St. John's, Newfoundland

‘Twas a soggy day in St. John’s this morning when I got out of bed at 6:20 to set up the morning coffee for the group. The timer worked as advertised and the coffee pot was chugging away as I got to the kitchen. Valentino was raising hell in his bowl, demanding to be fed immediately. I gave him a few granules of healthy food and then threw in his favorite food…freeze dried worms. He gobbled them up in a flash, throwing water as he attacked each worm. I then went to the car to get the rest of the coffee setup and set everything out under the awning. We finished off most of the pot as we waited for our tour bus to arrive.

Right on schedule, our bus pulled up. Our driver, Vic, introduced himself and then introduced us all to Lucille, our tour guide. She was a perky bundle of energy and we immediately knew we were in for a good tour. Little did we know! We first headed for Quidi Vidi Village and were treated to our first Newfie slang, of which there is plenty. Quidi Vidi is known locally as “Quite a Vita”. I wish I could remember it all. I’m going to start carrying a notebook on these tours. Quidi Vidi is a really cute little fishing village with a narrow harbor opening.


Quidi Vidi Harbor



Cute chairs, eh?

It has another twist…a micro brewery. I bought a six-pack with three bottles of Honey Brown, a blend of Chocolate malt, Crystal malt and honey, and three bottles of Eric’s Red, a cream ale that won the Silver medal at the 2001 World Beer Championships.

Moving right along, we next stopped at the Government House, the official residence of the Lt. Governor. He lives in some pretty nice digs!


Government House

Inside Government House

The bus then headed for downtown and we all started loosening up when Lucille told us of an area of the island we would not be seeing during the tour. I’m sure some of this has something to do with the infamous Newfie humor, but she told us all about a small town called Dildo. Now, Dildo has a park called Dildo Run Park which is next to Virgin Run which is right near Herring Neck and Heart’s Desire and just down the road from Hibb’s Hole. Someone on the bus commented that this sounded like a great place for a “nooner”. Not knowing the term “nooner”, we explained it to Lucille. Her reply was, “OH, a quickie!” I then told her of a “morner” which is a “nooner”, only sooner. That sent the bus howling! It went downhill from there…very fast! Lucille was soon red-faced and staying right up with all the banter. She then passed out samples of the locally-produced candy, “Climax”, made by the Purity company.

We soon got to the downtown area. The first thing I noticed was that almost all the homes were all painted up in different pastel colors. We went through an area of brightly colored homes the locals call “Jelly Bean Lane”.

Jelly Bean Lane

We then stopped at the Catholic Basilica and Presentation Convent where the marble carving of the Veiled Virgin by Giovanni Strazza is found. All of the group was mesmerized by the carving. The photos don’t do it justice.

The Veiled Virgin

We then went into a drawing room and listened to a metal-disk music box.

The musical selection was some long hundred-dollar-a-plate name but was actually a five-dollar rendition of “Dixie”. The sound form the device was awesome. We loved it!

We then moved to the main harbor and checked out a pair of larger than life bronze statues of a Newfoundland Dog and a Labrador Retriever that overlooked the water

and a monument to military veterans.

After that, it was lunch time. We went to My Brother’s Place for a great buffet. They served a great salad, a fish dish with cream sauce, some OUTSTANDING meat balls (I went back for a BIG bowl of seconds and got scolded by Claudia for being uncouth and a bad example of a Tailgunner) and lasagna. I had only three small cheesecake bites and actually passed on the fried ice cream, my all-time favorite dessert. I actually surprised myself!

We then headed for Cape Spear, the most easterly point in North America

and the site of the first long range communication by wireless radio. On December 12, 1901, Guglielmo Marconi received a wireless radio signal from colleagues in England. There was a book for visiting hams to sign, so I added my own ham radio call sign, WA6ARQ, to the log book of VO1AA, the Cape Spears Ham Radio station.

Cape Spear radio tower

We then went back to the downtown area for some shopping since the area scheduled for the rest of the tour was too foggy to see anything. We returned to the RV park about 5:30. It was a great day, even considering the bad weather.

Today, the last day of July, was a good start. After a night of fairly heavy rain, we awoke to a 50% sky…well, maybe only about 35-40% sun, but that’s better than no sun! We split the group to go to the National Research Council – Institute for Ocean Technology. This is a government organization that does research on anything to do with the ocean. Anyone building a boat, oil platform, undersea whatever, life boats, survival gear or anything else dealing with the ocean can come to this group with their idea or design and have it evaluated. They build and test prototype ships in miniature scale models, usually about 1:20 scale, to see how they perform and how they can be improved upon. We toured the model building room, the machine shop, the towing tank and the ice tank where they can freeze the water solution so it has an ice cap up to 6” thick. This would simulate a sheet of ice 10’ thick (at a 20:1 scale). They use this tank to test ice breakers, subs breaking through the polar ice cap and even the Confederation Bridge that we travelled over the other day. The bridge was tested here and they developed the system that automatically breaks up the ice as it freezes around the pilings. They even have a propeller evaluation tank that was confiscated from Nazi Germany after WWII. They can put a prop in the tank, start it spinning at the desired RPM’s and then photograph it with a laser strobe and see any cavitation the prop gives off. (cavitation is a BAD thing) This was one interesting tour!

The rest of the day was spent shopping, cleaning out the bays of the motorhome to accommodate all the stuff we have been buying and preparing for tonight’s “Margarita & Munchies” party. Tomorrow is a travel day to Gander.

The ferry to Newfoundland

We made it! We are now in “Newfie-land” and will be going to Labrador soon. Right now we are 3439 air miles from home. That’s 459 gallons of fuel and at $5 a gallon, that’s about $2,300 to get home…if we could go in a straight line.

We got up at 3:15 am, finished getting the rig ready for travel and everyone pulled out right at 4:00 am. We traveled butt-to-nose 3.8 miles to the ferry terminal, got measured and checked in and waited.


Waiting for the ferry to arrive


Some of the guests went back to sleep but, as staff, oh no, we had to stay up and work. We had to get the sleeping berth assignments, boarding passes and things like that. I even had to have a guest walk across the street for us to buy two apple fritters at Tim Horton’s, a donut shop.
We started loading the ferry about 7:00

The Newfoundland Ferry (note how the bow opens up!)

Starting to load

Getting loaded!

