~

Hey Everyone -

We are safely back in Perkasie, Pennsylvania.

Personally, I am longing for the road already, but that's a whole other issue.

We've had a great time and I appreciate all of you coming along with us.

Not sure where we will go next... Perhaps Itlay, perhaps back to Montana, perhaps returning to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. So many choices, so little time.

Back to work on Monday, time for the real world again.

Long Days and Pleasant Nights.

~

~

Dateline : Thursday, September 13th, 2007. Vermont.

Hey all - we're back in the US of A. No darned stamp given to us for our return to the US, but they did let us in.

We weren't able to find a geocache in New Brunswick, which sorta stunk, but we have had good

luck up until then. I mean, we scored in both Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. That's pretty cool in and of itself.

On another geocaching note - one of my travel bugs ( read about them at geocaching.com ) is now in Germany!

Not much on the agenda from this point forward - maybe try for a National Park passport stamp on the way back to Pennsylvania, but not much else but driving and listening to the Dark Tower on audio tape.

Stephen King's The Dark Tower Series has been with us on vacation for years now. What with all the driving we do - we've been listening to all seven books - more than a hundred cds - in order, since we started all our roadtripping. We'll be finishing up the last book this trip and to be sure, we've had all sorts of "signs" that remind of the main characters and places. Such as, we passed through Gilead today, and have been passing Midland trucking. Both play a role in the books. Anyway, it bares mentioning because we've truly loved the tale and plan on going right back to the first book ( the Gunslinger ) as soon as the last book ends. It's become part of our Road Lore.

So, I will post again when we are home safely. I suspect it will be Friday or Saturday. It all depends on how much driving we can jam into one day. Now, based on several Montana trips, we're capable of more than 700 miles in a day, so you never know.

Regardless, thanks for coming on vacation with us.

A quick dose of movie news: the new Indiana Jones movie finally has a title : "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". Sounds cool. Any question where I will be in on May 22nd, 2008?

 

Some Thoughts on the Trip :

While in Newfoundland, we watched a little local television ( not like there was anything else on ) and the Home Depot commercial went something like this :
    Wife, looking fondly at two little kids : "Winter's Coming."
    Husband, looking at the door in the hall : "Oh, no."
    Wife, looking towards the window : "The kids can't go outside to play when it's 30 below."
    Husband, nodding and thinking of tools and Home Depot items : "Time to do over the basement!"

Potato Chip Flavors Outside the US of A :  Roasted Chicken and Potatos and Gravy. Pookie tried both of these. turtlex did not, on account of being afraid they would taste like what their flavor was.

Sugar in Canada is sweeter than a pixie stix.

It was surprisingly easy getting used to the dollar and two dollar coins that are used in Canada and I started to wonder why the US is having such an issue with these?

Donairs. Still a mystery. Likely to remain one for a long, long time.

Newfoundland - the only thing they seemed to worry about when we were leaving, was if we had a burlap sack of potatos or not. Um, would it be okay if we had a ton of potatos but they were in a paper bag?

Chinese Food in Canada - We had it in two different provinces, and it was the exact same. I mean, the size and shape of the food, the taste and even the combo plates. It was downright creepy.

Canada has UFO whackos just like the USA ( ie - the 1967 UFO incident ).

 

Long Days and Pleasant Nights, my friends!

Note to Jim - Though I do love my dose of bad western drama, the Leif Erikkson the ferry is named after is the other guy ( who wasn't in bad westerns trying to be The Big Valley ).

~

~

Hey Friends and Family -

As expected, we have no internet access here in Norris Point, Newfoundland. We're actually

staying at a cabin inside Gros Morne National Park. It's very cool. The name of the place is

called Herbie's Hideaway.

What I will do is this - make entries for each day and then post them when I can, in order.

So, here goes :

Dateline : Norris Point, Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland, Canada. September 9th, 2007

Well this is our first day to actually do some exploring. We have a place reserved for two

days down in Gros Morne NP. We leave St.Christopher's after a good breakfast in their

Captain's Table restaurant.

