Until next time

August 29

Homeward

Today we awoke in Edinburg, VA, way earlier than we should have.  However, this is the last day on the road.  It was beginning to rain but that didn’t stop us from going out for our morning walk.  We wanted to enjoy one last walk while we are still traveling and a little rain wasn’t going to stop us.  After we fixed breakfast and cleaned up, we got the RV in order for the trip (stowing hoses, cables and making sure that after we hooked the car to the RV that all lights and brakes worked).  We had fueled the night before as we came into town.  Also, we cleaned our tanks for the trip.

Our last leg was to be just under 500 miles.  This will require two fuel stops and a couple of breaks for the cats.  My calculations, after seeing the radar, showed me that our first break more than likely would be in the dry.  That is just what happened and it stayed dry the rest of the way.  This was really what we had hoped.

First, since we had to drive in rain for the first 200 miles,

I wanted to try to see if setting the RV up at a fixed speed would help as we drove down, what is known to truckers as the “death corridor” (I-81).  This worked so well through the rain and fairly heavy traffic, I decided to try it the rest of the way.  We drove through Knoxville at rush hour and had no problems.  This sure keeps the stress down while driving.

We were so happy to see the banner at the state line of Tennessee. 

It meant that we only lacked 190 miles till we were home.  This means the end of a great adventure.  We have seen things that we have only seen in books and found things that we knew nothing about.  Each place we visited had points of interest that would make it very difficult to pick a favorite.  The little fishing villages, the light houses, the historic ports and the natural creations of God made this trip different from any other we have made.  Our “little” RV preformed nicely.  The cats, after a week or so, fell right into our nomadic lifestyle.

One thing that happened, that we really didn’t expect is that when we got home, was that we had to adjust back to our “normal” life.  We forgot briefly which switches worked what lights, which drawer had what in it.  The kitties adjusted quickly.

It is good to be home but we look forward our next trip.  Thanks for being part of the trip.

PS  If you have suggestions for our next trip (within the lower 48 states) let us know.  We are fairly picky though.

One more night

August 28

Last night on the road. 

We are back at the first campground

we camped on this trip.  That means we are winding it up.

Today we drove through Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and part way down into Virginia.  It is such a pleasure to drive the upper Shenandoah Valley.  Traffic was OK but the scenery was beautiful.  There are beautiful farms nestled at the foot of the upper Appalachians to the west and Blue Ridge to the east.  Driving is never easier than when there is great scenery and reasonable traffic.

We have found some pictures that Jan made in Canada.  One shows how they think of moose.

  It is considerably larger than the signs in Maine.  Then there is the speed limit sign.

  They might want to explain this to hillbillies like me.  Then there is the sign that made absolutely no sense to me. 

We had only two days that we had rain.  One being the day we went to see the “House of Green Gables” and the other was the day we had set aside to visit Halifax.  In Halifax we spent the afternoon in our RV.  The view we had was of our “quiet” neighbors.

Long Drive

August 27

Tough Drive

We woke up very early this morning (4:30 am) and after eating and cleaning up we got on the road for what I had dreaded from day one, going through Massachusetts and Connecticut.  I thought that going through on Sunday morning would be the easiest time to do it.  Well if that is the best time to go then I don’t want to go at the bad time.  When we got to Massachusetts traffic came to a stop

then go traffic until we got to the west side of Hartford, Connecticut.  We spent 2 extra hours in this mess before the traffic smoothed out.  Our time on the road was over 10 hours (480 miles).  Oh, did I mention some of the roads were worst than I-440 in Nashville.  Some of the pot holes were 2-3’ in diameter.  Not something to play with at 65 mph.

BTW, we are so glad to be off the metric system.  I was mentally challenged at each kilometer sign.  Each one had to be multiplied by .6.  This sounds easy but there was also a momentary delay when a sign showed up before I realized that it is metric.

The campground that we are in tonight is really pretty but getting here was a real trick.  When we turned off the main road, the road took a steep grade up.  This was so steep that our RV had to change to 1^st gear to make it.  For the next 7 miles we climbed, descended, twisted and turned on a little one lane road.  Finally we turned down a small valley and there was the campground.  We did ask if there was another way out.  They told us yes.  What a relief. The GPS brought us in the shortest way, not the easiest.

This whole trip Jan and I have wanted to see a moose.  We have seen turkeys, chipmunks, osprey, a bald eagle, deer, a coyote, and roads covered with dead porcupines.   We have actually begun to think that the only moose are on signs

for tourists to see.