Still getting loaded!

and were underway just after 8:00. The crossing was pretty uneventful. The almost-promised whale sightings were non-existent as the fog rolled in. We had to slow down considerably as the visibility was about 50 yards at times. The foghorn was sounding the whole way across. Here’s a picture of the fog for you to enjoy!

Dense fog midway to Newfoundland!

We arrived at Placentia, NL about 2:30 am, disembarked, and headed up the road for the Sobey’s parking lot (Sobey’s is a grocery store over here) to catch a few hours of sleep.

Our Sobey's 3 to 4-hour napping spot

It was raining and foggy and one rig got lost, later to turn up 28 miles down the track at a gas station, sleeping soundly. Since the rig didn’t show up, Barry and I had to go look for it and lost another hour’s sleep in the process. Anyway, we all got up at 7:30 to depart the store’s parking lot before it opened, per the request of the manager. We fired up and all headed to a gas station restaurant 28 miles up the road where our lost chicken had roosted for the night. We overwhelmed them with about 30+ breakfast orders so the meals were slow in getting to the tables but the food was very good. After breakfast, we finished our trip through some really beautiful country…full of lakes and trees…to the Pippy Park Campground in St. John’s where we all hooked up and then crashed for a few more hours of sleep.

Baddeck and Sydney, NS

We had a staff-prepared breakfast this morning that included banana-walnut, blueberry or plain pancakes and link sausage. It was stupendous! After breakfast, we had a travel briefing for tomorrow’s run to Baddeck, pronounced ba-DECK, with the emphasis on “deck”. After the briefing, one of the guests stood up with a stuffed Goofy doll. This is a “present” given to someone on the caravan who has in some way screwed up. Well, I was the victim of the presentation. It seems that I was sent to pick up a guest at a repair shop the other day. I went to the RV park office where the office girl pulled out a map and highlighted the route on the map. It was very simple…turn left out of the park, go to the signal light and turn left. Go to Hwy. 102 and turn north (left) for 6-7 miles and Kevin’s Auto Body will be on my right. All went fine until I got to Hwy 102. There were no on-ramps or off-ramps to or from Hwy 102. No nothing! I continued on and went under 102 for two miles to a “T”, which was Hwy 1, and turned left. I found an open business and showed them the map. They told me that there were no ramps to 102 from the road I was on, but I already knew that. They sent me back past the “T” to a light and down that road where I eventually found Hwy 102 and turned north. It was a sort of freeway and I drove for about 20 miles before getting to a business district. I called Barry, telling him I was totally lost. He got the address for me and I plugged it into the GPS. “Karen” took me right to Kevin’s and I completed my mission. It turned out that Kevin’s was on Hwy 1, not 102 as the office had told me.

I protested loudly that I was given erroneous directions and that my getting lost was the fault of the RV park and that I was totally blameless and completely innocent. Claudia leaned over and gave me some quick advice. As I recall, she said something like, “Shut up and sit down”. I gave it one parting shot and sat down, holding my new best friend…Goofy.




After the travel briefing, we took off in the car for a tour of the waterfront. We saw the Public Gardens and then went to the waterfront. I was looking for Theodore Too, a cute little tugboat used for harbor tours and found it out on the water doing a tour.


We then parked and went to Alexander Keith’s Nova Scotia Brewery for a tour.



Inside the brewery


Tour guides


Tour guides

As tour guides, we got in free. The hour-long tour was given by 19th century costumed guides and the tour included the obligatory tasting of their wares. Since Claudia doesn’t drink beer, I was required to drink her mug of brew. I protested but it didn’t do any good. With some reluctance, I drained her mug of suds. We then returned home for dinner and bed.

The 24th was the travel day to Beddeck. It was almost uneventful as one rig had a small problem (quickly solved) on the way. When we arrived at the campground, we all formed up and carpooled to the Alexander Graham Bell Museum. I learned a lot. AGB was quite an inventor. Not only did he invent the telephone, he did a lot of work on airplanes, hydrofoil boats, kites, breeding and genealogy and many more things. It was a very interesting stop.

After the AGB Museum, we all went back to the park for a combined birthday/anniversary celebration party and travel briefing. Claudia and Terry made a carrot cake with apricot filling and a vanilla frosting to serve the caravan celebrating all the July birthdays and anniversaries. It was a wowzer!

The next day was a full-day’s bus ride circumnavigating the Cabot Trail.

Cabot Trail map

Our first stop was the Keltic Lodge at Ingonish where I got some great pictures

View from the Keltic Lodge

AND a rum & raisin ice cream cone, double scoop, of course. Claudia’s was some sort of a cheesecake flavor that was only so-so.

After the lodge, we meandered down the trail to a crab processing plant where Terry had arranged for us to buy crab…not normally done, but it’s all in who you know, and she knew the right person!

Not Dungeoness, but tasty!

We bought four pounds of the larger crab legs for $5.25 a pound. They were all cooked and frozen and ready for eating…except for the being frozen part!

We left the packing plant and headed up a “mountain” to the top, all 900’ of it. As we topped out, we saw our first moose. It was a small bull with a modest rack. He was extremely shy and didn’t stick around very long for pictures. The people in the front of the bus got head shots. I, being in the rear of the bus, got the other end!

We then stopped at Saint Peters church in (I believe) St. Ann’s. The whole Cabot Trail area is French and Celtic so almost all signs, posters, etc. are in French and Gaelic (which is an interesting language to see or hear).

St. Peters church in St. Ann's, NS

The last stop was at Joe’s Scarecrow Village. These pictures tell it all…quirky, but cute…sort of!

Scarecrows at Joe's Village

more scarecrow's

Our next day, Saturday, July 26th, was a travel day. We toiled and struggled a whole 35 miles to our next park. Once we got in, it was a free day for everyone except us. We had to go to the Newfoundland Ferry terminal to make arrangements for our travel day on Monday…VERY early Monday…like 4:00 am! I don’t do 4:00 am’s at all, except maybe to leave on a fishing trip! I guess I will have to make an exception this time. Barry broke out the barbecue for dinner and we cooked up a bunch of crab legs for dinner. It was a great change from all the lobster we have been eating. Tomorrow night’s dinner was a choice between two small lobsters or a 16-oz. steak. Claudia and I both chose steak!