What a surprise when we walk out the door in Port aux Basques. When we arrived the fog was

thick as pea soup so imagine our surprise that with the morning sun we now have an amazing

view of the harbor. Wow-weee.

We head out along TCH ( trans canadian highway ) and scored one geocache almost right away!

Yup, we now have a geocache in Newfoundland! The cache is GCR10P - which means nothing to

you but I need a place to write it down so I can log it at www.geocaching.com when I have

access again.

We gave a couple more caches to seek tomorrow when we start to explore Gros Morne.

Back to the drive here. It was breathtaking. I will tell you, such a contrast of landscape.

The flat topped mountains ( table mountains ), the cliffs and the shore, bam bam bam, right

one after another. Very cool. Plus, lush fields and brooks and rivers. So much to see.

We arrived at Gros Morne around 4pm, made a quick stop at the visitors center, to see about

a day pass, and then came down to check into Herbie's Hideaway. After checking in, we headed

out to explore Rocky Harbour and get some dinner.

Rocky Harbour itself is very impressive, a very rocky ( duh ) seashore and high surrounding

cliffs and mountains. We ate a little local spot called Jackie's. Go where the locals go and

you really can't go wrong. One thing though, we're starting to get tired of seafood.

Tomorrow we're going to search out hamburgers!

On the way to Rocky Harbour, we stopped at Rocky Harbour Pond ( um, it was HUGE, much bigger

than any pond I've ever seen ) and skipped some rocks. turtlex - six skips. pookie - three

skips.

Dinner at Jackie's was right on the water, which everything pretty much is here, and after a

spectacular sunset we're back at Herbie's now.

We are having a great time. More later.

~

Dateline : Norris Point, Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland, Canada
Monday, September 10th, 2007.

Gosh what a full and fun day we had today. After a good nights sleep, we woke to an overcast

day, but no rain. No problem! Off we headed to explore Gros Morne National Park.

Today we followed a lot of the Viking Trail and alot of the route around the park - which is

430 and 431.  We started out with quick visit to Rocky Harbour, which we saw yesterday and

loved. From there we headed to the Lobster Cover Head Lighthouse, where pookie scored a

geocache ( I couldn't make it down the trail - it was too steep ). From there, onto Berry

Hill and then Green Point and Sally's Cove. We took a long drive through the marsh lands to

Broom Point past Western Brook Pond and then onto Cow Head. We finished this leg of the trip

at the northern point of the park - Shallow Bay, where we had a great lunch. Hamburgers and

good fries. How very American! We did some beachcombing along the way, and grabbed a small

chunk of driftwood as a keepsake.

We did some backtracking then and headed down to Wiltondale to explore the other end of the

park. This was off the main road and onto route 431, which, by the way, is not on my GPS

map. Now, that was an adventure! Into the great unknown. We crossed the Lomond River and

Shoal Brook, which took us into the Tablelands - these really cool looking flat topped

mountains that are a weird kind of orange. pookie commented how much it looked like Mars,

with all the rocks and odd shapes, and she is 100% right there. This is a very rich park,

not at all redundant with it's features. Rivers, brooks, ponds, inlets, bays, mountains,

marsh lands, etc.

We drove to the absolute end of the road - literally. It ended at this seaside cliff

turnaround in Trout River. Enroute, though, we hit the jackpot. By the Green Gardens, just

past Woody Point, there by the underbrush was what we thought were two moose!!! As it turned

out, there were three of them there. One male, with huge antlers that were almost white and

two females! It was very cool.

We finished up the adventure with dinner back in Rocky Harbour at the Fisherman's Inn

Restaurant. Now we are back at Herbie's and as I am blogging, pookie is checking the truck

for the journey back to Nova Scotia tomorrow night. We plan to start out early and take our

time driving back to Port aux Basques. We noticed a couple of geocaches on the other side of

the road while driving here, so hopefully we can get those as we head out of Gros Morne.

This has been a great couple of days, and I'm sure we'll be back. There's so much more of

Newfoundland that we didn't get a chance to see at all. Including Cape Onion at the very tip

of the NFLD map. This place is just vast. We did the right thing though, focus'd on one area

and enjoyed it to the fullest. Which is exactly what we did.

