Family Vaca 2016....Part 3....Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia

Cape Breton Island is on the far northeastern end of Nova Scotia.  We were surprised at how hilly/mountainous and remote this country is.  It reminded us of western MD but with northern trees (birch & balsam) and lakes.  Most towns are along the coastal areas.  We traveled up the western side of the island and camped just inside Cape Breton Highlands Nat'l Park.

Our plans were to spend a full day hiking and seeing the sites along the Cabot Trail which is the main road through the park.  However, the rain from the previous day just didn't quite want to quit and we had an on/off again light drizzle of a day.  We couldn't just sit in our cramped camper so we made the best of it and took some hikes where the fog didn't really matter.

 First was a short hike back to a waterfall.

Next was a hike back to a lake....in hopes of seeing moose.

Nope....no moose.  Only people trying to act like a moose.

We did see several partridge.....

.....and this sign of moose.

And by evening the fog was gone and we were hopeful for a clear tomorrow.

For supper we went into Cheticamp to a nicer restaurant.  Ericka wanted to try lobster (we all tried a bite) and we tried an order of mussels which surprisingly we all liked.  Dwight ordered a burger which was quite the burger.  A young girl was at the restaurant playing Celtic music on the violin.  There is an area on Cape Breton Island that is known as Little Scotland.

The next day was beautiful and we were able to hike up the Skyline Trail.  "Where mountain meets sea and sky" was real.  These scenes are from the western side of the Cabot Trail.  The water is the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

 We found the most beautiful blueberries on top of the ridge.

We just couldn't help getting off the path and picking a few of them!

The Cabot Trail has several very steep areas to drive up and then down.  Several times we were headed down and would have gone straight into the water had the road not sharply turned.  The eastern side of the island was a bit different in terrain.

Lunch at Neil's Harbor Point Chowder House.

 The chowder was awesome with plenty of seafood.

Black Brook Beach

The eastern side is the Atlantic Ocean.

Black Brook Beach

This reminded me of a beach along Lake Superior with all the rocks and the waterfall creek next to it.

It was a beautiful day.  We camped south of the the national park near Baddeck.  We were at a private campground that had such amenities as a pool, laundromat, great wifi, and a lounge where we could watch TV (Olympics).  Unfortunately, as we were making supper, we found out that the whole Island of Cape Breton lost power and was going to be out for close to 3 hrs!  So much for using all the great amenities!  We had also hoped to spend some time in Baddeck but without power, we figured there wasn't much to do there either so we did more bonding and played Rook instead by the light of our Coleman lantern.  

Family Vacation 2016....Part 2....Prince Edward Island

From Maine we traveled into New Brunswick and headed toward Prince Edward Island.  We took the Confederation Bridge across into PEI.   This is an 8 mile long bridge and the longest bridge that goes over ice covered waters (think "winter").  Both days that we crossed were rainy and somewhat foggy so I cheated and found this picture online.

We camped at Cavendish National Park which is a very nice campground just a few minutes walk to the beach.  Thankfully the rain had stopped by the time we arrived and we enjoyed a beautiful evening watching the sunset on the beach.

 Cavendish Beach

The next morning we went to the Anne of Green Gables Heritage Place.  This was NOT the place where the movie was filmed so the expectation of this was disappointing.  This WAS the area that the author, Lucy Maud Montgomery, was raised and this was the setting that inspired her writing of the books.  This place originally belonged to one of her relatives.  

Of course, we had to try some!

We spent the afternoon enjoying the beach.  It was a perfect day!  It was cool enough that this gang who is used to HOT felt like it was too cold to swim.  The water temp felt about the same as the ocean temp is here in June.  This water is the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Playing spike ball

Devan found this rock full of holes and there were baby shrimp hiding in the holes....at least that's what they looked like to us.

Further up the road, there were cliffs along the shore.  We found it amazing that in some places they farm pretty close to those cliffs....in other words, not a lot of marsh or dune areas.

PEI is known for growing potatoes.  We had to take at least one picture of a field with the red dirt. PEI is very rural with lots of farming...mostly potatoes and wheat (or barley maybe?)  With the farming and the water (aka fishing) Lyn said he knows where he would move depending on how the elections turn out....

It was kinda a shock for us Delawarians to realize that their tourist season is not at all like our beach tourist season.  Very peaceful!

Almost forgot......It was at this campground in Cavendish that we were awakened in the middle of the night by this noise outside our camper.  SOMEBODY had left the trash out.....and SOMETHING was in it.  The father of the bunch arose to see what was going on.  He opened the camper door and saw a masked face and as he was trying to shoo it away, another one of the culprits came from the other way and jumped up on our camper step (while Lyn was standing there with the door open!).  After Lyn's reaction, EVERYONE in the camper was awake.   Lyn stepped out of the camper on top of the picnic table with the raccoons still under it feasting on trash.  Taking a hot dog stick he reach under and smacked it; at which time Renae loudly proclaims "Oh he hit it..."  The raccoon snarled and snapped and finally took off for the woods.  By now, the neighbors lights were a testament that they were awake as well. It was the next morning we discovered that they had also gotten into the cup with the 2 sea urchin shells and crushed them.  We had them outside because they were starting to smell a bit rank.  Too bad; they would have made a better souvenir than a raccoon on a hot dog stick!

Family Vacation 2016....Part 1....Maine

For our family vacation this year, we decided to head up to Maine and into Canada.  We pulled our pop up camper and camped for 9 nights at 5 different campgrounds (got a motel the last night).

It wasn't without its moments of stress, but all in all we had a nice time.  The weather wasn't always great but it could have been worse.  The 4 rainiest days were all days that we were traveling most of the day anyway, and the days in between were gorgeous.  There were 4 different areas that we visited so I will attempt to give highlights of each place.

The first day we drove to Acadia National Park near Bar Harbor, Maine, which are located on Mt. Desert Island.  Acadia is one of the highest visited National Parks in the U.S. and it was peak tourist season.  Even so, it is a very nice area and we would love to go back sometime and stay longer.

The morning started out foggy and we couldn't even see the water, but we had high hopes that the fog would burn off and headed toward Sand Beach.  We weren't there to swim but to explore some of the trails that went out to a point beside it.

These 2 points of land made a little cove which was Sand Beach 

(orginal name, huh?)

The waves were mesmerizing to sit and watch as they crashed on the rocks.  The kids had fun looking in crooks and crannies for sea life left behind (the tide was going out).

Renae found a shell from a sea urchin.  

(Which got destroyed later by a raccoon!)

*refer to Prince Edward Island post

They found several sea stars.  This was the biggest.

The water is so clear.  The plants are out of the water, but the sea star is in.

Otter Point area

This is on top of Cadillac Mt. - the highest point on Mt. Desert Island

In the evening we drove down to the touristy town of Bar Harbor. We enjoyed ice cream and walking around the tourist shops.

For us Delawarians who are used to summer tourists, it really didn't seem too crazy.  It probably helped that we were there midweek!