Cape Breton III

 Upon our departure from the North Sydney KOA, we left the beaches and mountains and headed for the inland area of Cape Breton. We first headed south to the bucolic town of Iona where perched on a hill, overlooking Bras D’Or Lake sits the Highland Village Museum. It was one of the best living history museums that we had ever attended and it told the story of the Scottish immigrants evicted from their homes during the highland clearances and settlement in Cape Breton. The interpreters were knowledgeable and Annabel asked great questions of them. One interpreter even sat and sang Gaelic work songs with us while working a wool blanket.

After tearing Lisa away from Iona, we took the world’s shortest ferry to return to the town of Baddeck where we grabbed supper at the Bell Buoy Bistro and then attended the Ceilidh at St. Michael’s Parish Hall. We tapped our toe to the fiddle/piano duet of Dawn Beaton and Jason Roach, but Annabel was dancing around the room until she hit her limit and fell asleep on Mom’s lap.

The next morning we took a circuitous route to the town of Judique for their lunchtime Ceilidh which featured two excellent high school musicians. Annabel was dancing up a storm again, which was dangerous with the food being served. We managed to sneak in some bites of fish and chips between tunes.

We found a campsite just off the island of Cape Breton, but headed back to Port Hawkesbury for their Tuesday night Ceilidh which featured a large group of musicians (John and Bill Petterin, Rachel Davis, Darren McMullen and Jason Roach) playing toe-tapping Scottish music. Annabel repeated her freestyle highland dance and managed to stay up for the end of the show.

We are spending the night in Linwood, Nova Scotia and planning to start heading west. Tomorrow should be a Fun-d(a)y. 

Cape Breton II

 After leaving Chetícamp, we dried off in the car as we followed the southern route of the Cabot Trail. We meandered through sparsely populated territory with filtered views of the mountains through the low hanging clouds. Eventually we made our way to the town of Baddeck where we visited the Alexander Graham Bell museum which is filled with not only telephones but equipment and languages invented for teaching and communicating with the deaf and airplanes and speedboats. By modern standards, Alexander Graham Bell would be considered a bit of a kook. Annabel enjoyed finding hidden sheep and completing the scavenger hunt.

We grabbed lunch at the Three Doors Down Diner in Baddeck before making the long road north to Ingonish. We decided to skip the Friday night music in favor of a quiet evening at our campsite by the sea. Instead, we whiled away the evening on a beach where Warren Brook terminates into the Atlantic Ocean. Annabel braved the cool water to swim while Mom and Dad played fiddle music on the beach. We found the campground playground by following the river trail but it was a bit of a disappointment after the massive series of structures at our previous campground.

After chocolate chip pancakes and bacon meat sticks the next morning, we were itching for a hike. We were in luck since our campground was situated across the road from Lake Warren - a beautiful glacial lake with a perimeter path. Annabel walked the entire four mile trail and other than a pair of dropped sunglasses (which were safely retrieved!) the hike went off without a hitch.

Lunch was back at our campsite before we spent the rest of the evening at the same beach we had lounged on the previous day. We all made friends with a local family and Annabel had a great swimming buddy in the afternoon. It was a quiet and relaxing day with almost no driving which was a nice contrast to most of the days of this trip so far. 

It was a bit of a rowdy campground night but we awoke early the next morning anyway and headed to Louisbourg Fortress National Historic Site. The site is a living history museum that recreates the fort as is appeared in 1744. We had lunch with the commoners (where you only get a spoon) and enjoyed talking to the many interpreters around the fort. Annabel enjoyed booing the “voleur” at the public humiliation!

We find ourselves in North Sydney for the evening at the nicest KOA that we’ve ever stayed at…although that isn’t a high bar to clear.

Cape Breton I

 We blasted through the remainder of Nova Scotia the next morning with one refuel stop before finally crossing the bridge to Cape Breton Island. We then decided to follow the coastal route rather than the main drag through the center of the island. This gave us an excellent spot for lunch overlooking the Northumberland Strait with the eastern tip of Prince Edward Island in the distance. After we had satisfied ourselves with the view and our meal, we kept heading north with a quick stop in Judique for the last ten minutes of a Ceilidh. 

After the long road north to Chetícamp, we set up our tent and whiled away the rest of the evening at the campground. Annabel was excited to see that there was a massive playground just a few sites away from us - and that is where we spent the majority of the evening.

