East coast of PEI and start of Nova Scotia

September 21, 2015

We spent the night in Cavendish, then continued east to another part of PEI National Park which is the northern coastline of the center part of PEI.  The PEINP does not have a ‘grand entrance’ since it is along the coastline and there are many places to pull over to go to the beach, picnic, etc.  We rode our bikes about seventeen miles on the paved bike path along the sand dunes.  It was very pleasant as there was very little traffic on both the highway and the bike path.

Bonnie wanted me to point out in the picture above, that the ocean wind inflated our clothes and we have not gained weight!

When we were done riding, we continued on to the east coast to stay at Brudenell River Provincial Park for the night and will leave tomorrow for the capitol of PEI, Charlottetown.  

September 22, 2015

We rolled into Charlottetown around noon, walked around the city, which included going to the Lieutenant Governor’s residence.  There was one street that does not allow cars and is lined with restaurants, boutiques, etc.  shown below.  

We then stopped at a wharf side café for lunch consisting of mussels and lobster/mussel chowder.  (I did not have to wrestle with either the mussels or the lobster J)

After lunch we started toward Nova Scotia where we are spending the night. 

OBSERVATIONS:

PEI is larger than it looks.  In the center of the island from east to west it is 140 miles.  It is treated as three separate sections;  western, central, and eastern.  Each section has a coastal loop drive; the western is 217 miles, the central is 157 miles, and the eastern is 295 miles.  

I am still quite impressed that people keep their places so neat.  So far, we have not seen any place that has unusable stuff (junk) sitting around their property nor houses or other buildings in disrepair. 

The crop farms are large and we drove past one farm that the farmer had seven tractors all the same model, and a variety of other implements such as combines, potato diggers, etc.  Interestingly enough, all of them were lined up, in a very long pole barn, protected from the weather.   John Deere appears to be the agricultural equipment brand of choice.  However, the heavy duty potato digger is cleverly brand named 'Spudnik'.

I was asked by a blog reader about what seemed to be the popular car here.  It is not real easy to say since there is a representation of most of the different vehicle makes, but, Kia and Mazda seem to be very popular.

 

Acadia National Park and crossing into Canada

September 16

After leaving Castine, we continued on to Acadia National Park.  One of the more popular features of ANP is Cadillac Mountain.  The view from Cadillac Mt. allows visitors to see a plethora of very small islands, overlook the town of Bar Harbor, and see one place, in the second picture below,  where you can walk across the rocks at low tide to a nearby island.  

Inside ANP, is a wide, packed gravel carriage road devoted to hikers, bikers, and horses where by the maintenance is funded by a trust fund of a philanthropist to the tune of $200k/year.  We rode our bikes ~10 miles around Eagle Lake 

                                       

 and Bubble Pond shown below.

                                                                              

However, this 10 miles was very strenuous due to the terrain, so the 10 miles seemed like 20. J  But the carriage road was very quiet and shady so the ride was quite pleasant. 

                                                                               

After we were done hiking and biking for the day, we drove into Bar Harbor for dinner.  So, what do you order when you are in lobster country?  That’s right, lobster.  Now quite frankly, when it comes to lobster, I can take it or leave it, but since we were here, it only seemed fitting and proper for one of us to order lobster.

 

When it was all over, I was glad I tried it, but there is no need for me to order lobster again.  My fundamental dining philosophy is I really do not like wrestling with my food.  Bonnie ordered the local fish and chips, which was haddock, a north Atlantic fish, and French fries.  Now that was fantastic!!!

September 17

We continued on US Rt 1, the coastal route, and drove down another peninsula to get to a separate part of ANP, known as Schoodic Point.  It was incredibly rocky, just like so many of the pictures you see when they show the coast of Maine.

In a short time, we crossed into Canada at the Calais, ME/St. Steven, New Brunswick, Canada customs post.  We spent the night at a provincial park located on the Bay of Fundy, which is famous for the 9-12 meter rise and fall of the tides, depending on the gravitational pull of the moon.