It rained all night and we woke to an overcast Sunday morning. Today will be getting the rig all ready for the trip to Newfoundland and Labrador. As I mentioned earlier, we have to get up at 4:00 am tomorrow and caravan to the ferry landing for a 7:30 or 8:00 am loading (if the ferry is on time). We then will have a 14 to 21-hour crossing, depending on the weather and tides. The ferry is running on only three engines right now. One is either down for repair or they have shut it down to conserve on fuel. I have heard both rumors and don’t know which is true.

So, I need to get ready to sail away across the great Atlantic Ocean. The next musings will be from Newfoundland. Sea ya!

Halifax, NS

Today was probably the most outstanding tour yet. I went through a complete card of photos on my camera and ran out of battery at the end. The weather sucked! It was raining hard most of the time, harder some of the time and very hard occasionally. Even when it didn’t rain (rarely), it was misting. We had a brand new bus and a great guide, complete in his kilt. As we started out, the weather broke for a while and we headed for the local cemetery, Fairview Lawn, the resting site of over 100 victims of the Titanic sinking on April 15, 1912. The grave markers are lined out to resemble the bow of a ship. It was really sobering to hear the full story of the recovery from the guide.

Gavesites resembling the bow of a ship

Titanic graves

We them moved to the Citadel, the fort overlooking Halifax Harbor. It was built to protect the area from an invasion by the Colonies (the United States) which never came. Most of the costumed employees were university students who were moonlighting.

Citadel entrance

Citadel officer

Citadel "wife"

Citadel soldiers on a break

Citadel piper

After visiting the Citadel, we drove to Peggy’s Cove for lunch and I found a goldmine of pictures. The place was SPECTACULAR! I was in total pig heaven! Everywhere I turned was an absolutely phenomenal picture, each better than the last. I’m just going to post a few of the best and let you judge for yourselves.

Peggy's Cove lighthouse

Peggy's Cove shoreline

more shoreline

Peggy's Cove harbor

Peggy's Cove harbor

Peggy's Cove harbor

Peggy's Cove harbor

Fish house over the water (in the rain)

Harbor scene

another harbor scene

18# bug (No, I didn't buy it!)

Tomorrow is a free day and we are planning to head for the piers at the harbor for some up close and personal sightseeing but I just had to get these pictures off for y’all to see.

Lunenburg, NS

Friday, June 18th

We started today by going to the Historic Gardens. As most of you know, flowers are not too high on my “Bucket List” but, since lunch at a German bakery was included in the tour, I grudgingly tagged along. As before, my Whoopie-O-Meter barely got off the peg.



Roses in the garden

Loyalist Landing exhibit

Acadian house

Garden pond

Lunch was very good. I had a roast beef sandwich and vegetable soup. Dessert was a killer berry strudel with a little scoop of ice cream.

The tartness of the strudel contrasted with the sweetness of the ice cream for a taste that had everyone WOWing.

We then drove out to Fort Anne for a tour of the fort

and the museum which held a spectacular needlepoint that was about 8’ high and 20’ wide. Even Queen Elizabeth did some needlepoint on it.

Next was the Port Royal Habitation, a replica of an Acadian trading post. The guides were all in period costume and gave a great insight into life during those years.

We then returned home via the fish market. Practically the entire caravan went by to buy lobsters at $6.99 a pound or scallops at $7.95. Claudia and I bought the biggest bug they had. It weighed out at 4.19 pounds.

It was so big the lady had to put it to sleep to weigh it. She stood it on its head with the claws out front and its tail in the air. Then she started stroking its forehead with one finger from the back of its shell to between its eyes. It slowly stopped squirming around and finally just completely stopped moving altogether and stood on its head on the scale. Everyone was totally amazed. We also bought two pounds of scallops, some fresh haddock for dinner tonight and then returned to the park. Barry and I set up our bug boilers and spent the next two hours cooking lobster for everyone.

The evening turned into an impromptu lobster gorge and a hell of a lot of fun. This was the best night of the trip so far. After the bug boil, I cooked up two huge haddock fillets for our dinner while Claudia cleaned and picked lobster meat from our bug and the legs and backs of several other donated lobster.

Bed felt great and sleep came very easily.

Friday night/Saturday morning passed with a few periods of pitter-patter on the roof. We had an early travel briefing under our awning. Afterwards, everyone split and went their separate ways. Some fired up and left, others went to the local Farmer’s Market and we went to the RV park restaurant with five other folks. I had French toast with bacon and sausage and Claudia had two eggs, home-style potatoes and toast. The bill was $9 and change.

We then waddled back to the rig to get ready to travel. We pulled out about 11:30 and drove 89 miles over a windy, very rough road to Lunenburg, a small but cute fishing village on Nova Scotia’s South Shore.

After a short tour of the town, Claudia and I returned to prepare a co-op dinner with Barry and Terry. Our contribution was a clam chowder/lobster soup. Claudia took a clam chowder base that was given to us by our friends in Paw Paw, Michigan, added a quart of half and half, a bunch of the picked lobster from last night’s bug boil, some scallions and other spices and came up with a chowder that was at least a “15” on a 10-point scale. Again, bed and sleep came easily.

Sunday…a day of rest! Oh sure! We had a travel briefing at 8:45 followed by a drive to the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic. We split into two groups and had a guided tour of the facility. The first part was the aquarium…a small grouping of tanks with fish native to the area, such as cod, flounder and halibut. We then went into a larger room where our guide had a small lobster in a bucket of water. She pulled him out and gave us a really good presentation on their lives and habits. After the demonstration, she put him to sleep just like the lady in the fish market had done. Everyone was wowed!

Sound asleep!

We then went outside to visit the boats tied up to their wharf

and took a group picture. Claudia and I left to do various errands.

We walked the town, did some Christmas shopping and had lunch. I had the best fish & chips I’ve ever had. We did some more shopping and returned to the rig to await a LEO (Let’s Eat Out) dinner at the Old Fish Factory. We were so full from lunch, we just had appetizers for dinner. After that, it was a staff meeting and photo review at our rig followed by Claudia watching a movie and me doing this blog. A light rain is starting. Tonight will be very restful. Tomorrow is Claudia’s birthday and is a travel day to Halifax, the capitol of Nova Scotia.

Nova Scotia

Guess where we are! Aw, you peeked! We had a very uneventful drive today…153 miles with only three stops. Stop #1 was as we crossed into Nova Scotia at the Welcome Center. It had a beautiful sign, a beautiful building, a cute little lassie playing a bagpipe and lots of great information.






