Almost home

We've been driving home for 3 days and are almost to the "barn" in Hastings.

Glad we weren't planning to be on the east coast over this weekend, and we are thinking of the Maine relatives and hoping all will go OK with respect to Hurricane Irene. Steve and Jan left their boat in, but niece Deb and Tim took theirs out. Thinking of all on the east coast who will be affected by the storm. Hope that beautiful home in New Brunswick that we just visited will come through fine. Mary Beth and David said they had seen many storms.


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Pomfret, CT

We spent several days in Pomfret and Abington, CT, which are just south of the Mass. border in the northeastern corner of Conn. Why, you might ask, would we be there? (I was certainly asking it!)

Gary has ancestors from there, and the book he is writing is set there. We drove around, reviewing the lay of the land and seeing some specific sites.
We had great weather!

One day we did a hike in the woods UP to a famous spot, the Wolf Den in Mashamoquet Brook State Park where, in 1742, a man named Israel Putnam killed the last wolf in Connecticut. It has been a tourist spot to see for years. Here is the wolf den.





Hope you can read this.












A scene on the way up the mountain.







This is The Abington Congregational Meeting House. This one dates to 1751 and replaces an earlier one.





A view of the Pomfret Cemetery which we stomped around, and found some relevant headstones dating to the early 1700's.





The Old Abington Burial Ground. We stomped around here, too.






A house we believe was built by an ancestor






We spent a morning looking at documents and old maps of the area in the Pomfret library. Found some good stuff.

Had lunch one day at a charming cafe in Pomfret.







Pomfret is home to Pomfret School and The Rectory School. They are prep boarding schools. Very beautiful and "prestigious" looking. I didn't get any photos, but here is one off the Web site that shows the New England architecture.














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Littlejohn Island, ME

We are having a wonderful time, as usual, with Jan and Steve, Gary's brother. I took several photos of the two adjacent cottages on Casco Bay in Maine. One is under construction which will be used as a guest house. It may be called Moose Lodge - the weather vane on top is a moose. The older cottage will continue to be their own house, and it may be called Osprey Cottage after the osprey frequently seen in the area.

Whatever they are called, it is a wonderful spot, and both cottages are completely charming.

Here is the new one which is supposed to be finished in early September.



View from the dock


Looking from the older cottage toward the new one


Here is the older one






Garden area


My attempt to get both cottages in one photo from the dock


Today we went to a Brunswick art fair. What a charming town. Bowdoin College is located there and we had a brief look at the campus - very pretty! We later had a good dinner in Portland.

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Prince Edward Island

This storied island lived up to our expectations, in spite of one solid day of drizzle. We loaded our RVs on a ferry to the island and drove north to Brackley Beach where our campground was located.

Our first night we drove into Charlottetown for a wonderful dinner in the old town on a street that is closed to traffic. Several great restaurants, shops and live music.






And what could be better than ice cream at Cows, the PEI chain serving wonderful premium ice cream.

Our second day we drove in the drizzle to Cavendish, via a drive along the coast of the Gulf of St Lawrence. The soil, sand and rocks are very red here, and the coastline views are spectacular.


















We toured the Ann of Green Gables house in Cavendish








the site of the home where Lucy Maude Montgomery lived







and the beautiful surrounding grounds.

























We drove to New Glasgow for a fabulous dinner at The Olde Glasgow Mill, and then went to a small theater in North Rustico for a play at the new Montgomery Theater. The play, first produced in 1922, was Tons of Money, very broad British humor, well done. All the plays done in this theater appear to have been written and first performed during Lucy Montgomery's lifetime.

Finally, on our last day on PEI, with cloudless perfect weather, we drove to the west side of the island to tour the PEI Potato Museum . PEI grows lots of potatoes, both for seed to export to other countries and for consumption. We learned that by far the largest percentage is used for - guess what? - French fries! Potato fields are all over the island. Beautiful landscapes with rolling hills are everywhere. Very like England.

After a great lunch (I had Malpeque Bay oysters-on-the-half-shell, farmed here) at a nice little pub we stumbled onto in a small hamlet, we played 9 holes of golf at a beautiful course not far from our RV park. Except for Fred, the rest of us were pretty marginal players!

We are sad to leave here. It's a beautiful place.

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Baddeck, NS

We spent three nights in Baddeck, NS. Our first evening we went to the nearby Gaelic College for a Ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee), which is a party or gathering where there is music and/or storytelling in the Scotish culture. The part of the program with a couple and three of their five girls singing, girls playing the fiddles, dad on the bagpipes and mom at the keyboard was OK for the first 1/2 hour, but then it became tiring (act not ready for prime time), and the next part was just ghastly - a guy playing out of tune small pipes. So we left. Fred said the last guy sounded like a sick cow.

Here are some photos I took:

Waiting for the swing bridge to close to get on Cape Breton Island



We drove the spectacular Cabot Trail. Here are some scenes.

View from Keltic Lodge


Keltic Lodge



East side of Cabot Trail overlooking the Atlantic Ocean





Deep ravine






The Bog - wonderful bog plants and taiga forest in the background. The taiga is stunted forest due to weather and altitude











On the west side, overlooking the Gulf of St Lawrence




We also toured the Alexander Graham Bell Museum. Bell and his wife lived in Baddeck during his experiments and his development of the first airplane in Canada and the development of a hydrofoil boat.

Scene from the museum looking over the gardens to the lighthouse on an island.


The Bell family still owns and uses the house built here and so it is not open for touring or even visible, but photos in the museum show it to be grand.

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Halifax,NS

Today we toured Halifax, NS. Had a great day. We first did a 1 1/2 hour bus tour that gave us a good overview. Then we got off and walked.

As we toured some of the historic buildings and venues, we were again struck by how nice the people are. The guides we have encountered are happy and eager to tell visitors about their city and its history.

Here are some scenes:

Halifax Citadel





Historic warehouse district on the waterfront


Bandshell in the Public Gardens



Nova Scotia parliament room



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Photo update 3

Scenes from Lunenburg, NS

The classic dory


Fisheries Museum


Colorful buildings in Lunenburg


Rebuilding The Bluenose II



St Johns Anglican Church


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