October 29, 2004

Up today and off to Maritime Museum with Reed, Chelsea and the boys.

The museum has a number of great examples of different types of boats – including a “goose” boat; a self-bailing Sable Island Rescue Boat; and many models. There was also good information on the Nova Scotia wrecks, including the Atlantic (greatest loss of life prior to the Titanic) and a full display and historic film presentation on the Titanic. They also had the Acadia docked at the museum that you could walk through. The Acadia has the distinction of serving in both world wars in addition its regular duties as a seismology ship. They also had a comprehensive presentation on the Halifax explosion during the First World War.

Had a picnic lunch down on the waterfront walk – by the Tug Boats berth – and watched all of the crabs and sea life in the little berths along the waterfront.

Back home in time for a quick supper and then Bruce, Reed, Keelan and Pat went off to a University football game between St. Mary’s Husky’s and Acadia Axmen – courtesy of Bruce. A little cool outside but nothing that hot chocolate wouldn’t cure. It was a great back and forth game and the kids were able to hang in until the finish (10:45).

October 30, 2004

Back down to the Halifax market again this morning – and this time took in a tour of the Alexander Keith’s brewery. Great tour presented in the 1870 time period – along with samples of brews and ice tea and lemonade for the kids. The tour included a bit of singing in the pub as well as Bruce joined in, playing on the Irish Drum.

The afternoon was spent shopping – in preparation for the Seafood feed tonight. Menu included a good sized lobster each (including one for each kid) as well as couple of pounds of fresh scallops – steak, Caesar salad, etc. Everyone kissed their lobster before it went into the pot – a great feast.

While we were digesting our supper tonight – Bruce went on to the Web Cam for Kootenay Pass. It sort of did us good to see the snow up there and know that we were still having clear and bright weather here. However it is getting colder at night and therefore it is probably best that we start looking at heading south.

Kids had a slumber party downstairs while the adults played domino’s (Train).

October 31, 2004

Up this morning to rain mist and fog. Bruce and Pat went to the flea market – nice way to wander around and put in some time in the morning.

Today being Halloween – the kids were excited to get dressed up and go out with Reed and Chelsea. The final decision on costumes – after some debate and several changes ended up with Keelan going as a fisherman and Mickey as a Lobster. (Talk about getting into the culture – but I am not sure if the locals will appreciate it).

As we are scheduled to leave tomorrow for Dingby and the ferry to Saint John – have to pack up the bikes and repack the motor home etc. Our stay here has been wonderful but I am sure that Denise and Bruce will enjoy having their home back to themselves.

There was a wonderful fireworks display done in the local neighbourhood – which everyone pitches in $20 to help cover the cost. We walked up the street – with beverages in hand, and sat on the curb to watch this spectacular event – which seems to be an annual event.

November 1, 2004 –

Up this morning and packed up in preparation for leaving Halifax. We have really enjoyed our time at Bruce and Denise’s and their tolerance in putting up with us. The neighbourhood that they live in is really welcoming – and made efforts to make us feel like we fit right in. Thanks all for the great time – and I am sure that the kids will miss having playmates around on a regular basis as we start our trek south.

Off to Digby, Nova Scotia in order to catch the ferry across the bay to Saint John. The drive took us through the Annapolis Valley – where some of the apple crop is still on the trees. You could see corn fields, fruit orchards, vegetable plots – all within just several miles from the ocean. Very pretty area – and would be spectacular in the spring with all the fruit trees in bloom.

Arrived at Digby about four hours before the ferry is scheduled to leave and we were only the second vehicle at the landing. We purposely wanted to be early as there is only one sailing on Monday (at 4:40 in the afternoon). Mom and the boys went down to the ferry terminal and set up to do some more school work – in addition to what they had done in the motor home on the drive today. This will give them a chance to get caught up from the time we missed with all of our day trips around Halifax.

When the Ferry finally arrived and they started to systematically load the cars and semis trailers. We ended up being the last vehicle loaded for some reason and were beginning to think that there was something wrong with us. Oh well – we got on the ferry and that was all that was important.