After lunch, we slid out and got back onto the highway and headed towards Truro and Halifax. This was the best road of the trip so far…two smooth lanes and a 110 click speed limit. I still held it back to 55-60 and even set the cruise control. We were stylin’!

Our next two stops were right together at the Anne Murray Center (she’s a singer) and the Coal Miner’s Museum. We had two rigs at each place but they were on a tour so we just noted the rig numbers and time and boogied on down the road. We pulled into the Scotia Pine Campground in Hilden, Nova Scotia. Nice park…50 amp power, free wi-fi and all the amenities. After setting up, we all lined up and car-pooled two miles back down the road to the local volunteer fire brigade where they served us up a delicious barbecued pork chop dinner. We had a ball! After dinner, they showed us all the fire equipment and told a few stories about their lives as volunteers.

We then sauntered back to the park, poured a couple of “two-fingered” drinks, slathered bug dope all over us, broke out the chairs and proceeded to people watch at the park. Now, for those of you not familiar with a “two-fingered drink”, my father, an excellent bartender, taught me how to measure a drink many years ago. You take your left hand and place it alongside an ice-filled glass. Placing your bottom finger slightly above the bottom of the glass to allow for the thickness of the glass, you pour the booze to the top of the upper finger. The result is a perfectly proportioned drink every time!






After a half a drink’s worth of time, we moved inside where Barry got a haircut and I got some time to catch up on my blog draft. Tomorrow is a Tidal Bore rafting trip.

According to Wikipedia, a tidal bore (or just bore, or eagre) is a tidal phenomenon in which the leading edge of the incoming tide forms a wave (or waves) of water that travel up a river or narrow bay against the direction of the current. As such, it is a true tidal wave (not to be confused with a tsunami). We carpooled to the Tidal Bore Rafting Park in Shubenacadie, signed our releases, checked out our life preservers and walked down a steep walkway and stairs combination to the river. The bank was very wet and slippery and we “walked” with difficulty to our boats. The boats were all Zodiacs equipped with 60 hp outboards. According to our guide, these are the perfect boats for tidal bore rafting…they are light, strong, unsinkable and self-bailing. I liked his confidence in the boat, especially when he told us of the guide that ran a boat into a larger bore and flipped.

As we motored slowly down the river to the area where we were to meet the bore, our guide pointed out several eagles and aeries (nests) in the area. The river was pretty low and we bottomed out several times. The four guys bailed out and helped drag the boat over the mud flats. We soon pulled up to a larger bar and got out to await the wave. After a few minutes, we spotted it slowly making its way toward us and re-boarded the rafts. As we headed down river, we hit the wave which was only about a 2’ wave. We continued down the river to a spot on the river where standing waves are located. These waves are caused by variations on the bottom of the river and cause what appear to be waves in the river. These waves are actually stationary but appear to be moving due to the incoming tidal water. As the tidal water’s flow increased, the waves got larger. Our guide turned the boat and we slammed into wave after wave. Huge amounts of water came flying over the bow and soaked us all. We soon learned to keep our mouths shut as we were doing this as the river was quite red and muddy. We were having a ball! Two of the ladies in the front of the boat were knocked to the bottom of the boat by the incoming water. After running the standing waves, our raft was totally full of water, right to the top of the bladders. We were howling! We turned and did it again and again and again. We probably ran the waves about 15 times until the tide, and waves, slacked off.

We then headed back toward the launch point but stopped at one spot on the bank to go “mud sliding”. This area had rather steep banks with smooth sides and well-worn butt trails back down to the river. We attempted to walk up the slippery bank to the top and the starting point of the slide, but I crawled. It was much safer and easier. Several guests followed my lead. Getting to the top of the bank, you would sit in the butt trail and give a little push off. You were soon careening down the bank in a totally out-of-control mud slide. The landing was an underwater dunk in the river. After several mud runs, we headed back to the launch point, climbed out of the rafts and walked slowly back up the walkway to the rafting company office. We were whipped! They had showers for those who wished to clean up but Claudia and I opted to just head back to the rig and shower there. The hot water felt exceptionally good. After cleaning up, we started preparing for the staff-prepared hot dog and hamburger extravaganza that will be tonight’s dinner.

The dinner went swimmingly! We had five barbecues going and got all the hamburgers and hot dogs cooked quickly so all the guests were fed at once, an almost unheard of feat! We also had our travel briefing for tomorrow and went to bed early. Long day!

Today, Thursday, July 17th was a travel day to the Dunroamin RV Park in Annapolis Royal. During the trip, we crossed Latitude 45, halfway between the equator and the North Pole. It was a one-stop, 146-mile day with no problems…YES! We pulled in, hooked up with power and water, set the awnings and windshield screens and we are done…well, almost done. It was my duty as Tailgunner to collect the two parking cones on the roadway at the entrance to the park. I set off on my appointed duty, walked up the entrance road and collected the cones. Since the office was right there, I decide to check it out in case someone asked me about the facilities. I walked in, checked it out and then saw the ice cream section. To make sure I had all the information for the guests, I checked out the flavors to ascertain the completeness of their offerings. They offered about 15 flavors of regular ice cream and double that of soft-serve. The girl behind the counter recommended “Death by Chocolate”. I thought that Claudia might like that flavor so I bought a single scoop cone. I started back to the rig but the heat and humidity started melting the cone and I had to keep cleaning it up so it wouldn’t drip all over the place. I think that Claudia’s chocolate antennas were up as she exited our rig and started walking straight toward me as soon as I left the office. I just happened to be holding the cones in front of the ice cream. It wasn’t on purpose…honest. As we met, she asked what I was hiding. “Oh, I bought this for you”. She didn’t buy it and removed her share of the cone in rapid fashion.

After the ice cream was gone, I decided a swim was in order. It wasn’t pretty, but I changed into a bathing suit and strolled to the pool where the kids assured me the water temperature was quite warm. They lied! To be kind, it was refreshing. A nice hot shower finished off the relaxing session and I switched modes for dinner. Out came the barbecue. Out came the steaks and a nice ice-cold Gewurztraminer that we picked up back in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Modesty precludes me from saying how well the steaks came out, but suffice to say you could cut them with a fork and that I licked the plate after consuming every morsel except for the bone which I gave to a guests dog. The evening’s entertainment is a graveyard tour at by lantern light at 10:00 pm.