The reason we put so many miles on today was twofold.  1. There are not many campgrounds to choose from in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and lower New York.  2. We started south on Saturday and all of a sudden we could smell Cookeville and at that point the “barn horse” in each of us kicked in.

Hopewell Rocks and Moncton Tidal Bore

August 25

Hopewell Rocks and Moncton Tidal Bore

We took advantage of the 55 degree morning and walked around the campground.  This was a beautiful morning.  On our walk in and out of the forest and across trails that passed by boggs we kept looking for moose.  We really would like to see one somewhere on this trip (days growing short), just not on the highway while we’re driving on it.  We have heard some hairy  stories about what a moose can do to you if they hit you on the highway. Not good!

We drove over to the Hopewell Rocks about 2 miles away.

  These rocks are natural formations that at high tide are under water and are a result of natural erosion.  One of the rocks is shaped like standing bear and another looks like the head of dinosaur.   This area claims to have the highest tides in the world.  Since our visit was at low tide we saw an area that had a shore of 2 miles

(from the high tide line to low tide line.  This was really worth the time and planning  to go and see it.

Hustling, we drove over to Moncton to see another “tidal bore”.  As the tide came in, it created a wave about 4’ high and 250 yards wide. Two surfers went out to meet it and rode it for a more than a half mile.

  Before it came in we could easily see the river was flowing toward the ocean then when the “bore” came the flow changed and began filling up the river basin.  It was getting higher at the rate of about a foot per minute.  The “bore” goes in straight lines and when it hits a turn it crashes into it.

  From our vantage point we could see about a mile up river and about that far down stream.  The “bore” travels at about 7-10 mph (notice I haven’t been here long enough to use kilometer/hour).  While we waited for the “bore,” Jan and I got into a conversation with two men from the area.  One was a school janitor and the other a professor.  There accents were entirely different.  The janitor had a strong accent, a lot like a Cajun, and was from the same people (Acadians, from which he word Cajun was derived) that were moved to New Orleans from this area.  The professor had the least accent that we have heard up here.  They thoroughly entertained us while we waited.

August 26

A day of driving.

We are just outside Bangor, ME

Trip from Grand Pre'

August 24

Drove over from Grand Pre’ to Moncton, New Brunswick.  I love the traffic up here.   There is so little it is a pleasure to drive.  Made a little side trip before we got here to see some dead trees that had be made into sculptures alone the main street of town in Amherst, Nova Scotia.  Sadly we didn’t see any of them, they must have been taken down.  But the town has some beautiful city buildings made of red rocks. 

If they had been a gray stone then I would have thought I was in west Texas.

We had stopped at the NB welcome center to see what we needed to see.  The lady was so nice but she gave us so many suggestions that we would have to stay an extra week to get it all done.

Our campground is less than 2 miles from one of the rock formations that is only seen at low tide.  Today the tide is to have a 42’difference.  We will be seeing these formations tomorrow morning at low tide. 

For entertainment this afternoon we drove down the Fundy Coast to Alma a small fishing village at the entrance of Fundy National Park.  On the way, we stopped by Cape Enrage’.  This is one of the “top ten places to see in Canada”.  It has a lighthouse

and some of the tallest bluffs of any Canadian coast.

On the way we passed two covered bridges.

Mahone Bay and Lunenburg

August 23

Last night we ate a street side café

and the waitress told Jan of a coastal town and a small harbor town that she thought we would enjoy.  One of the towns was a quiet little harbor called Mahone Bay. 

There were 4 handsome churches that lined one of the shores. 

The other shore was quaint little shops for all the tourists.  After the shops there was an entrance into the docks.  Several of the boats were out of the bay being worked on.  One that caught my attention was an old fishing ship

that looked like it had seen its last days in the water.

From Mahone Bay we hopped over to Lunenburg an early seaport.  This little port goes back to the mid 1700’s.  There were several beautiful fishing sail ships in the harbor. 

One of the ships was a triple mast tall ship.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen as much rope as this ship hanging all over it.

  The town its self sat on the side of a hill and had 5 streets paralleling the harbor.  At the top were the churches and businesses that were on each street according the importance to the harbor activity.  Most all the businesses were very colorfully painted.

Tomorrow we plan to be on the road to Moncton, NB where we hope to see more activities along the Western coast of the Fundy Bay.

Tidal Bore

August 22

Since being here we have heard about the “tidal bore”.  This is where when the tide begins to come in there is a rush of water from the bay into a river creating a wave.