Of course I will post this as soon as I can. We have a late night ferry ride from Port Aux

Basques to North Sydney, Nova Scotia which we have a small cabin booked for as we will be

travelling through the night and arriving back in Nova Scotia around 6-6:30am. Of course, I

am not counting the weird time change that has to happen. I honestly haven't figured out why

Newfoundland is 30 minutes ahead anyways. Just to be different, I suppose.

That's all for now.

~

Wednesday, September 12th, 2007. Dateline : Saint John's, New Brunswick, Canada

Oh, where to start, where to start?

When we left Herbie's, the truck was packed and off we went to Port Aux Basques to catch the

late ( 11:45pm Newfoundland time ) ferry back to Nova Scotia. The plan was to sleep on the

ferry and wake up today ( Wednesday ) and go down to the vehicle deck and then drive to New

Brunswick. Well, all that worked out - sorta, kinda.

First, though, we got to Port Aux Basques earlier than expected, so we took a long drive out

along the coast. That was very cool. So much to see here, and we really haven't even

scratched the surface.

We got back to PaB around 9pm and checked in at the ferry terminal. No problem, there were

tons of people already checked in. However, it was starting to rain. No biggie, right?

Right?

They boarded the Ferry early ( the Leif Erikkson ) which was great since we had a cabin and

were really tired. We got settled in our cabin, not really that small, but it had two sets

of bunk beds. Actually, still no problem - because it's not like there are any other

surfaces to put stuff on, so we each grabbed a bottom bunk and used the uppers for holding

all our stuff. The bathroom, yes, with a cabin we got our own bathroom, was actually really

pretty big. Much larger than I thought it would be.

So, we hunkered down and the Captain made his announcements - how with the tropical

depression coming in, there'd be some rain and it might get a little choppy but towards the

end of the trip, closer to Nova Scotia, it would die out. Nothing to worry about.

Sure, there's nothing to worry about until around 2:30am when we wake up in the middle of

the Perfect Storm!!!  The wind is blowing, the rain is smashing against the porthole, the

waves are crashing.... oh this is great. Not a heck of a lot of sleeping going on. The room

was all over the place, up and down swells, banging coming from the vehicle bays, motor

smashing through waves. Not exactly the leisurely cruise and sleep we were expecting.

Luckily, VERY luckily, we were not sea sick. Not at all. It was just hard to sleep with the

whole world banging on around you. Not to mention, I'm seeing Marky Mark and George Clooney

yelling about the swordfishing.... Just kidding. I guess we fell back to sleep around 5am or

so.

The Captain woke us at 6am - saying we were an hour from port. Gee, thanks for waking us to

tell us we can sleep more. We got up with 25minutes to port and by the time we docked, we

were dressed and packed and really sleepy.

No worries though ( yawn ) really, driving isn't at all sleep inducing ( yawn ), I'm pretty

sure we stayed on the road, at least most of the drive here to New Brunswick.

So, that's where we are right now. You're all caught up. I still don't have a clue what time

it is, but I think we're at least back on the hour! Actually I think we're still an hour

ahead of East Coast.

Heading to bed soon - then hoping to catch some geocaches tomorrow on our way to Vermont.

Long Days and Pleasant Nights.

 

Notes to comments :

Jim - Tennis? They only show hockey on television up here. When it's not an actual game,

it's a movie about a game. Glad the William's sisters got beat, regardless.

 

Suzanne - Okay, this is weird. Cause, though your recipe looks right - we finally found a

picture of a Donair in a menu, and it looks like SHAVED meat of somekind. This is very odd.

I still can't get up the bravery to buy one of these things.

JK - I got your voicemail from the Ferry in Newfoundland. Too much cash for the Bruce

fellow, especially with yours truly now paying for a trip - and hoping to repeat it as soon

as possible.

Del - Ah, Thankee-Sai. I knew you'd grab that. To point - we've been listening to gunslinger

since we left with all the driving. Kind of weird - out here, Midland trucking is big, and

so are weirdly Mid-World looking landscapes. Who am I kidding - Actually, it's pretty cool.