The tour was given by the President of the local Historical Society who is a 10th generation Acadian. He was dressed in a period costume as a gentleman of the day would dress.





We all carried candle lanterns as we walked through the graveyard.






What a history lesson! I wish we would have heard him before we got to Nova Scotia. It was a great tour!

Tomorrow is a tour of the area, including the local tidal bore power generating station where they generate electricity from the bore tides. Now THAT should really be interesting…but it will be in the next blog. This one is getting too long and I need to get it off. Bye!

Prince Edward Island

Friday, July 11th

After a rainy night, everyone was up early and was out of the park by 8:30. It was a pretty uneventful ride today. We bit the bullet and did stop for fuel at the ridiculous price of $1.619 a liter ($6.12 a gallon). Ouch! We made a slight detour along the way to go to Shediac, home of the world’s biggest lobster and the self-proclaimed lobster capitol of the world.





Our first real stop was at the New Brunswick Visitor Center and the beginning of the bridge to Prince Edward Island (PEI). We just guided the people in and out of the facility and didn’t go in. I did have a great maple walnut and wild blueberry ice cream cone while we waited though. I was bored and the ice cream stand was right there so I did it! It was a spur of the moment decision. Luckily, Claudia helped me eat it so I didn’t feel too bad and the pangs of guilt soon passed. When we finished there, we took off and went over the nine-mile long Confederation Bridge and stopped again at the PEI Visitor’s Center on the other side. I passed on a second ice cream cone and only collected brochures and pamphlets for our guests.

Continuing on, we drove the rest of the way and, after 240 miles, pulled into the Cavendish KOA rv park. It is a huge park and was almost full. One of the guests had a problem with his slideout so I checked that and scheduled it to be fixed Sunday morning. We then all left to go to a buffet at a local restaurant and just now got back. Tonight will be a kick-back night. Claudia is already fully involved in that activity. I think I’ll give Valentino a worm or two and do a little kickin’ myself. Tomorrow is a bus tour which should be a no-brainer for us.

We had a GREAT day! The tour guide was the best. She was totally funny and a bundle of knowledge. We first went to a beach overlook and then to Green Gables, the location of the 1908 novel “Annie of Green Gables”.



It was an old farm that was spectacularly restored and is now a part of Parks Canada. We then took a side trip to a seaport village where we saw a whale skull flower garden

and an old lighthouse taken care of by an old Scotsman who was the star of an Old Spice tv deodorant commercial. He was wearing dark pants and shirt with wide suspenders and sported a full white beard and oilskin sou’easter hat. He looked to be the epitome of the old Glouster seafaring man and was a real character.

Next was a great art gallery. The owner was a friend of the tour guide and the gallery is not on the “normal” bus tour. They had art, jewelry, furniture, wooden utensils and lots of other stuff. It was a great stop. I bought Claudia some earrings for her upcoming birthday. I will probably get yelled at because she will probably do the on-line bank account in a few days and see the charge and wonder what it was and I won’t tell her and she will yell at me again for not telling her and being a butt-head. I may have to fess up and give them to her early. Such is life!

Since it was getting near noonish, we headed for the Prince Edward Island Preserve Co.

and an outstanding lunch. I had potato pie. PEI is known for its potatoes. Most potato fields are under contract to McDonalds and will be made into french fries. Claudia had a chicken and broccoli crepe. Both were delicious. After lunch, we perused the gift shop where there were many, many varieties of super delicious jellies, etc. I grabbed a wild blueberry and raspberry with champagne and some orange marmalade with Chivas Regal. We then visited a golf course and a small mussel fishing operation

where many of the guests bought lobster, mussels, oysters, etc for dinner tonight. Thoroughly whipped, we returned to the park.

The first order of business was to fix the broken slideout. I “volunteered” a piece of a drill to use a shear pin and the gear mechanism was fixed in short order. We then started to get ready for dinner. Barry, Terry, Claudia and I had scored on two big bags of mussels and some oysters. I broke out the Barbie and the steamer pot. I made up some “Mulege Oysters”

and Barry steamed the clams. A salad completed our dinner. We stuffed ourselves. It was not pretty! After dinner, we cleaned up and retired to our rig for after-dinner drinks and coffee. Today was a good day! My bedtime snack was three tablets of Tums.

Today was another “kickin’” day. We had to make coffee for the group so I reluctantly crawled out of bed at 7:00 and plugged in the pot which we set up the night before. When the coffee finished brewing, we set it outside on the picnic table for the vultures to dive into. We got caught up on company and personal stuff. Claudia made a sickening discovery that our insurance had lapsed due to the insurance company deciding to no longer do auto-debits of credit cards. A quick phone call fixed everything and we are now back in business. We then headed down to the waterfront where we found absolutely nothing but pure crap. Tourist junk! We came home and took a nap prior to our 6:00 pm lobster dinner. Yes, sad but true, we have another lobster dinner to choke down. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

We carpooled to Fisherman’s Wharf at 5:45 and were seated in the 500-person dining room. After ordering our lobster, we headed for the 60-foot long salad bar. They had every condiment and salad known to mankind and then some. I started with iceberg lettuce and added tomatoes, bacon and onion. I then threw on carrots, mussels, corn and I forget what else. Then I saw the Waldorf salad and added it to my plate. Then I saw the potato salad and added that to my plate. When I finished, it was a masterpiece! I juggled the salad plate and a cup of clam chowder back to our table and proceeded to devour it. Yum!

I finished Course #1 when the guests of honor arrived. Now, for the past week, we have been eating bugs that were between 2.5 and 3.5 pounds. I looked at what the waitress put in front of me and blinked. At first I thought it was a big crawdad! It was about a one-pounder…edible but pretty damn small. I suffered through it. It was very tasty but I was glad to have eaten a big salad first. A piece of blueberry pie a-la-mode finished the dining experience. We returned to the rv park and settled in for a semi-blustery night.