The next morning, we awoke late and had savory oatmeal with sardines for breakfast (don’t knock it til you try it…) and we headed into the park to explore. Our first stop was the Skyline Trail (which is probably the required activity here) and Annabel did a great job hiking to the boardwalk view. It is amazing to see the sharp contrast of the mountains that go straight into the sea. 

We had a picnic lunch at MacIntosh Brook before heading to the fishing village of Dingwall which will likely be our northernmost point on this trip. Beyond the great name, it gives an interesting view of the mountains and bays on the north side of Cape Breton Island. 

In the evening we enjoyed Acadian food (Meat Pie!) and music in the village of Chetícamp. Annabel was making friends in the Place de Pecheur where we enjoyed the outdoor concert. We spent a rainy night in the tent and will hopefully have a chance to dry out at some point today as we meander to the other side of the park for the weekend.

Maine & New Brunswick

 We’ve hit the 2024 road trip season and we are heading in the general direction of the Canadian Maritimes. With lawns mowed and a flock of chickens tended to, we completed the monumental task of pulling past our mailbox and heading on a grand adventure. We are still in the 2010 Toyota Prius, but now packed for three with a carseat in the back

We buzzed through Vermont and New Hampshire to first visit our friends Brian and Emily in Yarmouth, Maine where we got to meet their daughter: Elle. Annabel quickly realized that they shared a fondness for all things Anna and Elsa (from Frozen) so we vowed to come back in the morning for another playdate. In the meantime, we needed a place to camp for the night - so on a tip from Brian we headed to Winslow Park and Campground in Freeport, which certainly did not disappoint. The park had it all, beautiful oceanfront sites and a giant playground for Annabel. We explored the shoreline looking for shells and Annabel wanted to find a crab. We didn’t find any skittering around but we found a crab claw that we hung onto.

After a solid night sleep for the three of us (GO ANNABEL!), we headed back to “Camp Deerwester” for a morning of kiddie pools, splash pads and more Anna and Elsa time. We bid farewell to Brian and Elle and grabbed some lunch in Freeport before heading down east (which translates to north in any other part of the country). We struck out for camping around Acadia but found nice accommodations at Cobscook State Park in extreme eastern coastal Maine. The campsite was lovely but the mosquitos were vicious so we ate our dinner quickly and escaped to the safe haven of the tent for another great night of sleep (GO ANNABEL AGAIN!).

In a show of solid timing, we put away the tent just before the rain started the next morning. We had our breakfast in the misty morning fog and grabbed showers before crossing into Canada. Since the weather was less than desirable, we headed to the Huntsman Aquarium in St. Andrew’s By the Sea, New Brunswick. We enjoyed watching the seals, and learned quite a bit about whales and ocean conservation. Annabel could have spent the rest of the day at the starfish and crab touch tanks, although she was concerned about getting pinched by a crab. We also learned that lobsters pee out of their face.  We had lunch at “Herring’s” in downtown St. Andrew’s By the Sea and continued heading east on route one.

We are in Amherst, Nova Scotia for the evening and will be Cape Breton bound tomorrow!

Trek through Québec

It has been years since our last road-trip due to the pandemic and the fact that we had a child in April 2020 (welcome Annabel!), so we dipped our toe in for a quick jaunt into Québec for a tour de animaux. With freshly minted passports in hand we crossed the border and headed to Tim Hortons as our main destination. 

After lunch, we spent the afternoon at the Granby Zoo. It was Annabel's first in person view of megafauna and she was enraptured. The zoo was larger and more encompassing than expected but we did not take advantage of the attached waterpark (why does everything have a waterpark now? they'll be putting them in grocery stores soon!)

In true road-trip fashion, we didn't plan for our overnight accommodations, so we turned the car towards Montréal and after picking up provisions, we found a lovely site in Rougemont. After dinner, we spent the night floating in the pool (with hair tied up) and snoozed in the tent with Annabel playing tent-pong for the night.

Annabel announced that she was awake at 5:00, so we had plenty of time to eat breakfast and pack before heading west to Montréal. We planned to see more animals at the Biodome and despite some tricksy parking signage, we managed to be one of the first groups in. Walking through the different biospheres made us glad that we dressed in layers and Annabel seemed most interested in the underwater creatures (particularly otters and penguins). By the time we headed out, the Biodome was starting to get quite busy with summer camps. We bid Montréal adieu and crossed the Jaques Cartier bridge towards home.