Now here is something worth noting for all of you who are planning to go to Canada; at the provincial park, they had laundry facilities available for guests.  Since it was quite a walk from our campsite to the laundry building, I told Bonnie I would walk over to it and do the laundry while I took a shower in the attached building.  So, I gathered up all the laundry, the laundry detergent, the money for the washing machine, all my shower supplies, and headed for the laundry facility.  When I get there, I dump in the laundry detergent, dump in the clothes, put the quarters into the washing machine then realized “hmmm, we are in Canada.  That explains why the machine will not accept US quarters.”  So, I thought the detergent might bleach out the clothes if I just left it on them, so I ended up washing the clothes by hand in the large sink.  Fortunately, no one else was in the laundry facility.

September 18, 2015

We continued on our way to Fundy National Park where we explored and spent the night.  We did have a bowl of seafood chowder, which was very good but not as good a clam chowder.  The department of tourism started placing Adirondack chairs at rest areas, scenic views, and hikes, with the theme “take time to sit, relax and enjoy!”

September 19, 2015

With Prince Edward Island as our targeted destination, we left Fundy NP and took the slower, what was supposed to be scenic route.  It probably was 25-30 years ago, but trees have grown up blocking a good share of the views to the bay.  As we approached PEI, the Confederation bridge, shown below, is a 9 mile long bridge connecting PEI to New Brunswick.  According to the information sources, this is the longest bridge in the world that spans icy water; there are other bridges that are longer, but not spanning icy waters.

PEI is relatively flat and it appears that the largest income producers are potato farms.  The farms and houses are very well kept and maintained.  We decided to spend the night at Cabot Beach Provincial Park since this was the last day it would be open for the season.  We arrived here at 3:30 and the lady at the gate directed us to the campsites then told us just to pick out a site and enjoy.  I started to pay her and she said, “this is the last day of the season for this park to be open, I leave at 3:30 which is right now, and I don’t want to do any more paper work.  My gift to you is no charge; enjoy!”  Below are a couple of pictures from our campsite when we arrived:

and another one at sunset.

 

          

September 20, 2015

After “closing” Cabot Beach Provincial Park for the season, we drove on over to Cavendish which is a very picturesque area that is both conventional crop farming of primarily potatoes and turnips, and sea farming where they raise mussels.  Also quite popular and well known in the Cavendish area is where writer Lucy Maud Montgomery was inspired to write ‘Anne of Green Gables’.  For those of you who are familiar with the book and/or movie, here is a picture of the house:

                                    

 After viewing the house and grounds, we went on an eight mile bike ride along the coast.

From here, we will drive farther east on PEI before going to Nova Scotia.

OBSERVATIONS:

• it was interesting to see that nearly all of the Baptist churches are painted white and trimmed in black and are very well maintained
• nearly all of the Anglican churches are tan trimmed in brown or black
• it is amazing the number of apple trees that grow along the road, to the point that anyone can stop and pick up apples if they are so inclined
• the people of both New Brunswick and PEI are incredibly friendly and eager to help anyone 

On the way to Canada

Tuesday - September 15th

Yesterday we stayed in Camden, Maine after leaving Wooster, Ohio on Saturday, September 12th and driving somewhat steadily.  However, our driving habits changed a bit on this trip as we do not hesitate to stop at rest areas to relax with a cup of tea and a cookie or two, or three, or ten. : -)  We did not take any pictures on the way up because it rained almost constantly since leaving Wooster.  However, we did stop in Jamestown, NY to go to the I Love Lucy museum because Lucy was born in Jamestown, then continued on our way.  It was only partly cloudy so we drove up the Maine coastline.  There were many quaint villages and many antique stores.  Since Dunkin Donuts is headquartered in Canton, Massachusetts, there is a Dunkin Donut store in every village up this direction.  We stayed at a state park where you can go to the top of Mount Battie inside Camden Hills State Park and look down over the harbor of Camden, Maine.  (shown below)

When we left Camden, we continued on to Castine, ME, a quaint village on one of the many coves of Penobscot bay.  The weather is just perfect, 75 degrees, very little humidity, and very few tourists.  This area of  the country has the rocky coast that is well known for Maine.