Today is Monday, July 14th and we again did coffee at 8:00 am. Being semi-smart but slow to learn (Claudia calls it being anal), I used the timer to start the coffee this morning. Unfortunately, something started Claudia about 6:55 and she got up. Going to the coffee pot at 7:05, she called in to me, asking what time I set the timer for. Now awake, my plans for sleeping in ruined, I replied that it was set for 7:00. I was then informed it was 7:05 and the pot was not on. I started to tell her to just unplug the timer, plug the pot in directly and that I would check it later when, “CLICK”…”The timer just came on!”. Thanks! Now, can I go back to sleep? Yeah, RIGHT! I slid into my shorts and semi-official Adventure Caravans chambray short sleeve shirt, put on my shoes and got up. After giving Valentino his breakfast, I set up the coffee pot and the fixin’s and sat down for my first cup of coffee. Several guests showed up and we discussed what was on everyone’s plans for the day. Barry, who washed his rig yesterday, decided to finish up by doing the rims and tires of his rig. Since several guests had also washed their rigs and the wind was blowing and a rain storm was hitting Maine and a tropical storm was hitting Bermuda and the forecast for tomorrow was for light rain, the subject turned to the weather. The consensus was to expect light rain for tomorrow, a travel day. That’s OK…today is a Free Day until tonight when we go to a play about Green Gables. Claudia and Terry announced that “the girls” are going to a Gouda cheese joint and back to the PEI Preserve Co. The key words in their announcement were “the girls”. OK, I guess that means that I ain’t goin’. That’s OK. I had something very important to do anyway, like clean up the coffee stuff and wash the bugs off the windshield. I can do that! In fact, I did it! I then came inside to try to figure out how to put a slideshow on this blog but it’s beyond me for right now. Son Alex, a computer genius and programmer extrordinaire, told me last week that it was “easy” and I already had the capability to do just that. I can either continue to try to figure it out or kick back with a beer and relax. I think you can guess which option won out! I am now kickin’ it with a beer while tomorrow’s rain is now beating a steady pitter-patter on my newly-washed front windshield and Barry’s newly-washed rig. Tomorrow is a 153-mile travel day (as I mentioned earlier) and our intended destination is the Scotia Pine Campground in Hilden, Nova Scotia. For now…”Cheer’s”.

New Brunswick

July 7th - Travel Day from Cap-au-os to Percé, Gaspé. Easy day…only 62.4 miles. We got to sleep in a little today as the travel briefing started at 9:00 and we didn’t have to leave until noon. The scenery was again spectacular as we travelled along the coastline. We got to the park about 2:00 and got all set up. One guest broke a window shade so Claudia and I re-strung it for them and then went to town to send out last week’s blog. We returned at 5:00 for a social. The scenery here is spectacular.

The view from the RV park

As we are parked, we look out on two islands, one of which has a hole completely through it.

Tomorrow, we go on cruise around the bay, the “holey” island and the other island, inhabited by a few people and a whole bunch of gannets (birds).

Birds, we saw! Everyone left the park about 8:30, parked downtown at the boat company parking lot and went in to watch a movie on the various birds that live on Bonaventure Island. We then got on the boat and did a tour of Pierced Rock and Bonaventure. We then landed on the island where we had a really enthusiastic park ranger give us an hour-long presentation on living and working on the island many years ago, even before I was born.

After the presentation, we returned to the mainland and did a little shopping. Actually, we did a little “looking” as opposed to actual “shopping” except when we got to the bakery. There, we picked up a small baguette and a few pastries, including an outstanding chocolate éclair. Barry and I then made a run to the gas station down the road and filled our propane bottles. We are going to fill up tomorrow and should take around 100 gallons. The price here is $1.579 a liter. Figuring 3.78 liters to a gallon, we ought to put about 378 to 400 liters into our fuel tank. That is going to shoot the hell out of a $600 bill! Damn I love these high fuel prices…NOT! Claudia and I then dug all the lobster meat out of our three bugs, washed the muck off “Godzilla” and repaired a few open spots in the window and door screens. Now those sneaky varmint mosquitoes will have a more difficult time getting at out sweet little bodies. We have a travel briefing, bonfire and dessert party tonight to prepare for tomorrow’s 258-mile jaunt to Caraquet, New Brunswick where they actually speak ENGLISH! It has been a little “interesting” trying to figure out some of the road signs so far. We should do much better from now on.

We are now in New Brunswick and the signs have both English and French. I found out that some of New Brunswick still has French influence and French is spoken but things are improving. After washing the car and the rig and getting them both sparkling clean and shiny, it rained and all our work was for naught. We are in our site and it is pouring…a definite toad choker! The lightning knocked the TV out temporarily and then we couldn’t get a signal due to the heavy rain but after a half hour or so, the rain let up and the satellite locked in again. Tomorrow we are headed for the Acadian Historic Village…weather permitting.

The weather held! It is cloudy and sort of “iffy” but not looking like rain. Maybe a little, but not much. I did a repair on a side window. We were getting water inside during the rain yesterday so I took the frame partially apart. There are “weep holes” to let the water out of the frame but they stuck in some thin foam inside the frame, for what reason I know not, My guess it that it’s to stop bugs from entering. What it was doing was stopping the water from getting out. I removed the foam and that should do it…I hope.

After my ingenious repair job, we left for the Acadian Historic Village, about 8 miles back down the road. It is a historical village that typifies the buildings of the 1700 and 1800’s. Some buildings were reproductions, but most were brought from their original locations, reassembled and restored. Every building had a person inside in period costume to tell us all about the building and what they did. The first building was the bakery.

Every day, she bakes up a bunch of bread in a real outside wood-burning oven. The flour comes from the grist mill on site. The mill is all original and was purchased in Toronto for $400 when the building was originally built. It is totally operational and they do demonstrations every few hours. The bread is used at the two restaurants on the property.

They make their own clothes and things from wool and flax that is produced right there in the village. In one home, we had a demonstration on combing and spinning wool yarn.

In another, the demonstration was on making yarn out of flax and how to weave it into cloth.

Both were outstanding and really interesting. They had a blacksmith shop

where the smith made square nails for souvenirs, a wood-working shop where the smith made buckets

and a man that made wooden shingles using a drawknife.

Since it was about noon-thirty, we went into the restaurant and had a bowl of pea soup and bread pudding for lunch. The soup was just as good as mine and the bread pudding was just plain outstanding. We picked up a few souvenirs as we left and came back to the RV park. We need to rest up in preparation for tonight’s lobster dinner.

Well, Mark (our trainee) came through. We had nine bugs that weighed out about 25 pounds. We all kicked in for an outstanding lobster pot luck dinner. As Barry and I fired up the hot water, Mother Nature fired up the cold water. We had several bouts of heavy rain but then it cleared. All the bugs were cooked perfectly and we all sat down to two picnic tables full of salad, clam chowder, bread, miscellaneous side dishes, several bottles of good wine and the “guests of honor”. All of us did ourselves proud. After the dinner, we all needed to throw our clothes in the wash pile and jump into a good hot shower. It was a wonderful night. We will sleep well tonight. Tomorrow…Prince Edward Island.