 This sounded interesting so we looked for where and when we could see one.  There are several places, some even offer to take us out in a boat (big raft) to ride the wave against the current up river.  We found a place less than 25 miles away to see this phenomenon.   When we arrived no one else was there and we doubted that we were in the right place.  In a few minutes others began to arrive.  The time came for the “tidal bore”, nothing to be seen!  About 10 minutes later, we could see down river a wave began to move up river.  It wasn’t a big wave but it was moving toward us and it was pushing waves to the shore as it came.

Before the "Bore"

After the "Bore"

  There was no question that after it passed that the river was going against the flow of water to the bay.  Nearly everyone left but one couple and they told Jan that if we stayed we would see how fast the tide climbed toward high tide.  In twenty minutes the river had raised over 10’.  This was really impressive with the current still flowing up the river.

Before

After

Grand Pre' and Hall's Harbor

August 21  Eclipse Day

Today we drove from one side of Nova Scotia to the other.  This is the Bay of Fundy side.  Our GPS would not let us enter the address of the campground so we had to revert to a MAP, how archaic.  It worked though.

We did not realize how historic our camping area is.  This is where the Acadians lived.  They were a group of French people that came here and diked the area from the tides and created some of the best farm land in NS.  These folks wanted to remain neutral from the more aggressive French inland and the British, who were battling for more control.  The British came into the area and rounded up the men took them to the community church

Grand Pre Memorial Chapel

and put them on boats for over a month then let their families (most of them) join the men.  At that point the British shipped them to their settlements in their North American settlements.  This took place from 1755 to 1762.  Over 10,000 people were moved from the Acadian settlement (Grand Pre’).  There are over 3000 acres of land that the Acadian’s recovered from the sea.  Today it is beautiful land.

After we visited Grand Pre’ we drove

Anglican Church from 1760 

over to Hall’s Harbor to witness the low tide.  The tide in this little village averages 30-35’.  Looking at these boats laying

on the bottom is unbelievable knowing that in 6 hours they will be at the top of the tide.

This is such a beautiful area.  One lady came up to us and asked us if we would like to look at the eclipse, as she handed us some glasses to view the Canadian version of the eclipse (about 35% coverage.  Sorry we missed the hoopla in Cookeville with 100%.  It is hard to be in two places at one time.

August 19 & 20

Rain, Rain and more RAIN

Pretty much a lost day.  We did drive into Halifax just to see what we could.  Water coming down prevented us from getting out and looking around.  I hope we can get back to the “Citadel”.  It looks really interesting.  Just driving through, it was obvious that this was not a US city.  We tend to like more of the country than the city life. There are too many strange looking apartment buildings for our taste.  We haven’t seen buildings like these since we went to Europe.

Life on the road is adaptation.  We have to make sure all our “devices” are charged, phones, iPads, computers and watches.

  Cats have to be made comfortable and have enough food and water for the time we are away. 

Sometimes they get really comfortable in some rather strange places (inside the closet on our clothes).  And they also get mad and cause chaos (once while we were gone, Harley reduced a roll of paper towels to shreds).

One thing we have notice up here is that there aren’t any possums dead on the road.  It appears to me that the porcupine has taken their place.  We see them all over the highways in northern Maine and Nova Scotia.

Peggy's Cove

August 18

The trip to Halifax was like, for all of our trips, totally uneventful.  However, I don’t think I’ve ever wondered what a GPS was doing more than I did today.  We seemed to go in circles from time to time.  But in the mean time it came through for us.  I don’t like to trust a GPS but our maps don’t have the streets on them.

When we pulled into our campground, I asked if there might be a short cut to Peggy’s Cove.

  This is both an old fishing village (1810) and a light house.  The original settlers received a land grant from the King of England.  My thought was that if we went this afternoon we would beat the crowds of tomorrow (Saturday).  The theory was good but when we got to the cove, we found it covered with people.  I don’t think we have been anywhere that had this many people covering such a small area.  I’ll bet there were nearly 500

people covering the rocks around the light house.  They looked like ants, scurrying from point to point.  There was no way to make picture of the complete light house without people in it.  I noticed as we were about to leave that I could get one shot with just a couple of people in it, so I took it.  This community is built on solid granite.  In fact the original settlers had to take the dead back inland to bury them. 

On the way back, there was a plaque on the side of the road to commemorate the loss of SwissAire flight 111 in 1998.  This flight went down about 6 miles off the coast.  Rescue and recovery operations took place from this place.  There were 222 people lost on this flight.

Tomorrow we’ll go into Halifax, weather permitting.