The seas were a bit choppy with the wind and tide coming in – and the ride was a bit rolling. However the ride was nothing like the rough ferry trip up the Pacific coast to Bella Coola, last year and so the boys quickly got their sea legs under them. Unfortunately, due to the time change yesterday – we have less daylight than we thought when we planned this and therefore were only able to see outside for about 1/2 of the three-hour and a half hour trip.

Arrived in Saint John after dark – and navigating out of the city and to the campground about 50 kilometres away was really tricky. They seemed to send you up dead ends, put you into strangely shaped intersection, and had you turn left and travel that way for about 1/2 a kilometre – before turning around and going right. Additionally they gave you very little warning about the turns – and given that was dark and trying to navigate the motor home and toad through these tight turns – we were amazed that we got through and found the campground at Pocologan. We will have to back in daylight and see if it really was that bad – or if we just missed a more direct route.

November 2, 2004 –

Up this morning and into Saint John to see the reversing falls on the river. We were at just about low tide when we got to the view point – and the river was running into the bay very quickly with large whirlpools and deep rollers.

(And yes the road out of Saint John was just as complicated as it appeared last night – we didn’t miss a turn. I think we finally found someone worse than the person who designed most of the intersections in Calgary – way worse).

Down to the oldest continuous running Market in the Maritimes – for a look around and lunch. This is the market where Pete – from Pete’s Frootique on CBC broadcast from on Saturday mornings. While we were at the market we picked up some supplies there for supper – before heading off to the Saint John Museum.

The museum had a great display on ship building and on the comparative size of whales that the kids enjoyed. In the main foyer of the museum, there is a large glass tube which allows you to watch the water levels rise as the tides come in. This gave us ample opportunity to check our timing to go back to the reversing falls at high tide.

The river was now rushing in the other direction – with big rollers and rapids. There were a couple of seals playing in the water – close to the viewpoint that we stopped at and they seemed as curious about us as we were about them. It is really spectacular to see the difference – especially when the water changes up to twenty-five feet between high and low tide.

There are some really interesting old homes in the area – some in great shape – and some really run down. Some of the locals still seem to ride the river in and out on the tides – fishing in both directions – and always being able to return home to their place further up river.   One of the odd things that we noticed was that old “Provincial Lunatic Asylum” that was opened in 1848 and closed in 1998. It was the longest serving hospital for the care of mentally ill patients in Canada and was built on the river beside the reversing falls. I don’t know about anyone else – but if I was having a hard time determining what reality was – I am not sure being beside a river that changed direction twice a day – would really help me …

November 3, 2004

The weather this morning was not predicted to be great today – so we decided to take a short trip to St. Stevens – to scout out our route to the States and try and get some information in regard to campgrounds south of the border.

St. Stevens calls itself the Chocolate Capital of Canada and is the home of Ganong chocolates. We went on a tour of the Ganong museum that covered the history of chocolate making and the company itself. They had a really interesting presentation on hand dipping chocolates – as well as on making jelly beans and other chocolate products. There are only a couple of certified chocolate hand dippers left in the country. (Hand dipped chocolates are more expensive than machine made chocolates as they have more chocolate on them and are really labour intensive – however we had to buy a couple to try).

On to St. Andrews – home of the St. Andrews by the Sea Golf course and Golf academy – great setting for a course – and a wonderful old mansion style residence. St. Andrews is also home to St. Stevens University’s Marine studies program – that includes many old buildings used as classrooms and residences. Looks like a wonderful place to study. The town itself is quaint – with many little houses and shops. The Fairmount Hotel here is the oldest resort hotel in Canada – and has huge grounds and gardens. You can see that the Hotel has been added onto many times – but would still be a grand place to stay.

We stopped by a Tim Horton’s for soup and sandwiches – and hot chocolate for the boys. This will be the last time for several months that Keelan will be able to stop at a Timmy’s for his hot chocolate – and he was getting quite used to this routine. Hopefully we will be able to stay ahead of the cold and snow and there will not be as much of a need for the hot chocolate.