Gaspe, etc.

July 3rd – What a day! We started checking vehicles in the park at 7:00 and it started raining. That “encouraged” the guests to get moving a little faster. Everyone was out by 8:30…a new record! There are two ways to get to our next RV Park, by Highway 20 and by Highway 132, a smaller, narrower, bumpier, but more scenic road. The Trip Log sent us up 132.

Claudia and I were out at 9:10 and got in about 6:00. This was one long day! First of all, the road was about a 40-45 Mph road, even though it was marked at 90 km/hr (55 Mph). It was really rough and it rained the whole damn way. Secondly, the Trip Log sucked! There were several turns that were not in the log but most everyone just stayed on 132 and got here. Third through ninth were a few problems ranging from an accident, to a broken jack, to a blown tire, to failed windshield wipers and two minor mechanical problems. I will be busy tomorrow. Hope it doesn’t rain but it doesn’t look good right now. I had a four-finger drink and a glass of wine with dinner and now feel much better. I’m going to bed. Goodnight!

Contrary to previous indications, the day broke sunny and clear…a perfect Fourth of July! I made the rounds of our travel victims and resolved all the problems except the broken jacks and the windshield wipers. Today, we are going down the road a piece to sniff some flowers at a famous flower garden. Truthfully, that doesn’t register too high on my “Whoopie-o-meter” but I have been told it is interesting and well worth seeing. We shall see.

Well…not bad! It wasn’t just all flowers. There were some flowers there, but there were also “exhibits”. Several artists, companies, colleges and the like made up exhibits that tended to be environmentalistic and good for nature. One I especially liked was a root cellar full of potatoes on shelves. Each potato had wires stuck in each end and all were connected in series. The whole bunch was wired into a buzzer and small diode (light). Every few seconds, the buzzer would go off and the diode would light up. There were about a dozen racks so there was a constant ring of buzzer tones and small lights going off. We later walked by some of the flowers. I did bend over and look at them closely, but did not sniff! There was a bird feeding exhibit but a pair of squirrels had found a way to climb the pole and take over the feeder.




After the flower garden, we drove to Grand-Metis for lunch. Claudia had salmon and I had a bowl of steamed mussels. We then returned to the park to get ready for our Fourth of July evening.

It started raining about 6:00 but, no matter! The evening’s festivities are inside the activities center so we will be dry and toasty. The ladies baked up a bunch of cupcakes that are now decorated with red, white and blue icing. The plan is to party hearty, do a travel briefing and then retire to get ready for an early pull-out tomorrow morning. We all have to drive 68 miles and arrive at a “windmill farm”, as in electrical wind generators, by 9:15 for a tour at 9:30. I’m looking forward to this one. Hope nobody breaks down.

We all made it…barely! We just had time to park the rig when the bus stopped beside us to take us to the presentation. It was really an interesting tour. I’ve always wondered how those wind generators worked and now I know. They have a prototype of a vertical-axis generator and it’s the only one in the world.





I’m not going to bore you with a dissertation on the generation of electricity using the power of wind but catch me one-on-one with a drink and I’ll ‘splain it to you.

Following Highway 132, we headed for Gaspé and our campground at Cap-aux-Os. We followed the water all the way. The shoreline reminded us of Southern California below Santa Barbara and the Mexican shoreline down by Mulege. The homes all along the route were the typical Canadian homes…small, cute and brightly painted with sharply contrasting trim.



Pulling into the campground, we found it to be all grass and terraced so everyone had a great view of the water. We soon found out that there were problems. The area had received rain for something like 25 consecutive days. Remember I said the sites were all grass? When I pulled onto the site, the tires sunk about 3” into the ground. We put our jack boards down. These are pieces of 1” plywood about 14” square, normally quite adequate to keep the jacks from sinking. I started to level the rig as Claudia watched. The boards were being pushed down into the soft ground. I had to stop and add more wood which the park provided. My front jacks now have 4” of extra wood under them and it’s still not enough. We are resolved to sit here quite nose-down, uncomfortable but do-able. We had also been warned of low power. After setting up, I checked the power. I had a whole 100 volts of unusable power. I quickly unplugged. We would just use the generator instead. So, we are here in a beautiful spot with a beautiful view with a not-beautiful angle to the floor of the rig and another not-beautiful zero on the power meter. We are flexible! We shall persevere!

Flexible got bent a bit last night. It feels like the front jacks sunk in a few more inches. I do believe we are going to have to re-position and re-level “Godzilla”. Today is a “Free Day” so we slept in late…6:30. Claudia touched up her hair and gave me a haircut. I then vacuumed the rig while she took a shower. Yes guys, I do (some) housework even though my primary duties fall into the Engineering Department. After we re-level and re-position, we are going to jump in the car and do a tour of the Parc national du Canada Forillon (Forillon National Park of Canada). We must not leave until 11:00 however, as the young lady who runs this campground has a very good friend who is a lobster fisherman. He is scheduled to arrive at the dock about 11:00 and I am going to “help” him carry some lobsters to his vehicle to take them to the wholesaler. I do, however, have a very short memory sometimes and might forget what his vehicle looks like and get a few of the bugs into some other vehicle by accident…like MINE!

This is a GREAT day! The park manager just brought us 22 pounds of lobster for $132. That’s $6.00 a pound and the bugs are 2.75 pounds each. That’s four lobster dinners (for two) for $16.50! That’s $8.25 a dinner! Yowsuh! We are thinking of applying for a Workamper job here. Right now, we are going to go “parking” and drive around Forillon. After that, I will break out my propane burner and large pot and give my four lobsters a nice hot bath. Tonight , we will dine on fresh hot lobster with all the trimmings. Gotta go make sure we have enough butter. Bye!

We put all eight bugs in Barry and Terry’s shower and dumped ice on them to keep them happy while we went off exploring the area. The first place we went to was the lighthouse at Cape Gaspé. It was about a four mile, very scenic walk (round trip) but there was a lot of up and down in it.



While we were on the trail, we heard a bear was at the lighthouse in the picnic area. When we got there, no bear. It had wandered back into the bush about five minutes before we got there. He did leave his “calling card” though.

