Stretched

Jennifer Aniston got married????

Being on vacation can be like being on another planet. At least when it comes to following the news. Is there a new president too?

Lots of hiking today--I even did a "strenuous" climb (though I didn't know that was the rating until after we got down again). Rocky!!

Here are the photos. 

Sandy Beach at Acadia National Park. From above. Because . . .

. . .  we climbed above it. It was rocky.

See?

The climb to Bubble Rock was more rocky than bubbly.

Full disclosure: we did not make it to the very top of Bubble Rock. Here is my TC assessing the  last 100 feet. Vertical climb where you have to hold on to metal rings? I'll pass, thanks. 

Jordan Pond. Pretty.

More pretty sky. They get a lot of that up here.

Wackiest ice cream flavors I've seen lately. "Cereal Milk" is inspired. Maybe I'll try it tomorrow.

Three skies

Less narrative, more photos. 

But only three photos tonight. 

Enjoy. 

Last stretch of Canada sky

Approaching Bar Harbor, Maine 

A few hours later: Bar Harbor. 

Sunday, Monday, Fundy

We waved goodbye to PEI this morning.

I failed to take representative photos of 1) cows in a pasture or 2) clothes on a clothesline, both of which were charming and comforting and common sights on PEI.  

I did take a photo of this:

We came to PEI by ferry, and we left by way of the Confederation Bridge, which is an impressive engineering achievement. This is a not very impressive photo of it, from the NB side.

One goal of this part of the trip was to locate and visit whatever remained of the boys' camp my TC worked at 47 years ago. At the NB visitors' center at the end of the bridge, he asked his "This is a pretty weird question but here goes. . . " to the two friendly middle-aged women at the information desk. 

"Oh, Camp Falcon? My mother worked there then," said one.  "She was the first-aid lady."

And the other woman knew, off the top of her head, the name of a man who lived on the same road as the camp, and she gave us his phone number. 

This felt very serendipitous! 

That was about as far as the magic went. We drove down a couple of "no trespassing" roads and used binoculars but couldn't really see the location. Didn't reach the man in time to help us, though he did call back later and was very pleasant.

Part of the investigation/search involved some young dude counselors at the still-operating, neighboring girls' camp, who cheerfully reported that they sometimes hiked out to what used to be Camp Falcon and that what remains is ruins of the swimming pool and some semi-collapsed cabins, and that the whole area is overgrown and untended. 

Here they are conferring with their own future.

Plot idea: Four teenage camp counselors in a remote Canadian town hike out to the site of a deserted and dilapidated camp and meet their future selves. Or the ghosts of their future selves. Our ghosts of the former counselors––who, it turns out is really them. 

Something.

Though I guess this has probably been covered by Stephen King.

I think I have veered far from the topic at hand.

We drove to Moncton and, amazingly, got there in time to see the tidal bore (see my Instagram for evidence) which happens only twice a day. (Tides, you know. It's all a mystery to me. Something about the moon.)

Then on to Fundy National Park. We got there quite late in the afternoon so we packed in a couple of shorter hikes. Our hike to the wonderful waterfall took place, appropriately, in pouring rain! 

Everything there was mystical and lush and beautiful.

Going DOWN 151 wooden steps to the Bay of Fundy is a breeze.

Bay of Fundy in rainy fog. Nobody else there. We skipped stones. TC did very well. I was proud to have a few successes, too, despite never having been to ANY TYPE OF CAMP as a child. 

Tonight we are in St. John, New Brunswick. It is thick with fog, so we're not entirely convinced there is a city beyond this block. We're in a 1902 Victorian house run as a B&B. Our room is called "Cranberry Wine" and every possible surface (walls, upholstered chairs, towels, SHEETS!) is burgundy. 

On the walk back from dinner (nearly seafood-free for a change of pace), we encountered this tribute to Benedict Arnold.

Perspective is everything.

I ❤️ PEI

I heart PEI. I may have to get the t-shirt, the mug, the refrigerator magnet, and the bumper sticker.

(I got none of these things.)

The wifi here is not too good, so I can't use my laptop to write more description or add captions. 

But the pictures tell the story. 

The sky is very very blue. 

Minutes off the ferry (from Caribou, NS), we stopped at a winery. While my TC tasted, I befriended the resident animals. 

There is a kitty camouflaged in the shadow in front of the door. 

Doggy's camouflage is less effective. 

At our inn in Cavendish, the whirlpool is in the room. 

The sand is red. 

Lobsters, lobsters, lobsters. 

This is about a hundred yards from where we are staying. If I had ever read the books or seen the movie, this would be awesome. 

