Nova Scotia

After PEI, we headed into Nova Scotia where we stayed in 4 different places, all on the water.  On the way into Nova Scotia, we stopped for fuel on the outskirts of a little town called Springhill.  Fred, the fellow we're going to see in Newfoundland, was a town constable there until 2012.  I asked the woman behind the counter if she'd lived there long, yes, and do you know a retired constable named Fred Welsh.  "Oh, you missed him my dear, he moved back to Newfoundland!"  Small world.  I talk to one person in Springhill and sure enough, she knows Fred.  Our first stop was in a Town called Truro.  It's at the very end of the Bay of Fundy, where the tides are so strong.  The rising tide pushes a small wave called a bore up the Salmon River, and it looked like a good place to see central Nova Scotia.  We took a few nice country drives and went for a really beautiful walk with Missy in the city park.  Three nights and we're outa there.

Next stop was land's end on the southwest coast, Yarmouth.  There's not much in Yarmouth at all, but we had a beautiful camping spot with a fire ring.  It seemed like we had the place all to ourselves, Castle Lake Campground and Cabins.  It's pretty new, so still some road work and such going on.  We found a manicured 1/2 mile path going down to the ocean, so of course Missy got a lot of exercise.  Three nights, and we're outa there.  Next top: Halifax.

Halifax is the provincial capital, and a pretty good sized metropolitan area.  We stayed at a park called Woodhaven, not too bad, but we spent most of our time running around the countryside seeing the sights.  There's a touristy place about an hour outside of town called "Peggy's Cove."  We had to stop there, otherwise we'd never be able to face our friend Peggy again.  It's just a lighthouse and interesting rock formations, but it made for a nice drive in the country.  Time flies though, and after a couple trips to the downtown waterfront, it was time to move on.  Four nights and we're outa there.  Next stop: Cape Breton Island.

The northern third of Nova Scotia is an island attached to the rest via a causeway and bridge, not much at all separates them though.  This is one of those "we need to come back" areas.  We spent 3 nights at the northern tip waiting on the ferry to Newfoundland.  It's beautiful, with the Bras d'or Lakes pretty much everywhere you turn.  They're like an interconnect inland sea of large saltwater bays, but they call them lakes because they're so protected.  Really pretty.  We intend to stop for a few more days in a different area of Cape Breton Island when we get back from Newfoundland, 3 weeks from today.  We get on the ferry in a few hours.  Here are some Nova Scotia pictures:

Maybe it's called a tidal "bore" for a reason.  You have to be here, pictures aren't clear enough to see the wave coming.  This is low tide.

Same spot a few minutes after the tide starts rising.  Hard to see it in the pictures, but this is the bore coming in, the tide rises about a foot a minute.  These folks are on a zodiac raft trip up the river at high tide.

This is the bulk barn.  Everything from candy to dried rice, beans, flour of all sorts, spices, all available "by the pinch or by the pound."  They had pretty much everything you can scoop or spoon into a bag or container.  Everything's sold by weight, even shortening and pie filling.

Our spot at Castle Lake campground.  They're not always this secluded.

The actual cove..Peggy's Cove.  It's tiny.

Peggy's Cove Lighthouse and the marked up boulders left over when the last glacier retreated.

Intrepid travelers.  I told the fellow to get the whole lighthouse.  Sigh.

Hey Peggy, nice cove!

Driving around Cape Breton Island, Google Maps didn't tell us there was a $7 ferry crossing.  Cool!

Bras d'or Lake.  Pronounced "broader lake"

The view from our roof and windshield while waiting for the ferry to Newfoundland at Arm of Gold campground.  We had an unobstructed 180 degree view of the water.  This is a panorama, so it's a little hard to make out.

Prince Edward Island

Well, we found another beautiful place that we'll just have to come back to.  Prince Edward Island is it's own tiny province, just 140,000 residents, connected to the mainland by the 8 mile Confederation Bridge.  The toll was $64.50CD, but much more convenient than hopping the ferry across.  It's hard to describe how pretty it is.  It's not like there's majestic rock formations or giant trees like we've seen in our travels.  It's man-made beauty.  Everyone's house is painted and kept up, even the 200 year old farmhouses, and the fields all seem to be manicured.  It looks like some of the prettier farm country I've seen in pictures of the British Isles.  Not surprising, really, pretty much everybody on PEI is from there.  We spent 4 nights at the New Glasgow Highlands campground, which was not enough.  We had a little work done on the rig, new fuel filters, but that only took one morning.  We drove around a pretty significant portion of the island and never saw anything trashy.  Really cool.  Come to find out, my maternal roots are from here, a few generations back.  I was able to find a distant ancestor's grave.  Having a familial link here made it even more special.  We'll be back.

The first evening we went for a drive toward Cavendish along the sea shore.  There were a couple foxes hanging out by the road, not scared of anything.  This one was looking at Missy like she'd make a nice snack.  She was going buh zerk.

The whole island is red dirt/rocks.  I didn't see a chunk of good old granite or anything the whole time, just red.

The book Anne of Greene Gables was inspired by this house in Cavendish, it belonged to the author's cousin

Daniel Vessey, R.I.P.  My great great grandfather.

It was hard to capture the rolling hills and farm fields.  Beautiful and green, everywhere you look.

Saint John, New Brunswick

We only spent 3 days in New Brunswick, at least on the way north.  Beautiful countryside and more forest than I guess they know what to do with.  I hear our President is upset because Canada is "dumping" cheap lumber on our market, but, really, it's because the place is covered in trees.  Anyway, we stayed at a beautiful municipal park in the port town of Saint John called Rockwood Park.  It rained and was super foggy the first day, Canada Day, so we didn't do much.  However, the front moved on and we got one really good, clear day to drive around and see some sights.  It's definitely a working waterfront city, no Newport Rhode Island here, but still full of wonderful people and scenic countryside.

