Back South with Family

We left Cleveland on Thursday morning and headed South - easier said than done in Cleveland!  We did notget  to the interstate until after noon!  It was probably “Giselle’s” fault - or maybe the navigator did not input the directions correctly...  So we drove without rain until we decided to find a motel and crash for the night.  Yes!  We did not search for a campground - you can tell when a trip is in its last days: a nice bed with a bathroom and free breakfast sounds exciting!  We stopped in Berea Kentucky after seeing the gorgeous blue grass pastures.   Someday we will get to Churchill Downs - but I hate wearing hats so it cannot be for the Derby!

Friday had us destined for Roswell GA to see our son and his family and their new house.   Roswell certainly is not what it was in the 70s when we moved to Atlanta.  Kevin’s new digs are in a wonderful neighborhood just off the main drag but amazingly secluded with big lots and lovely mature landscaping.  Hilda did great maneuvering in their driveway.  After a good dinner at a local Greek restaurant, we chilled by their pool.  We are trying to figure out why both of our kids have swimming pools and we do not...  

Saturday we drove through Atlanta (always an adventure) and on to Macon where our older grandchildren live.  Last stop on our 2018 odyssey!!!  All is well in Macon and we enjoyed a great dinner at Jimmy Shaw’s seafood restaurant.  You know they have secret recipes when a Yankee like me orders fried catfish!!!  Good time to catch up on all the millenials in our family are doing.  

And finally our trip comes to an end.  It was not quite six full weeks and we covered a little more than 6000 miles.  Hilda looks good and we look like the road food agreed with us...  Here’s to planning our next adventure!

Cleveland

Another rainy driving day on our way to visit friends outside Cleveland.  We found a campsite at Punderson State Park, about 12 miles from our friends’ house.  What a wonderful park!  There was a lake, tennis courts, hiking trails, etc. but as our recent luck has been:  RAIN and no time to take advantage of these amenities.  Along the route to the park we saw some interesting traffic: 

I was not able to secretly photograph the best one -  a tiny carriage with two little boys being pulled by a galloping Shetland pony.   A priceless memory.

And speaking of memories, we were driving on Kinsman Road and there it was - Red Raider Riding Stables!  That brings back more memories and years than I can count.  The wooden rails around the rings were still there although they were overgrown with weeds and trees.  Some things are meant to last forever.

Tomorrow we start our two day drive South.  

Chatauqua NY

Shorter drive today to get halfway to our destination in Ohio and it rained about 75% of the driving time.  It seemed during the drive that we were out West again: cornfields after cornfields after cornfields!  Who knew?  Again we were hoping for a kayak adventure on the gorgeous Lake Chatauqua but we are fairweather kayakers - rain keeps us off the water.

There were no kodak moments on the drive but I did get one shot this morning before leaving the Clyde River.  I think of this scene as “standing room only”.

The Finger Lakes

Following our noses with fingers crossed to find a spot in a campground somewhere in the Finger Lakes region of New York - and knowing in August there probably won’t be much available - makes me think that next trip this way will require a bit more planning.  Sunday was another long driving day but we planned to stay two days to rest our sore backsides.  How do long distance drivers sit for long stretches??? We found a campground right on the Clyde River, less than 1/2 hour by kayak to the Erie Canal.

Our campsite faced west so we got a glimpse of the sun setting before it dropped behind the trees.

Seems no matter how hard we tried to escape it, the heat followed us.  The temperatures in this part of New York were “not normal” according to natives...  

This morning it was in the high 80’s when we launched our kayak - had to paddle hard to get a breeze!  There is a nice 90 minute paddle from a launch in the campground.  We saw a doe swim across from one side to the other - ever seen a deer swim?  There were ducks, gulls and blue herons.  There are eagles that nest in the area but we were not lucky enough to see any.    

