on down south...there's too many people up here. LOL.  One more one-nighter and we will then stop at Gettysburg for 3 nights.  We've been there before and loved it, so we'll see it all again. 

We've planned a couple of 3 nighters on the way to Crossville TN.  Three nights there and will visit with our friends who we'll caravan with on the way to Crossett on October 13 for my High School Reunion. 

We finished up the taco soup for dinner and R will watch the Alabama-Ole Miss game...he's gonna pretend the Alabama red is Arkansas....

I'll read some more.

Pumpkin Patch RV Park, Hermon, Maine

A rather nice, quiet, relaxing day.  We slept in a bit...I cooked the birthday guy a huge breakfast...eggs, bacon, biscuits  (well, I popped the can open!).  Then we walked over to the laundry and did laundry....all clean clothes, clean sheets, and towels now.  Nice laundry.  I did do the kitchen floor...looks brand new.  LOL. 

We sat outside in the beautiful sunshine and read while  waiting on the clothes.  We took another walk around the park....wonderful trails to walk although they were short. 

   Ronnie went to fill up and get our Canadian money changed back to US Dollars to be ready to leave in the morning. Then the clouds started rolling in and the air really turned cool.   So we came inside and read a bit more. 

I looked at the radar on my phone and the forecast said 70% rain tonight and tomorrow and there was a huge green blob heading this way.  I told him that and he looked over and said..."what are you thinking?  Staying another night?"  I said that it sounded good to me.  So we went up and paid for another night.  It's really good to do nothing for a change.  This is a nice quiet and big RV park...the nicest we've stayed at ( and cheapest--$18 with our Passport America card) and we'll just sit and read while it rains rather than get out and get wet while getting things ready to go.   

He wanted taco soup for his birthday, so it's been in the crockpot all day...smells wonderful.    We'll watch ballgames tomorrow altho we won't be able to watch Arkansas...is that a good thing or a bad thing??? 

He's appreciated all the well wishes for his birthday.  I think he's enjoyed his "not driving" day. 

A rather boring blog, huh?

USA USA USA

It is SO good to be back in the USA.  Gas is a gallon; not a litre.  Miles are miles; not kilometers.  And the flag has stars and stripes and not maple leaves.  Canada is nice; people are nice; beautiful scenery, but we are glad to be home. 

Crossing the border was not so bad.  We answered questions and they looked inside the RV, but we didn't have to open the slides like we did when we went over.  We didn't have anything to hide, but we've heard horror stories.

We got here at Pumpkin Patch RV Park outside of Bangor Maine around 3.  Forgot about the time change so we got an hour back....we need it.  We've decided to stay two nights here and just rest up.  Ronnie's birthday is tomorrow and he wants to NOT drive for a day.  LOL.  It's a nice park.  The weather is nice...supposed to be in the 30's tonight, tho. 

As soon as we got into Maine, the trees began to show color....reds, oranges, yellows.  Pretty.  We are still a little early, but it is what it is.

Not much else to report....We did go to a local grocery store to stock up on food items.  Wow....a really, really nice supermarket...huge....my wonderful Kroger times 10.   Ronnie's grilling burgers tonight and tomorrow I will do laundry and clean the floors...with all the rain, the kitchen floor is looking a little grungy.  I'll either clean or watch "Hoarders"...either way I'll feel better about the RV.

 

Green Gables PEI

A blustery, windy day...all day.  Not too cold, just a cool wind.  We left the RV about 9:30 and drove over the Confederation Bridge onto Prince Edward Island.  The bridge is 8 miles long.




There are 3 driving loops on PEI 1) the North Cape Coastal Loop 2) the Central Coastal Loop 3) the Points East Coastal Drive.  We chose the Central Coastal Loop which is also the Green Gables loop and took us through the area where Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote the book, Anne of Green Gables.  We drove through beautiful farm lands and touched the coast on occasion . 

The fields meet the Atlantic. Farming, especially potato farming, is huge here.  Lots of huge farms, agri businesses.

 Evidently, they are doing well.  The houses are all very, very nice.  A pretty high standard of living here, I would think. 






We saw the home that inspired Lucy Maud Montgomery to write the book.  The actual home  was owned by the McNeil family, who were cousins of author Lucy Maud Montgomery.  The farm's name is derived from the rich dark green paint of the gables on the farmhouse. The main exterior walls of the farmhouse are painted white.

Montgomery visited the farm as a young girl and based her best-selling Anne series of books on the Green Gables farm. She drew romantic inspiration from the house, as well as the surrounding area, including the "Haunted Woods", "Lovers Lane", and "Balsam Hollow."


Upon Montgomery's death, her wake was conducted from the living room of the Green Gables farmhouse for several days prior to her funeral at the local Presbyterian church and burial in the nearby Cavendish Community Cemetery.

We enjoyed seeing the house (after finally finding it), but the entire area around Cavendish (the local town in the book)  has commercialized  Anne, Green Gables and Lucy Montgomery to the point where everything is named Green Gables something; Anne something; Cavendish something.  You can't tell the historical from the commercial.    The gift stores are so trinket oriented it's just sickening.  Cheap stuff.  We walked through the house which is decorated as it would have been done in the 1800's....quickly.  It smelled of old things and I don't especially like that sort of thing.

