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
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