~

~
Dateline : Port aux Basques, Newfoundland, Canada. September 8th, 2007

Greetings and salutations from Newfoundland!

Yes, the ferry landed successfully at Port aux Basques and we are at the St.Christopher's Hotel for the evening.

As you can tell by the previous post, the ferry was only five and half hours or so. Good deal.

It's very very very foggy here tonight, so I'm glad we're spending the evening at the St.Christopher, which is right up the road from the ferry. It would have been majorly stressful if we'd tried to get anywhere tonight - mega thanks to guitark-sis-in-law for the heads up on that one.

We scored one geocache on the way to the ferry, by the way. We're doing great this trip.

In Sydney Mines, we gassed up and had lunch at this small local place called "Ebbie's". Well, darned if it wasn't about the best fish and chips we had all vacation!! Fresh haddock and real good fries ( and I'm a fries snob ).

The ferry was this huge ship, and to board you drive right on through a flipped open front bow. Kinda funky, but definitely faster. 

This ferry is much bigger than the one we took from Maine, but alas, no casino on board. There was an arcade, but it was filled with bored little kids the whole trip, so I passed on playing Time Crisis 3.

 

Donairs? What the heck - we saw another offer for them, this time by the bag! guitark, please, if you can figure out what they are - share!  I mean, are they, it, like a cold cut kind of deal? Or a spread? Do you eat them hot, or cold? In all this time, all the places we've been, we have never heard or seen someone order them. I know we should just get one ourselves and settle the mystery, but that would be too easy.  I wonder if they have donairs in Newfoundland?

 

Well, it's time to hit the sack. It's been a long day, and there are lots of adventures awaiting us when the sun comes up. In the morning, we drive to Gros Morne National Park, where we will stay for two days. I think we will not have internet access there.

That's all for now. Long days and pleasant nights.

~

~

Sometimes you have to do things, just because you can.

Dateline - Um, no clue. Somewhere between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

Yes, that's right - there is internet access on board the ferry! It's a miracle what thirteen cents a minute can do for you.

We're aboard the MV Caribou ferry and it's expected to take five and a quarter hours to get from NS to NF. Which is pretty good considering we thought it was a seven hour trip. Five and change is looking really good.

Now, once we get to NF - it's like half an hour in the future. Go figure that one. I may never get the clock in my truck set to the correct time again.

So, on board the ferry here, we have like fifty cars and a bunch of semi's. There are like seven people total. Okay, maybe not seven but very few.

There's an arcade, a restaurant and a lounge. Yes, a lounge.... complete with a Peter Paul and Mary-like folk group. It's very cheesy.

We did get some good fries in the restaurant though. We're planning on doing some reading and snoozing for the rest of the trip.

I will post again when I can.

Coming to you from the high seas of adventure, hope you are all well.

~

~
Dateline : Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia, Canada. September 7th, 2007

First - shoutouts to Great Aunt Pookie who's nephew just welcomed a new daughter today. Abby

is very beautiful and is doing well. I'm sure she's got a Texan accent already!

Wow, wow, wow, what a day! Just when I thought it couldn't get any better - along comes the

Marine Route. More on this later.

First, we awoke and headed off towards Halifax this morning. No problem in finding it and we

even found parking right on Lower Water Road - which is the boardwalk and waterfront center.

We had a yummy lunch at Murphy's On The Waterfront. Scallops for turtlex, Fish and Chips for

pookie. We hung around the waterfront for a couple of hours. Watching the weird metro-boats

ferry folks across the harbor. These things look like giant bumper boats and were kind of a

hoot to watch. They zoom back and forth and you really expect them to hit the wharf and bump

back out into the harbor.

From Halifax we started toward Port Hawkesbury along Route 7 which is the Marine Route (

whereas yesterday we followed the Lighthouse Route ). This roadway has got to be the most

beautiful I have ever driven. Around every corner is a new and beautiful inlet, a sleepy

cove, another quite fishing bay. It is stunning. I am loving Nova Scotia. I love the

maritime history and flare of the place. Working lobster fisheries dot the small townes, and

every house has it's own fishing boat. What a place. Simply beautiful.