On the way to Castine, there was a fairly new bridge built across the Penobscot bay right beside an old fort that was built for the revolutionary war, Fort Knox, also known as America's first Fort Knox.  The new bridge was designed to resemble the Washington Monument and it has an elevator to take you up to an observation deck.  The picture below shows the bridge as we approached it. The tower on the left is the one with the enclosed observation deck.

The next picture below is taken from the observation deck looking SE down the Penobscot river.

From the observation deck looking towards Bucksport, ME over looking "The First American Fort Knox" below.

We went on down to Castine to have lunch on the water side patio at a wharf restaurant.  The clam chowder, or as they pronounce it up here, chowda, was great!  Castine is not rv friendly, so this gave us the opportunity to park farther out and ride our bikes through the village.

Also located in Castine was one of the more than 100 lighthouses.

OBSERVATIONS:
As mentioned earlier, Dunkin Donuts is very popular up here in the New England states.  But equally popular are the amount of antique stores.  Also, at least here in Maine, I have spoken to quite a number of people who pack it up in October and head to Florida. 

Final post; trip summary with some stats

September 11    Day 78   Arrived back at home

We drove from Grand Teton NP to Bonnie's hometown of Wooster, Ohio, obviously not straight through, then spent a few days there before returning home.

We had an indescribably great time seeing all sorts of sights and wildlife not available to us at home, driving as much or as little as we wanted in a day, staying where ever we wanted, eating when ever we wanted and doing as much or as little as we wanted.  It is hard to put into words how much fun it was to put the clock away and do what ever we wanted when ever we wanted.  Conquering Alaska in this style was on my bucket list and I am thrilled we were able to complete the journey.  I have been asked by a few of the blog readers if I want to do it again.  I don't, but not because it was a bad experience or anything like that, it's just that I have other things I want to do as well.  I ABSOLUTELY would encourage anyone who has an interest in exploring Alaska this way to go for it!  If you do and if you have any questions, just ask me.

I was also asked by some readers if I would have an interest in buying a place in Alaska as a summertime place to go.  After careful and honest consideration, I have to say I would not.  If I was going to look for a summertime place to go, it would be western Montana.  While both states are rugged with redeeming qualities, I would select Montana due to its more diverse forest species, clearer skies, similar abundant wildlife, convenience of goods, and lower prices.  But that's just me so don't let me talk you out of buying your vacation home in Alaska. :-)

Here are some stats for those of you who asked:

• TOTAL NUMBER OF MILES DRIVEN        11,219.8
• NUMBER OF GALLONS OF GAS                1,342.3
• AVERAGE MILES PER GALLON                         8.4
• HIGH AND LOW OF GAS PRICES/gallon         HIGH  $5.75     LOW  $3.10
• GALLONS OF PROPANE                                  26.61
• SLOWEST SPEED DRIVEN to stay on the road  15 mph
• FASTEST SPEED DRIVEN                                 70 mph (but don't tell Bonnie) 
• NUMBER OF STATES TRAVELED THRU         17
• NUMBER OF CANADIAN PROVINCES            3

I forgot my OBSERVATION section on the last posting of SIGHTS and SOUNDS OF YELLOWSTONE and GRAND TETON:
Without exaggerating, I think nearly half of the visitors to Yellowstone and Grand Teton were international visitors from Germany, France, Japan or Korea.  So here in the U.S. we have these wonderful parks right in our own back yard, by comparison, yet a good share of the visitors were from other countries.

I received great comments from many of you and we thank you for the positive feedback.  It was great hearing from you.

Thanks for coming along with us!