Halifax

Unlike Peggy's Cove, Halifax gets highest marks.  It lived up to it's reputation and then some.  The waterfront is fantastic, a long meandering boardwalk bordered by sidewalk cafes and shops on one side, the bay with tall ships, touring boats, and various decommissioned ships on the other.  Buskers do their thing along the boardwalk: bagpipes, accordion, violins, saxaphone, a 5-piece garage band of youngsters who needed to spend more time in the garage.  Had a fine fish and chips lunch at one of the outdoor cafes overlooking the harbor.  The weather was great, no whining.

Halifax boardwalk.

Impressive young violinist buskers.

Tugboat Teddy Too provides harbor rides.

Elsewhere in town, we toured the Victorian Gardens and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia which had a Maude Lewis exhibition.  Maude did folk art, had rheumatoid arthritis which crippled her up something awful.  She and her husband lived in a 9’ x 12’ house all their married years, and the house is included in the show.  She painted various pictures on all the inside surfaces of the house. 
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We boldly pulled into the nearly empty fenced private parking lot near the art gallery.  A guard at the front door of the stately building watched us park.  We approached the front door and announced, 'We're here for the free 2 PM tour.'  The guard said, 'You can tour the building any time of day and its always free - but the parking lot is only for members of the legislature.'  'Huh?  Legislature?  Isn't this the art gallery?'  'No, this is the Provincial Legislature Building.  The art gallery is across the street.'  Oh!  Sorry.'  'You can stay parked here while you visit the art gallery if you like.  We lock the gate at midnight, though (smile, chuckle).'  'That's great!  Thanks!'  What a nice guy! 

Queen Mary 2.

More boardwalk.

A little bit of home in the Victorian Gardens.

QM2 through window of Immigration Museum.

Trish also toured the immigration museum, said it was very well done.  The Queen Mary 2 was parked right beside the museum: that is one big mother of a ship, the largest ocean liner ever built.  Several tour groups from the ship were seen around town.  Here's a link that provides statistics and facts on the QM2:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Queen_Mary_2

Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia

Everybody and every guidebook says you gotta see Peggy's Cove, the home of the most photographed lighthouse in Canada.  So we did.  It's cute and quaint and picturesque but in our view, neither unique nor worth all the wows.  Maybe we looked at it with Oregon coast-jaundiced eyes.  Still, we're not sorry we went.  As you can see in the pix it was quite foggy when we got there at about 9 AM.  The pix above were all taken there.

Upper Sackville, Nova Scotia

NS is supposedly the shiniest jewel in the crown of the Canadian Maritimes.  Just got here, so can’t comment yet on whether I agree.  It certainly looks great on all the brochures and propaganda we got at the visitor’s center.  We’re in another blankety-blank KOA, fully stocked with kiddies, most of whom feel it obligatory to run through our campsite as many times as possible.  Yup: curmudgeons are us. 
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Okay, let’s tell it as it is: we know darn well that KOA’s are full of families.  That’s their target market and they have a lot of things for the kids to do.  And, we’re grateful to find KOA campgrounds near the larger metro areas.  That’s the reality.  But the dream remains: forests, quiet, solitude, can’t even see the rig in the next campsite.  So we bitch and whine cuz the dream and the reality don’t always coincide.  Get over it!  And hope they all go home tomorrow.
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‘What do you want for dinner?’  Our dinners tend to get repetitive, gotta think outside the fridge more often.  When Trish asked the question last night, I thought for a minute and came up with hotdogs roasted over the campfire.  Hard to believe perhaps, that we’d never done campfire dogs before.  No dogs in fridge; let’s see if they have any at the office/store.  Trish strolled up there, bought the last package they had - and buns, too.  I had 2, Trish had 1; 2 + 1 = 3 dog night.  And fine tasting dogs they were!

There’s Upper, Middle and Lower Sackville.  There’s also a decommissioned ship named Sackville parked in Halifax, and another town named Sackville in New Brunswick.  At first I wondered if there was a large factory here that made sacks - gunny, paper, plastic.  Don’t think so.  I googled it, found out there was once a Lord Sackville and that it’s a common British surname.  Was gonna research further but I was tired so I bagged it.  Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. 

Acadians and Creoles and Cajuns! Oh my!

Back a ways I mentioned that Acadians were shipped off to Louisiana and evolved into Creoles.  That's not quite right.  The more proper term is Cajun.