Today, also, we score not one but two geocaches. These are our first geocaches outside of

the United States of America. We have gone GLOBAL!!!

A quick note about something we saw yesterday in Shag Harbor. We're driving down the road,

marvelling at the sights when we see a sign indicating "Site Of The 1967 UFO Incident". To

which we responded, as I'm sure you just did, "What 1967 UFO incident?". Well, I had never

heard of such a thing and I'm an X-Files fan from way back. Anyway, a bit down the road we

saw yet another sign but this time for a 1967 UFO Incident Museum. Wow. I was impressed

until I saw this "museum"...which you could also call "a carport" or "an interesting use of

a small garage". Needless to say we did not stop for a visit. Maybe next time. Anyway, this

1967 incident is apparently where a UFO crashed into the local harbor. If you're really

hungry for the details - you can look them up on the web. Because, you know, if it's on the

internet, it really, truly happened!

Tomorrow we head to North Sydney to catch the 4pm ferry to Port Aux Basques, Newfoundland.

It's a four or five hour trip. This ship is bigger than the one we took from Bar Harbor (

Bah Hahbah ) to NS. We're really looking forward to the trip. It's some good downtime to

read and plan things to do. Also, this ship has an arcade, a lounge, in addition to cafes

and movies! Neato.

Oh, one more thing - I have no clue what time it is. I think I'm an hour ahead of the East Coast, and two hours ahead of Texas. Now, I believe Newfoundland is like 30 minutes ahead of now. I'm a little dizzy and this is starting to sound like math, so I'm moving on.

Okay, so from this point on, I'm not really sure how much internet access we'll have. We're

staying overnight in Port Aux Basques, and then heading to Gros Morne National Park for two

days. We hope to get some geocaches there, and do some bike riding.

Let's see - the tentative plan after that is :  Get back on the ferry to NS. This time,

we're travelling through the night and have a small "cabin" booked. It's basically a place

to lie down. From disembarking - we're travelling through New Brunswick and back into the US

around Vermont or so. We have more NPS stamps to get and then onto Perkasie. Whew! What a

vacation.

As always, friends, I will post whenever I can. Hope all is well.

~

~

Dateline : Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, Canada. September 6th, 2007

Greetings, Eh. From Nova Scotia! We're having fun and that's what it's all aboat!

Hello all! We have safely arrived in Nova Scotia. We're in Bridgewater, which is about 25

miles or, I have no clue how many kilometers, from Halifax.

Personally, I'm having a hard time doing the KmH and MPH math but that means we made good

time from Yarmouth to here.

But first, the FERRY !!

Up we were, with the crack of dawn, as we had to be at the Ferry by 7am, for a 8am launching.

Pookie had done a lot of pre-packing ( what with yours truly doing all the blogging and what

not ) and we were up and out of the Edgewater in record time. This is no small feat

considering we had packed, yes you're about to read it correctly, a printer. I know, I know,

but we figured we might need it and as it turns out, we did. Last night we printed out some

confirmations. Darn good thing we had that printer, yessir-ee.

So, we leave the wonderful Edgewater, our basecamp for the first part of our vacation with

our thanks and knowing we will definitely return. It was simply too great not to come back

to.

The Ferry ( www.catferry.com ) is about five minutes from the Edgewater and when we get

there at 7:01am, there is already a line of about five cars waiting to get INTO the ferry

lines. Ooops. Someone forgot to tell us you can get there even BEFORE 7am. Oh well, we got

into line and were directed to the cattle shoots for our place to board the ferry.

There wasn't too much time to wait after checking in ( we had pre-booked ). We were directed

down the short road and darned if there wasn't a big old boat there waiting for us. I jumped

out at the first passenger boarding spot and pookie parked the truck ( with bikes on the

back, of course ) and joined me up on the main deck.

The ferry was pretty fancy. A couple of bars, various little cafe areas, a casino, two

movies playing, a duty free shop. Fancy.

We grabbed a bench seat, getting out of the way of the people who were practically killing

one another for a window seat.