We returned to the car and drove over to the Interpretive Center for a short movie and more scenery. On the way, we came upon a car stopped on the road. We found out they were looking at two baby raccoons, apparently abandoned by the side of the road.

We pulled alongside of them just as two park rangers showed up. The babies were just in the grass and were looking at us and sniffing the air, trying to figure out what kind of varmint we were. We took a picture and left the babies for the rangers to deal with.
As soon as we got to the rig, I broke out the propane tank, burner and pot. I drew a nice pot of bath water for the bugs and soon had it to a nice rolling boil. Barry brought the guests of honor over and we cooked them up two by two.

My pot wouldn’t hold more than two of them at a time. When the first two were done, they joined us at the table for diner. We had a great salad, fresh bread and rice. Cracking the shells was a joke. Barry had a small wooden crab mallet. No way would that break the bug’s shell, no matter how hard we hit them. It was time to get serious. I broke out my 5# sledge hammer. That did it! After cracking all the claws, we proceeded to gorge ourselves. The meal was magnificent! Life is good! Now for a good cup of coffee, a little TV, a sipping shot of Southern Comfort and it will soon be bedtime. Tomorrow is a travel day to Perce.

Quebec, etc.

Monday morning, June 30th - We pulled out of the RV park and headed for the border and Quebec. We only had one small problem on the route when one of our guests plugged a fuel filter after getting a fill-up. A quick filter change fixed the problem and we continued on our way. We soon arrived at the US-Canada border and awaited our turn. I was rehearsing the correct answers to anticipated questions as we approached the customs window. All went fine until the inspector asked if we had any pets. Being perfectly honest, I replied “Yes, a fish”. Now the questions came rapid-fire! What kind of fish? A red fish? I told her it was just a little fish…a beta…a Siamese Fighter. I was having very uneasy thoughts of having to give up “Valentino” to an unknown fate. I have really become attached to the little guy. He has really developed a personality. After an uneasy minute, she cleared us and we continued on into Canada. Following our printed directions and “Karen”, we soon arrived at the park. Reading signs was difficult as everything was in French and I don’t do French!

Our first day in Quebec started with a city tour. We split the guests into two groups and ushered them into two small 22-passenger busses. We soon found out why. July 1st is Canada Day, the equivalent of our Fourth of July, and July 3rd was the 400th anniversary of the founding of the city of Quebec. The city was packed, streets were closed off and getting around was difficult, at best. We first went to Old Quebec, a beautiful and quaint section down by the water. The streets were very narrow and could only be covered by walking, so walk we did. We walked up to an old church, saw a beautiful fresco painting on the side of a building, retraced our steps somewhat and went down another street. One junction had a funicular that went up a steep slope to a restaurant.





There were shops all along the streets that reminded me of what I think an old medieval city would look like. Anyway, my point is that it was cute!

We then went to the Citadel, an old fort, and saw a Canadian Army marching band and guard regiment marching in for the Canada Day festivities.





Moving right along, we went to the oldest hotel in Quebec for a tour. Our tour guide was a cute little “chambermaid”

who took us around the 620-room hotel, giving us all its history and pointing out all the historical spots and idiosyncrasies, such as the third floor of the hotel. When a major addition was done, the third floor didn’t line up. The new addition was about five feet lower than the original third floor so there is a short section of stairs where the two different third floors join. That had to be a real “awsh-t”! We then returned to the park and prepared for tomorrow’s breakfast.

Wednesday dawned bright and sunny…a beautiful day! We loaded the car with breakfast equipment and supplies and drove to the central meeting room. We then set up for a “Breakfast-in-a-Bag” omelet breakfast. Simply described, this is where guests crack eggs into ziplock freezer bags, add condiments of their choice and cook the sealed bags in boiling water until done. The result is an omelet that is ceremoniously dumped out onto a paper plate for them to add salsa and sour cream and enjoy. We cooked up 42 omelets in less than a half an hour. We were strokin’! It really went well and was a great success. After cleaning up, we went back to the rig where I took a shower before leaving on a Coast Tour at 12:30.

This time, we all loaded up into one bus and headed north. Our first stop was a beautiful waterfall

followed by a tour of a copper gallery and factory. The owner demonstrated how copper art is made by making a flower out of a small square of copper in less than five minutes. We then got a tour of the gallery and visited the showroom. Claudia bought a small copper crab (her zodiac sign) necklace. We saw a beautiful two-fish art display but, at $350, we passed.

After the copper gallery, we moved on and visited a famous church. It was totally spectacular.

First of all, it was huge. Second of all, it was beautiful. The inside was super-spacious. It went on and on. The fresco’s on the ceiling were beautiful as was the stained glass.

I’m not a big church fan, but this one was one I would go back and see again. We toured the obligatory shops around the square surrounding the church, passing on all the tacky tee shirts and religious objects for sale and settled on a vanilla soft-serve ice cream cone at a small deli. Claudia didn’t want one and stayed outside. My server was a newbie…her first day on the job, and in training. Mine was her first soft-serve cone. The manager was showing her how to do it but apparently forgot to show her how to turn the machine off. The result was that I got an extra-large, double-huge cone for $2.85…my lucky day! I was smiling big-time as I walked out the door.

Claudia’s first question was to ask how much I had paid for the cone. When I told her, she suddenly decided that the cone was far too big for me to eat by myself and proceeded to snatch it from me. It was reluctantly returned to me a minute later. I noted (quietly) that it was severely lighter in weight now than when she first grabbed it from me. I remembered that it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. She went into a store. I stayed outside and finished the cone. I was severely chastised for finishing the cone without saving the last few bites for her. My (faulty) reasoning was that I had to do it. I couldn’t enter the store to help her shop with the cone in my hand because there was a “No food allowed” sign posted at the door. My timing was off as I just finished the cone when she walked out so I didn’t have a chance to help her shop. Let’s just say I heard about it!

Our next stop was a tour of the Island D’orleans that sits in the Saint Lawrence River northeast of the city. What a cute spot. There were several homes with their French-influenced upturned roofs and lots of strawberry farms and vineyards.

We stopped at a fruit stand and bought a strawberry pie to finish off tonight’s dinner. (We split it with Barry and Terry) The time was approaching 5:30 and we reluctantly headed for home to prepare the rig for tomorrow’s journey to Metis-sur-Mer on the Gaspé peninsula.