I managed to sneak in one more stop for Tim Horton's doughnuts and we made our obligatory stop at the Fritz-Kaiser fromagerie for Annabel's premier visit. She was not disappointed and managed to stay awake for the long drive down the Alburg tongue and through the Champlain Islands. 

T'was a short trip, but I think we have a great new road-trip buddy!

Home Again

Without much trouble, we made it home with a stop at the Fritz-Kaiser Fromagerie in Noyan, Quebec to stock up on cheese. Lisa was as happy as could be. Our travels across Ontario surely made us appreciate the landscape of Vermont when we returned.

Our route for this trip is below. Until the next trip we are half fast, home at last!

Voyageurs National Park

Driving through Saskatchewan is much like driving through eastern Montana and North Dakota, except there are no towns and they are growing yellow flowers instead of wheat and corn. It was a slog of a drive with one stop for the worst taco salad that Lisa has ever had. I had a passable ham sandwich. Just after crossing into Manitoba, we ducked south into North Dakota and continued east. 

At the end of the day, we arrived just inside the Minnesota border and found a great campsite at Bronson Lake State Park. We managed to have our tent set-up and dinner made in ten minutes which means that we are really on our game at this point in the trip!

The next morning, we drove to the boat launch to see Bronson Lake. It was a fairly uninspiring reservoir so we decided to keep driving east. The landscape through Minnesota was much improved over the previous day since there was a landscape. We saw plenty of deer along the roadside and drove gingerly.

At noon, we had arrived at the Rainy Lake Visitor Center at Voyageurs National Park. Since the park encompasses many lakes and islands, we signed up for the grand tour. The cruise reminded us of the voyage that we took on the St. Lawerence a couple of years back. This landscape was much less developed and not used commercially since the fur trade isn’t what it used to be. We saw many gold mines and plenty of wildlife including deer, bald eaglets, a nesting loon and a squirrel. This is certainly a park worth coming back to with boats.

After disembarking the S.S. Minnow, we grabbed some dinner in International Falls and found a campsite at Hoodoo Point Campground (a private venture) on Vermillion Lake. Other than some drunk fisherman carousing next door, it was an easy night - and they were nothing that ear plugs couldn’t fix.

On our next morning we continued venturing through the forests of northern Minnesota until we finally saw the seemingly everlasting waters of Lake Superior. We followed the shoreline road to the north until arriving at Grand Portage National Monument. It was the main point of trade for the Voyageurs during the fur trading years in Canada. The site featured a recreated trading post with a kitchen and great hall as well as interpreters in period costume. We particularly enjoyed the “Montrealer” canoe which was thirty feet long and made of birchbark.

We decided to continue driving along the northern shore of Lake Superior for the day and we spent the evening at Pukawaska National Park. Unfortunately, the mosquitos were terrible and we spent the last few moments left of the evening reading in the tent.

The mosquitos were still out in the morning so we donned our bug nets and headed to the beach to eat our breakfast. This would be a park to explore later in the season…or perhaps in a less rainy season. We continued our venture east along the northern shore of Lake Superior, impressed at how little development and trace of civilization appears in this part of Ontario. The winters must be horrible up here!

We stopped for breakfast in WaWa - one of the only businesses left in town apparently and continued driving east through Sault St. Marie where we are currently sipping on some root beer floats at the A&W. Eastward ho!

Banff National Park

Upon our arrival in Banff. we were greeted with steep mountains, breathtaking scenery and rain on a day forecasted to be clear. We found a campsite at Protection Mountain and ventured out to see the classic sights of the park. Unfortunately we found a long line for bus shuttles and the prospect of getting no time to explore the areas that we wanted to see. A new plan was needed as we ducked out of line….

We spent the rest of the day waiting out the intermittent rain showers at the continental divide (we technically went to British Columbia by 10 meters or so…) and at our campsite. Lisa made a delicious pile of Mexican slop for dinner.

The next morning we industriously awoke at 3:30AM to explore the southern lakes so that we could avoid the crowds. We packed up our soaking, soggy, wet tent and headed to Moraine Lake - arriving still before sunrise. There were plenty of parking spots available and we walked the shoreline trail, stopping for a quick breakfast under the eave of the lodge’s porch. The light of the sunrise made for a beautiful effect on the aquamarine water and the glacier carved peaks. We meandered around the lake until 6:00AM or so and when we returned to our car the parking lot had filled.