The ferry is so big, you can barely sense when it's moving but it wasn't too long before the

duty free ( yea, a floating gift store ) and the casino were open for business. We dropped

about forty dollars at the casino - um, it was like 20 slot machines - but it was a fun way

to help pass the three hours. I wasn't interested in the movies. I think they were Shrek the

3rd and Wild Hogs. Gee, obviously picked just with me in mind. NOT.

We passed the time reading, munching on popcorn, kind of napping and just watching the ocean

go by. The waters were fairly smooth and we both had our sea legs. A very good thing.

So, three hours later, we're docked and directed back to our vehicle. No problem there,

pookie ended up right near the door and we were back in the truck rather quickly. And, boy

can those guys empty out the ferry quickly. Within about 15 minutes or so we were in line

for customs.

It is here, my good friends, that I share with you some very special news - I finally,

FINALLY, got a stamp in my US passport !!!!! YIPEEE!!!!!! It was very cool, but I have no

clue why the guy stamped it on like the 15th page. I thought it would be rude to ask for a

re-stamping and then..... hey, we're in Canada!

For those wondering what a big deal a US Passport stamp is - please see my last years blog down below.


We took 3/103 out of Yarmouth and followed the Lighthouse Trail all the way to Bridgewater.

What an amazing route. Around every bend, every turn, was a beautiful harbor, a new cove, a

sleepy inlet or an amazing ocean view. Nova Scotia is amazing with it's access to the water.

This is one of the most beautiful drives I've been on. The area is just so nautical and

sleepy, small town.

On the way, since we really hadn't eaten we stopped at this small ice cream shoppe called

Dan's which turned out to be an ice cream/bakery/subshop. We had subs for lunch and the on-

site made bread was just great. As we were there eating, about seven different people came

in to buy loafs of the bread they make there. No wonder. It was great.

Question - anyone ever heard of "donair"? They had it at the sub place and I'd never heard

of it, nor had pookie. We looked it up on the web when we got to the hotel here, and it said

simply "roasted, spiced beef". I guess it's a Canadian thing.

MH - I am going to rely on you to question Rose about this. And hey, I love the Canadians!

Especially the way they let you drive 100 MPH through small towns and stuff !!!

After Dan's we continued on the Lighthouse Trail and arrived here in Bridgewater.

What a great start to the Canadian part of our adventure. I'll write more when I can.

~

~

Dateline : Bar Harbor, Maine. September 5th, 2007

Today we had a great time again. We started out looking for lighthouses - and there are

lighthouses on Mt. Desert Island, what with it being an island and all, but we can't seem to

get to any of the one's that participate in the Lighthouse Passport Program. We're going to

have to do some more reading up and maybe start at the Jersey shore.

Regardless of the lack of lighthouses ( I can't recall Bar Harbor being a font of shipwrecks

or anything ), we spent the entire day exporing the island, back roads and small towns

alike.

Along the way, we scored three geocaches! Two earthcaches ( geological locations ) and one traditional.

We saw some beautiful sites - Echo Lake, Somes Sound, Bernard, the SouthWest Harbor, Long

Pond, Bass Harbor, Seal Harbor, etc.

We stopped in the NorthEast Harbor and spent a while in a very cool used (antique) book

store. There were so many cool volumes there, but alas, we left empty handed (no early

Kerouac and no first editions of the Dark Tower).

We've figured that we now have ALL of the NPS stamps for Acadia! Woowhoo!

B - you bet the skies are full of stars! ( have to quote Dave Bowman here - My God It's Full

Of Stars ) We had our SkyScout out yesterday and it's just stunning the amount of stars that

are visible with no ambiant lightsource to get in the way. Just amazing.

Jim - Um, we've now been all over most all of Mt. Desert Island and there's not a PF Changs

to be found, sorry. On the other hand, there's also not a McDonalds or a Burger King!

Suzanne - Heck, no. I didn't get to pull on the ropes aboard the Margaret Todd. They had

plenty of other folks jumping up to do the hard work - and it did not look easy!