After kayaking we went to Seneca Falls for lunch (and air conditioning).  There is a wonderful museum there dedicated to the ladies who held their conference in 1848 to demand women’s rights.  Interesting stuff!  And I loved the poster in a shop next door:

It was getting hotter (low 90s) so we looked around for another refuge from the heat:

The AC was working well and the machines were HOT!  I actually came out with more money than I went in with!  Roscoe held his own at the tables.

Heading West to Ohio tomorrow.

Moosehead, Katahdin and Rain

Woke up Saturday after the night rain and saw grim cloudy skies.  We planned to explore a bit and then maybe get the kayak in the water again from a different spot.  We found a fun antique store in Monson - owner wants to sell and travel - anyone interested in buying it?  Did not find anything we could not live without, although some beautiful wooden bowls were tempting.  We then took a drive past Prong Lake where there are AT through hikers hostels as well as trailheads.  

We looked at the map and thought a drive to Mount Katahdin would be fun since we are never going to hike to the top - at least we could say we had been there!  The sweet young woman at the information center told us there were two routes: one on unpaved roads and one on paved and each took two hours.  We decided to do a circle with the unpaved part the first half.  Let us just say we assume she had never taken that unpaved road and we will never take it again!  We have now seen the real back woods of Maine...  It was really good to get back to our campground.

We had a nice leftover steak stirfry for dinner and were enjoying a good fire in the pit when the rain started again.   Rained all night and we left at 9 AM heading for NY through Canada.  

We are staying at a big RV resort tonight and moving towards western NY tomorrow.   A sure sign you have been on the road a while is getting excited that there is a laundry close to the campsite.  🤪

Moosehead Lake

Our Provincial Park stay last night was spoiled by a brief but heavy rain around 3 AM.  Sure did not expect rain, so several items got a bit wet.  And we crossed our fingers that rain and fog would not follow us back to Maine.  The sun did come out and has stayed with us all day.  We arrived at our campground near Moosehead Lake in the early afternoon and hurried to get Hilda settled so we could take the kayak off Ponchus (you remember we named our Honda Pilot “Ponchus”) and put her in the lake!

What a gorgeous day for kayaking!  Last time we were at Moosehead was at least 10 years ago and there were planes practising take offs and landings all day long!  It was much more peaceful today.  Here is a photo of a great spot to view the lake.  Note the red chairs waiting.

After kayaking we took a short drive through town and a couple miles North.  The lake is huge and so there are many miles of waterfront property - lots hidden by trees.  We came across two places that are high on my list for when I win a lottery...

 

This is a pretty special view. 

Maybe this house would be too big...

 Here is my favorite - especially with the long border of day lilies!  And it has that view!

Back to New Brunswick

We hit the road pretty early knowing we would have a pretty long ride before finding a campground.  We took the coastal route west.  Our first discovery was something on my bucket list: a lavender farm!  Granted it was not in Provence, but it is August so that counts.

It was a small place but lovely just the same with a shop filled with lavender products.  

Next we stopped in Tatamagouche for lunch.  With a name like that...  Wonderful lunch: lobster roll for me and a giant bowl of seafood chowder (chowda) for Roscoe.   For dessert we had to stop at the shop where Roscoe  is posing.

I guess we are really spoiled by Lenox’s own Chocolate Springs - this place was not what we hoped for, but the photo is great!

Our campground tonight is a Provincial Park called Mactaquac Park.  The place is huge and even has a golf course!  But we seem to be getting itchy feet and Roscoe is not going to play tomorrow (and let me sleep late...)

Back into the USA tomorrow.

Cabot Trail

We found a much more picturesque Nova Scotia today. After yesterday’s miles through monotonous pine forests we wondered what we had missed.  Turns out the coastline is where you need to be to see some beautiful scenery.  The Cabot Trail covers close to 200 miles of coastline and some gorgeous vistas.  The road  climbs and twists and turns and like all other roads in cold climates has areas under construction!  

We wonder how many houses are just summer homes and how many are occupied year round.  Besides fishing (and lobstering) what do people do for a living?  We also saw many large and small churches, all with similar architecture to St Peter’s where we lunched yesterday. 