We left to explore Lake Louise. We wandered the shoreline trail, admiring the beautiful scenery and trying to ignore the generic monstrosity of a hotel behind us. By this time, Banff was waking up and we were surrounded by joggers and hikers. The views of the mighty cliffs were stunning.

We spent the rest of the morning driving the Icefields Parkway through the northern part of the National Park. At this point, the crowds dispersed and the park became much more endearing to us. In fact, the scenery along the parkway continued to improve as we drove. We stopped at many of the lookouts and did a few short walks to overlooks, admiring the glaciers, crags and stunningly blue lakes. 

As we began to veer east, leaving Banff National Park, the mountains continued to impress for many miles. The folds in the uplifted rock were evidence of some mixture of geologic forces beyond our fathomability. Eventually, we made our way to the prairie and started driving across the plains of Alberta.

We spent the night at a small campground just inside the Saskatchewan border and are continuing to drive east along the Trans-Canada highway today. It is much like driving across North Dakota but with fewer towns and more Tim Hortons.

Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park

After leaving the bustling metropolis of Townsend, Montana we drove through Helena, one of the least impressive capital cities in the United States and headed north arriving at the eastern entrance to Glacier National Park around mid-day. After stopping at the visitor center for sage hiking advice from one of the rangers, we headed to the Rising Sun Campground where we got the second-to-last available site for the day (the last site had a warning posted that a marmot could chew the wiring on your car so we weren't terribly interested...).

We set up camp and headed for the shores of St. Mary Lake where we picked up the nearest trailhead. With questionable weather, we thought we would do a short hike and doddle at our campsite for the evening. However, the skies cleared as we walked and we ended up hiking for about seven miles to see Virginia Falls on the opposite side of the lake. It was an impressive waterfall along with St. Mary Falls and Baring Falls that we saw along the way. We had mostly unobstructed views of the surrounding mountains as we hiked through the recently burned forest. We returned to our campsite for the evening and munched on quesadillas for dinner.

After arising in the morning, we drove the jaw-dropping Going to the Sun Road which was so much more stunning than our last trip when we drove through the snow and rain. We enjoyed the lack of traffic and stopped to gawk at many of the scenic overlooks. Naturally Lisa was doing all the driving with two hands on the wheel and all eyes squarely focused on the road ahead.

After our Logan Pass venture, we parked the car and hiked to Avalanche Lake where we had more quesadillas for breakfast at the trailhead. It was a well maintained trail through large pine and cedar forests. The lake was at the bottom of a giant glacial cirque with six waterfalls cascading the cliffs. We enjoyed the view, but it was evidently a very popular trail based on the busloads of humans on the beach with us.

Heading back over to the eastern side of the park at mid-day was a bit more busy and we were not able to stop at the Logan Pass visitor center due to lack of parking. Instead, we grabbed a quick lunch at our campsite and headed to Many Glacier, a part of the park accessible from a "road" leading from the town of Babb.

We followed the "road" along Lake Sherburne and parked the car in a pothole before hiking to Swiftcurrent Lake and Lake Josephine. The walk was easy and afforded great views of the peaks surrounding us. On our return trip, we pulled our guitar and mandolin and played tunes at the picnic area. We met a part-time nature photographer that set up his scope to clearly see grizzly bears at a 60x distance. That might still be a little close for Lisa...

We dined that evening at the Two Dog Flats Grill near our campsite and went to bed early (and still in bright daylight until after 10:00) since we had such a busy day.

The next morning, we packed quickly and left Glacier National Park to drive north - dodging cattle that was seemingly fenced into the roadways. We entered Canada and immediately went to Waterton National Park, the Canadian portion of the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. The views of the lakes and mountains were just as stunning as the American side. However, we learned that most of the park was closed for construction including the Redrock Canyon that we hoped to see. Instead we hiked along the shore of Upper Waterton Lake to Bertha Falls. The views were unobstructed due to a large fire that swept the park in 2017 which happened to be the reason for the massive construction within its borders.

Heading north, we made our next stop at "Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump World Heritage Site." Despite the crazy sounding name it was an amazing museum that was set at the site of a cliff that had been used for six thousand years as a place to hunt bison by native people. They would trick the herds into running over the cliff and have enough meat and pelts to sustain themselves through the winter. A cruel trick maybe, but pretty darn clever!

We finally got sick of driving in Calgary where we are spending the night. Tomorrow morning, we will be off to see Banff - one of the prettiest places known to manff.