We're packing up now - getting ready to leave our now beloved base camp, aka The Edgewater,

and prepare for the first great crossing - ie. The Ferry to Nova Scotia.

We have to repack the truck, do some laundry and pack up some backpacks with what we will

need on the ferry. From what we can tell - onboard the ferry you have no access to your

vehicle.

Not sure what kind of access I'll have from this point forward - those crazy Canadians, who

knows what sort of internet they have?!? Actually, I just can't recall if the hotels have it

or not.

I will post again whenever I can. Hope everyone is well.

~

~

Dateline : Bar Harbor, Maine. September 4th, 2007

Wow. What another great day. We sure have been lucking out with weather, by the way. Sun and

breezes and nothing but blue skies.

This morning we headed out early, to the pier at the Bar Harbor Inn. It was here that we

bought tickets for a cruise on a four masted schooner named the Margaret Todd. This is a 151

foot ship.  Or as pookie has described it "an old fashioned boat." Impressive, no matter what you call her.


Check it out at www.downeastwindjammer.com for some details.


We had a great morning, westerly winds and a great crew. We shipped off a little late, what with us having to wait on some cruise folks who had been on a bus cruise earlier in the day. The NCL ship

Norwegian Dawn had anchored overnight and Bar Harbor was teaming with cruisers for the day.


Once out of the harbor, the Captain shut the motor down and the crew ( with some help from

volunteers ) raised the four sails and we were off!! It was VERY impressive. Suddenly no

noise but the wind in the sails, the creaking of the blocks, the snapping of the ropes, and

the water against the hull. It sure was something to experience. A dream come true, really.
 

The Captain reported we hit 9 knots and that the sailing was the best he'd had all summer.

Aboard the ship was a NPS ranger ( Ranger John ) who narrated as we cruised around

Frenchman's Bay. He gave us details about the islands and some info on the local birdlife.

It was a well spent morning. We had a wonderful time.

We left Bar Harbor for lunch, due to the cruiser folks being just everywhere. We had a great

meal just outside the town, on Rt. 3, called the Chart Room. It is right on the bay and we

had a gorgeous view out the window. Pookie had some very good fish and chips, and turtlex

enjoyed some very sweet local scallops. Yum-my.

After lunch we headed back into Acadia National Park to run the rest of the Loop Road. We

scored a couple more NPS stamps and saw some absolutely beautiful sites, including Thunder

Hole, which wasn't thundering, but was very impressive none the less. The Loop Road really

is fun and is considered one of Maine's Scenic Byways ( as well as along the shore on Rt. 3

which we've driven several times ). It's right up there with Glacier National Parks Going-

To-The-Sun Road. Or, actually, to me, a very close second.

Dinner tonight was in Northeast Harbor at the ( drum roll please ) Tan Turtle Tavern!!!!

Yes, it's kind of a famous place around here. We overheard one of the park rangers directing

people there for some good food at a good price in a casual atmosphere. It was real yummy

food, too. I got a haddock sandwich with the tavern's handmade turtle chips. These were

especially yummy. Plain tasting potato chips that were lightly burned. I loved them. Pookie

had a fried artichoke with goat cheese Po'boy. Both of these were BIG servings and neither

of us finished our sandwiches. Of course, there was no way I was walking out of a place

without a souvenir, so pookie bought me a Tan Turtle Tavern baseball cap. I wore it back to the Edgewater proudly!

Quite a day, quite a day. Who knows what tomorrow will hold... perhaps some lighthouses!

Regarding some of the comments - keep them coming, friends!

Jim - Sorry, bud, no sign of PF Chang here in Bar Harbor, at least not on Mt. Desert Island.

Most places have some kind of steak, but seafood is the food of the region. Mostly it's

lobsters, clams and haddock. That kind of thing. Trust me, the beauty of the land would

really out weigh you having to eat some fresh, caught that same day, seafood.

Suzanne - Gosh, that poor little boy sure could have used you up on top of Cadillac

Mountain. The thing is - can you imagine all the stuff his Dad has been making up for his

entire vacation?!? Made me laugh the entire way back to the parking lot.