We continued on around and touched the southern coastal area.  The dirt here is red (makes good potatoes, I guess) and the ocean has a distinct red tint for hundreds of feet out.   

One stop around Charlottetown port showed a cruise ship was docked.

We stopped at Gateway Village, but most of the shops are closed up for the season.  We went into a couple and it was more tee shirts and tacky souvenirs.  We drove onto the bridge to come back to the RV.  There is no charge to ride the bridge over, but to get off the island, it's $22 per axle.  That's why we left two of our axles on the mainland.  

Overall impression:  Glad we went, but it wasn't exactly like I expected.  Maybe the North Cape Coastal would have given us the rocky wave scenes we had imagined.  Except for a couple of places, most of the water we saw was a protected bay or strait.  One of the things I've loved about Nova Scotia and PEI is the beautiful churches.  Most that we've seen in the Cape Breton and PEI area are Anglican Churches. 

This was the eastern end of our trip....now we turn around and head back home.  We are READY to get back to the states.  But I do dread the long drives ahead of us. 

Silver Sands RV Cap Pele NB

Now I know how Columbus must have felt...as he sailed off the ends of the ocean....that's where we are now.  Right at the edge of the Atlantic.  Beautiful view....another strange park.  Couldn't find anyone around when we got here (no reservations) so R knocked on the door of the house (?) ...a little lady said just go pick a spot.  They are all supposed to be pull thru, but if we pulled through this spot, we'd take out another fifth wheel in front of us....will be interesting when we leave.

It's very cool  here.  The wind is howling...not off the ocean, but from the opposite direction....gonna be good sleeping weather.  

About the only thing that happened today of note was when Ronnie decided to give the satellite a go.  He'd been reading up on the east coast settings, so he tried resetting it and ....wow...we have satellite.  We will watch Fox News tonight!!!  And when the little guy came by to collect, he gave us the WiFi key and we have a decent wifi.  We have felt really isolated w/o any home connections.  Thought this was gonna be a long two days.

Tomorrow we go over Confederation Bridge into Prince Edward Island...it has 3 loops ...one on the north side, one on the south side and one in the middle sorta around Charlottetown.  We chose the middle.  It goes along the coast a bit and is the area where the story of Anne of Green Gables was written.  We both fell in love with that series a few years ago.  I highly recommend it...just a really good family movie.  Anyway, that's on for tomorrow.  And that will be the turning point of our trip....we head back home through Maine, Vermont and south.  A long way to go.

Ronnie is feeling back to normal today.  Thank goodness.  He keeps telling me I need to drive "just in case".  I may on a freeway somewhere, but we'll see. 

We ate the last of the food tonight...pork chops, rice & veggies, salad.  We can't take any fruit back over the border, so we'll be eating one last apple tonight.  Tomorrow night we'll have to finish up the one last tomato. 

New Brunswick, Nova Scotia....really pretty places and in a lot of ways are like home, but in a lot of ways different.  Home is different for everyone.  I prefer the USA...it's my home. 

Our next trip in the RV will be to a place where we will stay for days/weeks and make day trips.  We have done in 3 weeks what others say they did in 3 months.....because we drove a lot, sometimes with the RV/sometimes without.  Either way, we were in the truck, sitting and that's a little hard on two old people. lol. 

It's 7:15 and getting dark....and cool.  We need to get out and walk a bit.  Hope we don't get blown out to sea.

The Cabot Trail Sept 24, 2012

Woke up to NO RAIN.  Partly cloudy am and sunny/partly sunny pm.  Perfect.  Ronnie was feeling much better today, so we took off about 9:30 to do the Cabot Trail.  We started up the East coast of Cape Breton and down the West coast (along the Bay of St. Lawrence).  There's the Acadian influence up here also (especially along the West coast).  Lots of French names and most everything is written in English and French.  Not as much Scottish/Celtic here on the upper West side. 

We stopped right away at the Gaelic College at St. Ann's NS.   They had a great craft shop with most everything made at the college and some beautiful handknitted sweaters.  I tried on some, but they just didn't look right on me.  There was one....a wrap/scarffy thingy...that I sorta wish I'd bought.  Tried it on and put it back.  Ummm...regrets?

Continued on up the coast stopping here and there for sights.  The little fishing villages are just beautiful. We were a little disappointed at the opportunities available to view this beautiful rocky coastline.  The trees had grown up so high, you couldn't see anything.  The views were more available on the western side.

There was one magnificant place to stop and walk out on the walkway and see a view from a postcard.  The waves, rocks and water were all just gorgeous. 

We stopped at Neil's Harbour for lunch at the Chowder House.

 A lighthouse/harbour/view/lunch all at one place.
 The waves were crashing on the rocks...




Neil's Harbour NS

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Moose #1

Moose #2

 



The road then turned inland across the top of the island.  Just climbing corkscrew curves, forests and, believe it or not....moose.  We saw two.  One was up in the forest and the other was right beside the road. 

It was a day to just drive (like we've not done that before!)  and look.    We got back to the RV around 6:45.  Ronnie is still feeling better so tomorrow we leave Nova Scotia.  It's a beautiful place, full of nice people.

 If we ever come back, we'll fly.

Here are other sights from the route today.

Giant Sea Turtle   lol