This is about how crowded the beach is. (There are a zillion beaches.)

E.T. phone home. 

Magic. 

Louisbourg

Today, as I restored color to my photographs, the weather took the hint, too. Rain and mist and fog and gray are gone! BLUE sky, sunny heat, reasonable humidity, refreshing breeze (some of the time, anyway).

Today was two things: Fortress Louisbourg and driving.

Fortress Louisbourg is a recreated town from 1740. Painstakingly historically accurately reproduced. Still––reproduced. And one of those places with people in costume, a la Sturbridge Village (for you New Englanders) or Colonial Williamsburg (I assume; I've never been).

I don't want to suggest it wasn't interesting and charming and informative and fun to experience. It was. I think I'm just a little tired from being on the road for six days and staying in a new place every night and running through most of my clean t-shirts. In fact, you find me now waiting on the lower level of the place we're staying tonight, waiting to move our laundry from the washer to the dryer. And––ugh––now I see I'll have to send it all through another rinse and spin cycle.

So in the interest of me not getting to sound too cranky, here are pictures from the day. You can figure it all out.

Soon after this, cannons were shot. They went "Boom."

Chickens

Kitchen actress

Lace-making

We ate lunch at one of two restaurants on the grounds that served a historically correct menu with historically correct dishes and cutlery.

This was my lunch of bread and cheese. And a spoon.

We spent about four hours and it was all pleasant. Then we drove about three and a half hours to Pictou, back on the mainland of Nova Scotia (no longer on Cape Breton Island). Tomorrow we will take a ferry to Prince Edward Island and will stay TWO nights in the same location! And I'll have all clean clothes, theoretically. 

I'm not crazy about the place we're in tonight. I mean, it's FINE. But it's no Bean Barn. And we had dinner at another "Lobster [Receptacle]" restaurant, which was also FINE. But then the ice cream place I had spied before we chose our dinner spot was closed by the time we finished, and now this load of laundry is still soapy, and I guess that's it.

But look how blue the sky was today. So blue!

This is my favorite shot of the day.

You know, I think I figured out why today felt a little off.
There were hardly any rocks.

A special post from the quality assurance department

Kind reader "Andy" has pointed out that Canada has been inadvertently shortchanged in the vibrancy of its colors. To correct that injustice, the editorial staff supplies these several corrections. 

Let the oohs and aahs commence. 

("Moose in the Mist" is actually better with the "Instant" filter on.)

Rocky; Bullwinkle

Yeah, that was the most appropriate title for yesterday's post, only I didn't want to give away the punchline about seeing a moose.

But I couldn't resist using it today because –– cute, right?

Rocky does seem to have been the theme for me this week, though. Rough rocks, smooth rocks, jagged rocks, fossil rocks, rocky cliffs and coastlines. They're everywhere, and they engage me in a way that I wouldn't have expected. 

Here are some rocks from today:

The image here doesn't do justice to the colors in these rocks on the eastern coast of Cape Breton.

Wider shot of those rocks.

The day started out with a forecast of rain, so we amended plans to hike in the park again and decided to drive to a remote location we'd heard and read about. Plus it had an irresistible name.

Meat Cove. 

And though it's no Baffin Island, it's pretty remote. You don't get here by accident. You have to drive WAY out of your way, including the last five or so miles over unpaved road. There are people living along this road––a house here, a trailer there, everything very far apart –– and you wonder how anybody ends up living here. I have to think it's because this is where they were born. 

And then you arrive at Meat Cove, which has a campground, a little "restaurant" (photo evidence, below), a trailhead, and fantastic scenery.

The rain was still holding off, so we took a hike. It was billed to us as an easy 20-minute walk up to a grassy knoll. 

Not SO easy, for the likes of me; fairly steep and muddy. 

But I did it. 

View from the top.  

And I got down, too!

Our reward was lunch at Meat Cove's one and only eating establishment. 

Excellent lobster roll.

This little fellow was waiting for his owner outside.

Here's the rest of the day in façades. Happy weekend, everyone!

At first, we didn't realize we needed goat milk soap. But we did.

Mid-afternoon stop on our drive to our next location. I loved this coffee shop. I want to live here and write a novel in this coffee shop. I don't know who those people are, but they are all going to be characters in the novel I write in this coffee shop.

Here's where we're staying tonight, in Louisbourg, still on Cape Breton Island. It's very charming, with a very friendly innkeeper who cheerfully printed out copies of the Friday New York Times crossword puzzle for us. 

And here's where we had dinner tonight. My TC had the "best mussels he ever had" and I had a comforting and tasty seafood chowder. Not a drop of ambience, but a sweet waitress and delicious food.