That's all for tonight. Tomorrow is our last day in Bar Harbor. On Thursday we board the

Ferry to Nova Scotia.

~

~

Dateline : Bar Harbor, Maine. September 3rd, 2007

Hope everyone had a relaxing Labor Day. For those of you returning to school - here's hoping

you had a wonderful end to a great summer.

We had a great day today. We got up early, munched on some poptarts, granola bars and apples

and headed into Acadia National Park.

We stopped for a NPS stamp at the Hull Cove Visitors Center and watched a really, really

cheesy film called "The Gift Of Acadia" in the auditorium.

From the very ( not ) enlightening film, a copy of which you will never find in the

turtlexflix page of my website, we headed out to try our bikes on the Carriage Roads. This

was semi-successful. First, we road for a bit but to be honest - our Electra Townie bikes

really weren't meant for this kind of terrain. The tires just have absolutely no tread.

They're really, oh wait now I get it, in-town bikes. Yeah, oh well. We plan on trying again -

we're going to see if we can find some Carriage Roads that are paved. Some of them are, at

least partially.

From the short bike ride, we took the Park Loop through Acadia. We took the Cadillac

Mountain turnoff and summitted the mountain! This is our third summit over-all. We have

summitted Mount Washington in New Hampshire, Signal Mountain in Wyoming and now Cadillac

Mountain in Maine. Okay, okay, so you can drive 99% of the way to the top, but we still

summitted!

Personally, I'm waiting on Everest and K2 to have this kind of access before I make those attempts.

I will now recite a heartwarming little piece of Maine history, as overheard on the summit.

A small boy, perhaps four years old was listening to his father describe the history of the

mountain. This guy is obviously some kind of history professor, and very well read indeed.

And I quote - "Back in like the sixteen hundreds, there was this french guy, named something

something something Cadillac and this mountain is named for him".

Now, try to wipe a tear from your eye. It still chokes me up just thinking about it. I only

hope that young lad can absorb such detailed information.

We scored a Virtual Cache at Cadillac Mountain and a stamp.

I will mention that pookie suggested we take the short way up to the summit, but being

really not so smart sometimes, I saw what I thought was a different, easier way. Boy, was I

wrong! No matter, like I said, we summitted. And most of all, we had laughes and a good time

doing it.

From Cadillac Mountain we headed back down to the Loop Road but took a quick turn off at

Jordan Pond. Here we scored another virtual cache right by the pond. There are tons of

kayakers here. Everywhere, really.

We decided to have lunch at the Jordan Pond House, a restaurant right on the lake. This

turned out to be quite a wonderful experience. We ate right out on the patio, overlooking

the yard, which is set up with tables and benches just like "the olden days". It was

something to see. You can almost picture how it was back in the 1920's, with folks all

dressed up and proper.

We both had a delicious lunch. We shared some Brie cheese and grapes before a lunch of soups

and popovers. turtlex had lobster stew ( so sumptuous ) and pookie had the seafood chowder.

Both of these items had TONS of meat and were very light in the broth department. I believe

the lobster stew listed ingredients as lobster meat, cream, butter and a touch of sherry. It

didn't taste nearly so heavy as a bisque and was just perfectly seasoned. Pookie had raves

about the seafood chowder with big pieces of scallops, haddock and shrimp. The popovers (

apparently the place is kind of famous for them ) are these light bread popovers, buttery

and fluffy.

We loved it at the Jordan Pond House Restaurant. It was a treat and the setting very

unexpected and appreciated. The cool breeze kept the warm sun at bay and it was a prefect

lunch.

For those with a love of the canine sort - you just have to bring your little friends up

here and to this restaurant. Not only are the four legged friends welcomed, the waiter

brings them their own little bowl of water! They let the dogs sit right by your table, on the patio and out in the table area on the lawns.

www.jordanpond.com shows some of the details but it's really something everyone should

experience.

From the Jordan Pond Restaurant we travelled a little more of the Loop Road and then headed

back to the Edgewater. We're pretty tired. Not sure what we'll do about dinner, but it might

involve, oh, I don't know... seafood !

Hope all is well with everyone.

~