I took this with my phone, so, pretty close.  I was walking Missy in Rockwood Park and this deer was just staring at us.  I couldn't believe the dog didn't bark and scare it off, but she just looked at it with her little paw pointed like a retriever or something.

Lepreau Falls, just outside Saint John

The Beach.  It ain't Florida folks, but few places are.  This is in the Bay of Fundy, which is between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.  The tide change is crazy, like over 30 feet.  It's low tide, and where we're standing will be under 20 feet of water in 8 hours.

Outbound tide and river current at Reversing Falls

Not quite high tide.  The tide is still pushing upstream, bringing in tons of fish and attracting hundreds of sea birds

Acadia National Park

After Casco, we headed up the coast a couple hours to Mount Desert Island, most of which is taken up by Acadia National Park.  We had a nice spot in Southeast Harbor for 4 days.  The weather is always changing, seems like a cool front comes through every other day.  However, when it's nice, the views are spectacular.  The park was full over the weekend, so we went up into the hills to a smaller, quieter park on the Penobscot River.  When we got there, the big black rubber gasket that seals off the living room slide out came undone, necessitating a repair.  So, we're back in the Bangor area awaiting an appointment in a couple days to get it replaced.  This is the first time we've had to back track, or wait more than a few hours on a repair.  Oh well, adventures in RV Land.  We're not in a huge hurry, and there's plenty to do here.

Thunder Hole, Acadia National Park.  This is one of those sea caves that goes BOOM when the waves come in

Bar Harbor, from the summit of Cadillac Mountain

Just a nice, rocky scenic overlook

Craig from Casco makes his own maple syrup.  It goes great on french toast!  I caught Missy licking the jar when I left it too close to the edge of the counter.

The campground had a path leading to nowhere out in the woods, so Missy got some time off the leash.  Here's her best Rin Tin Tin pose.

Beautiful day in Acadia

Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse.  There's a Coast Guard family living in the tender's house, feet from where we're standing.  Not bad duty...in the summer

Gaff rigged schooner making way

Mount Katadhin.  The highest point in Maine and the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail.

The dam creating the Penobscot River Reservoir.  It was brimming over the top.  From what I can tell, all these dams are slated for removal to restore the nature flow of water to the sea.

Casco, Maine

After central Vermont, we headed east into Maine.  When we toured the northeast back in 2012, we didn't make it very far into Maine, only going to Old Orchard Beach.  We're spending a little more time this year.  First stop was to see Craig and Jodi in Casco, about 45 minutes north of Portland.  We met them in Alaska and spent a couple days touring around Anchorage with them last summer.

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They live out in the country and put us up in the yard (yahd) for the weekend.  Of course, since we were visiting it was cause for celebration so a few of their friends brought RVs and parked along with us.  We had a great karaoke party in the garage, then a guitar sing-a-long by the bonfire.  They're also big fans of rock climbing up and over the many, many forested hills around Casco, so we did a lot of off roading.  All in all, a great visit with good friends!

The view from old family property.  Craig and Jodi's house is mid-frame, a little to the right.  How'd we get up here?  Funny you should ask...

Close up of the Chute's house.  You can barely make out the roof of our RV.

The Jeep crowd.  Great friends, great fun.  As Jodi likes to say, "you can't plan a good time, sometimes fun just breaks out..."

Craig and Jodi were married on this spot over 10 years ago

The view of the temporary RV park from the front deck

Climbing over mud, rocks and logs.  Nobody even knew who's property we were on, there's so much of it nobody cares

Craig and Jodi hiding behind us...

It gets cold in Maine.  I had Craig pose in front of the firewood supply that'll help heat the house this winter.  We'll be in Florida guys, you're welcome to visit!

Vermont

Central Vermont is bee you tea full!  We only drove through it last time in 2012, but we spent 4 days this time.  The first couple days were in Randolph, where we hung out long enough for me to finish some final school work and tour the Ben & Jerry's ice cream plant in Waterbury.  We also stayed 2 days in Quechee State Park so we could visit our very good friends the Curleys.  Again, we'll be back.  Just hanging out in New England might be on the schedule one of these years.  So much to see and do!

Sometimes we get crammed in with neighbors in some really ugly campgrounds.  Not the case at Lake Champagne Resort in Randolph, VT.  The view out of the windshield was like something from the Sound of Music.

No trip to central Vermont would be complete with tasting some super premium Ben & Jerry's!

Mark Curley and I have been friends for 20 years now, going back to when he used to try to supervise me at Vandenberg AFB.

Newport, Rhode Island

After Lakeville, we dropped down an hour or so to the military famcamp in Newport.  They've got the Naval War College and a few other high tech things going on here.  The spot was great, right on the water and spacious, though water and electric only.  We only stayed 2 nights, but that gave us a day to check out the waterfront.  We'd been here in 2012 to tour the mansions, but didn't see the waterfront district.  This time we had dinner and took a sunset cruise of Narragansett Bay.  We need to come back again.

This is quite the sailing town.  The mooring field goes on forever.

A sister ship.  We were on a similar schooner called the Adirondack.

Intrepid sailors.

Sailing off into the sunset

Hammersmith Farm.  Jackie Kennedy's childhood home and where they had their wedding reception.

Even sailors get a hearty welcome

Money shot.  We do love sunsets over the water.