 

None of these photos show how the road hugs the sides of cliffs or wiggles like a snake (because I was hiding  my eyes...)

We traveled on an unpaved road to Capstick - the next to last Northernmost village in Cape Breton.  The last is Meat Cove and did not look inviting at all.  The stone wall beside the little red building was as gorgeous as Andy Goldworthy’s at Storm King!

Almost forgot the monument honoring John Cabot (nee Giovanni Caboto) at Four Mile Beach.

Cabot discovered the continent of America in 1497?  Another mystery.

Tomorrow we headback towards Maine.  We had planned on seeing Prince Edward Island, but decided we had seen enough pines and coastlines for now.  Next trip!

Toward the Cabot Trail

We covered a LOT of miles on Monday and found a few quirky places and some gorgeous places and a lot of the same green landscape - plus one gigantic lake.  We traveled mostly inland, thinking we would avoid fog - not a great choice as the landscape appears repetitive (lots of fir and pine trees...) and the fog stayed in New Brunswick.  We hoped to find a seafood lunch at this first stop but missed their being open by a day!

So we pressed on until we realized we were not on much of a commercial route.  We found a lovely shaded spot and raided Hilda’s fridge for a picnic lunch.

 We parked Hilda at a campground in mid-afternoon and continued our search for Kodak Moments.  We should have taken a photo of the ferry we took to Little Narrows across St Patrick’s Channel but the entire operation was less than two minutes!  Why no bridge? Who knows - the ferry runs 24 hours a day!  I think we drove for about 90 minutes and saw occasional glimpses of the lake:  Bras d’Or Lake.  Removing trees for motorists to view the lake does not seem important.  But there is plenty of lake to see eventually!

We eventually found our way to Baddeck and dinner of crab cakes and Digby scallops.  YUM!  I then took my favorite photo so far:

Tomorrow we drive the Cabot Trail.

Bye New Brunswick - Hello Nova Scotia

The fog decided to continue to plague us in New Brunswick until we were about 20 miles from crossing over into Nova Scotia.  It was incredibly thick this morning as we left Rockwood Park.  This is a photo of one of the lakes.

We kept seeing brief glimpses of blue sky and an occasional bright light - really the sun???  When we saw this next sight, we decided it might change our luck...

I had a pretty good run at the one armed bandits.  We had lunch and came outside to an almost sunny day!  The drive to today’s campground was pretty boring - we have seen almost as many fir trees this drive as we saw cornfields last year!  Fog and firs - our motto for this trek so far.

Mother Nature treated us to a lovely sunset tonight.  Red at night, sailors (and campers) delight!

Tomorrow we go to the Cabot Trail.

Fun and Fog

So what can you do when the fog is as thick and deep as snow in a New England blizzard?  We think that St John New Brunswick might be a pretty interesting place.  The campground is in a huge city park: Rockwood.  There are hiking trails, fishing lakes, stables, a restaurant, an arboretum, and miles of beautifully landscaped roads.  Two minutes away from the park  is an industrial zone - odd, but it seems to work.  We set up Hilda and shopped for dinner at a huge supermarket - fresh trout and spinach was the menu.  Then we had a nice campfire and watched the fog come even closer.  Staying dry is impossible!

 This morning we found the City Market and enjoyed seeing the variety of fresh food available.  We should not have had a big breakfast!  So many yummy looking items - I have always loved strolling through markets even when I buy nothing!

From the market we found our way to the Reversing Falls, a phenomenon only found in St John.  The Bay of Fundy and the Saint John River come together and reverse course once a day.  We watched for almost an hour before high tide and saw changes but not the reversal.  Is it another myth like the view from Cadillac Mountain?  Someone has seen it...

   

The fog remained almost all day so we found a movie (Mama Mia All Over Again) and then took a walk through the Public Garden across from the Parkand through   the neighborhood.  

The fog briefly allowed the sun to shine - one hour - and then it was back to fog blankets again.

Tomorrow we are driving North - along the coastline so we are not expecting any vistas!