Came back towards the campground and did a short hike along New Beach. The predicted storm had started to come in while we were on the hike with wind gusts to about 70 km an hour. The walk took us up through an old swamp area – and then up onto a point above the bay. We did not finish the hike – due to deciding walking in the woods in this high a wind was not a great idea – (we clued into this after watching a couple of tree roots raising up from the ground in the wind and the brackish water sloshing in and out with the movement of the tree roots. Mickey said that he thought that the ground looked like it was breathing).

November 4, 2004 –

We were up early this morning and retraced our path down to the St. Stevens / Calais border crossing. It turned out that crossing the border was no easy task. The US immigration staff had a hard time believing that Pat and Deb had job’s to return to in May – (thinking instead that they were trying to go to the US to work). The guard wanted the phone numbers of our employer’s so that he could call confirm our employment – which we provided. He merrily went off and called – not thinking that because it was 9:00 AM Eastern time – and with the time zone differences – he would be unable to reach anyone. Pat then had to show them the motor home, and answer questions about whether we were qualified to home school our kids. Even with the two big bins of school text books and reference material – they had a hard time believing this was an approved activity. Even after sharing with the Immigration staff a series of e-mail note from the school teacher and some of Pat colleagues it still did not seem to convince them. Pat was about to offer him Kelly’s (co-worker’s) home phone number – (as it was now early late enough that she would be up) when the supervisor decided that it was okay to let us go as we did not present a security risk.

The weather forecast was for snow and wind in northern and central Maine – so we decided to make some miles and pushed most of the way through the state. It was also our first experience with US toll highways – which we had to pay twice – on the same road?… Going to have to figure out a better way to not get caught up in too many toll roads = it’s really not the cost but rather the principle.

Anyhow we took a little side trip into Freeport – the home of the L.L. Bean clothing manufacturer. The retail L.L. Bean store advertises that it is open 24 / 7 / 365 – and there were numerous other factory outlet stories that were located in the town. Quick shopping trip did not result in much financial damage – as only Pat was able to pick up a couple of shirts at sale prices.

Then came the interesting problem of finding an open campsite…Deb phoned around and found one who said they were only open until the end of October but that they hadn’t gotten around to turning off the water yet so we could come on by.   The campground was located near the little town of Eliot – across the river from Portsmouth N.H. Well it was nearly dark when we arrived and the road very hidden from the main highway to the point where we had to stop and ask for directions. Ended up turning down a single lane sand road with trees lining the road and seemed to keep going forever (visions of Deliverance movie going through our heads.) The layer of leaves on the ground made it hard to see the road surface in places – and hid some fairly deep potholes. We finally found the campsite but there was no manager or anyone else around so we took our chances and set up in one of the sites – between some of the trailers that look like they were left here permanently. We’ve always joked about plugging in to the nearest tree and here that is literally what you do… the electric and water lines are attached to living trees – and some of them have been there for so long that the tree has started to grow around the junction boxes.

When the manager finally arrived he had a fairly layback kind of attitude but did offer to fill up the hot tub for us if we wanted. There was also a pool table outside under a deck that we could us – however it seemed like cleaning off the couple of inches of leaves was more trouble than it was worth. However the campground seems to be in a really pretty area with large trees and the river right out front.

We took the Suzuki into Eliot to get gas and some food for supper. It appears to be a very quaint New England rural area – with small acreages – and a combination of new and old estate homes. Some of the areas even had small stone cemetery plots right beside the road – that appeared to be old family plots connected to the original homestead. Found a small grocery store where we were able to stock up on supplies. People were friendly enough – but asked enough polite questions to know that we were just passing through, and not new neighbours.

There was heavy rain and winds during the night – the rain coming down in big droplets that echoed off the roof of the motor home so much at times that you could not hear anything else. Again we started to wonder about the wisdom of camping in the middle of all these big trees in a wind storm…