I'm not going into it any further here but here's a link to follow if you're looking for 'the rest of the story'.
 http://www.landrystuff.com/creole.htm

If any of y'all readers happen to be Acadian/Creole/Cajun-flavored and were offended by my screwup, please accept my apology.

PEI Continued

Happy Canada Day, eh!

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PEI population is only 141000.  The economy is based on agriculture, fisheries and tourism.  Potatoes are the number one crop.  There’s a potato museum and a 14’ high potato sculpture mounted on one of the buildings.  I know this will absolutely break your heart but - we weren't near the big spud so no pix; didn’t do the museum either. There are 20 golf courses on the Island, which is quite a bunch considering its size, 139 miles long by an average of 20 miles wide.

Anne's kitchen/dining/living room. 

Anne wasn't real but the house was - and is.  I thought there'd be more gables, was kinda let down.

Sewing and sitting room in Anne's house.

Yesterday, we toured central PEI and a couple small towns plus Anne of Green Gables house and outbuildings.  Don’t recall ever reading Anne but millions did and it’s an extremely popular spot, now part of PEI National Park.  We toured the site, got in free since it was Canada Day. 

The biggest tree in PEI is in the little village of Victoria.  It appeared to be leaning a little to the left so I'm giving it a shove to straighten it out.  Don't know the breed; Trish guessed elm.

We planned to have lunch at The Chowder House, located in some small coastal town, with, allegedly, the best chowder in PEI.  Never found it.  We couldn’t find an address for the place - they’re not big on addresses up here - but did find GPS coordinates.  We entered the coordinates into Jack.  He took us down a dead end dirt road to a single wide mobile home back in the woods.  We chose not to knock on the door of the single wide and ask if the chowder was ready.  Instead, did a u-turn, went home, had leftover grilled salmon - which was not a hardship by any means.

Guest Blogger - Trish - Prince Edward Island

The people in the Canadian maritime provinces must be as enthralled with bicycles as I am.  They develop incredible, fantastic, bike path systems.  Prince Edward Island started the trend with the Confederated Trail.  The trail follows a former railway right-of-way for 357 km; the entire length of the island.  There are spurs connecting the trail to towns and villages along the route and B and Bs have formed a cyclists’ welcome program for visitors who want to pedal the entire length.  I may do that some day.  For this trip I am content with an afternoon of pedaling between Charlottetown and Morell; a piece of the trail in the center of the island meandering through wooded areas thick with lupine, blackberry, evergreen trees and butterflies, then opening to farmland of rich terra cotta colored tilled rows.  Be still my beating heart………

Lupine, lupine, everywhere - butterflies too!

I love my folding bike.  Bike Friday, you rock.

B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L scenery.

The color of the soil is amazing.

Yep, beautiful scenery.

Confederated Trail, I'll be back.

Cornwall, PEI

6-30: Toured Charlottetown today, did lunch at the Gahan House, PEI’s only brewpub: superb fish chowder and microbrews. Lots of Victorian homes, very European feel to downtown area.  This is the birthplace of Canada.  In 1864, 23 representatives of Britain's North American colonies met here and agreed to create the country.  

The 4 pix below were taken in Charlottetown. 

Beaconsfield Victorian Mansion built in 1877.

 

Government House, home to PEI lieutenant governors since 1835.

Victoria Park.

Neo-gothic St Dunstan's Basilica, built in 1913.  It's right behind the Gahan House where we had lunch.

6-29: Had to go with the old standby KOA, once again the only game in town without reservations made well in advance.  Arrived here at 5 PM, later than we like but then we didn’t leave Caraquet until 10:30.  Got a triple whammy going on PEI: first weekend of ‘the season’; Canada Day is July 1; Bill and Kate are due here in a few days.  That’s Prince William and Princess Katherine if you’re being formal.  Royalty doesn’t float our boat so we’ll not stick around to hobnob with them.  For sure, they will be sad they missed us but thousands of adoring pseudo-subjects will bolster their spirits, so no worries.  Don’t know their itinerary but doubt they’re staying in our campground.

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Where are all the US tourists?  Thought there’d be scads of ‘em up here, have only seen one US licensed rig in the last few campgrounds, a small RV from New Mexico in Rimouski.  The ‘season’ here is July-August so we’re a tad early.  The US tourists are probably all massing just south of the border, like salmon at the mouth of the Columbia River.  Upon hearing the report of the starter’s pistol bright and early on July 1^st, they’ll all crank up their engines and head north, reminiscent of the Oklahoma land rush.  In that scenario, we’re Sooners.

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