The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic

The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic is one of the favourite stops for people on Arch's bus tour. And, believe it or not, we have never been there - the shoemakers children and all that, I guess. So one rainy afternoon a couple of weeks ago we decided to see what it was all about.

What an amazing place. Full of so many stories about Halifax and how our city has been impacted by its location on the North Atlantic Ocean. It would take many blog posts to tell you all of them so I will do three - one about the museum in general, one about the Halifax Explosion and one about Halifax's participation in the war of 1812.

So for this post let me give you a brief over view of the museum. It is located in the centre of the 2 to 3 km long boardwalk that runs along Halifax's waterfront:

When you enter you are greeted by Merlin, the talking parrot;

Merlin is so famous he even has his own camera on Nova Scotia Webcams

Theodore Tugboat is a Canadian children's television series about a tugboat named Theodore who lives in the Big Harbour with all of his friends. The show, which is no longer made, originated (and was set) in Halifax. It was filmed on a model set using radio controlled tugboats, ships, and machinery. At one time it was shown in 80 countries around the world. If you had small children during its hay day you may remember Big Harbour "the friendliest harbour in the world". It is now on display at the museum.

Most of the Museum focuses on the many wars that impacted Halifax and the people of Nova Scotia. Halifax Harbour is the second largest ice free harbour in the world (Sydney Australia's being the largest) and as such was a valuable resource to various navies in many armed conflicts.

The British founded Halifax in 1749 to counter the French fortified naval base at Louisburg and for 200 years Halifax's history has been shaped by the fact that we have contended with almost continual warfare. First as the British and the French fought to control North America, then through two world wars and on going conflicts around the world. Including the current conflict in the Middle East.

A small part of the museum is devouted to the sinking of the Titanic;

Of greater interest to most visitors to Halifax is the cemetery where the Titanic victims are buried.

There are many models of ships, a complete area telling about the Age of Sail, a naval ship at the dock that you can tour and much, much more. If you are interested in naval history plan to spend at least a day, and maybe two, here. It is a lot to take in.

Next blog post will be about the war of 1812 and the role Halifax played in it.

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A Nova Scotia Summer

It was quite a trip we took this past year. We saw so many interesting things. Met many wonderful people and made lots of new friends. And had a fantastic time.

And we saw so many beautiful places: The Great Smokey Mountains, the amazing beaches on the Gulf of Mexico Coast, the spectacular and endlessly beautiful deserts of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Southern California, the Big Sur Coast, the Oregon Coast, the Rocky Mountains, The spectacular and endless Prairies, the rugged beauty of the Canadian Shield. But the fairest of them all is our home province of Nova Scotia. It seems to have a little bit of everything we saw (except the desert) compacted into a small, user-friendly space.

In this post I am going to give you a general over-view of our Nova Scotia summer and in subsequent ones I will tell you about specific things we did that you may enjoy when you visit.

We entered Nova Scotia on a spectacular summer day and drove through the Cobiquid Pass to Truro to spend a night visiting Arch's family in Truro:

Cobiquid Pass

 before heading south the Atlantic coast:

Peggy's cove in the distance

And The Wayside RV Park:

That is us, second from your left

The view from our window: sunset from the Wayside

The Wayside was (and still is) our home base off and on all summer. This bay is across Peggy's Cove Rd from the campground and we were able to enjoy this view for most of the summer.

When we were not here we spent one month at Graves Island Provincial Park - two weeks as paying guests and two weeks as campground hosts - a job we really enjoyed. We recommended this campground to many people and all of who came loved it. It is hard to get into on weekends and there are limited hook-up sites that book up fast. Nova Scotia Provincial Parks open booking for their campgrounds April 1st of each year. If you are coming to NS and want to stay here I suggest you book as early as possible. We booked our two week site for mid July in early May.

The park is a small island near Chester, NS and you cross a causeway to get to it:

All the hook-up sites and most of the other sites have views of the ocean:

The boats participating in Chester race week. This is a very distant shot.
I asked permission to go on someone else's camp site to take this photo.

The park has a boat launch (great for canoes and kayaks), a small pebble beach (bring beach shoes) and a walking/cycling trail circles the Island. It is also close to the Halifax to Lunenburg trail as well. Lunenburg, Mahone Bay, the Annapolis Valley and Halifax are all within driving distance.

We also spent 6 weeks house sitting for friends who live in our old neighbourhood. This gave us a great chance to have the Adventure Bus serviced, to clean it out and repack, etc. It also reminded us of why we sold our big house - so much work, so little time! The things we really miss from our days in a sticks and bricks house are our great neighbours and the view. This stay gave us an opportunity to enjoy both.

The view from the deck of the home we house-sat

Unfortunately my computer gave up the ghost a couple of weeks ago and I lost many photos from our stay here so no pictures of the neighbours. We are having dinner with some of them next week and will post them then.

And most important of all has been time with our family:

a

A small part of the clan.

I am not going to bore you with a lot of family photos but have to show you this one. It says so much about Nova Scotia:

Jonah, Oliver and a lobster. Two boys fishing, Nova Scotia style

These are two of our great nephews. My sister's grandchildren. There is a neighbourhood wharf and beach in front of her home. Jonah and Oliver spend a lot of time scuba diving and looking for treasure there and caught this lobster one day. They brought it up to the house for a photo-op then returned it to its home on the bottom of the ocean. Lobster season does not start in this area until the end of November and anyway, they do not have a licence to harvest lobster.

Any of you who know Arch know he is much for sitting around and he was worried about what he was going to do all summer. And then, through the magic of Facebook we learned that Ambassatours - a Halifax based company who runs tours for visitors - was looking for tour bus drivers. He applied, got  the job, underwent training to upgrade his licence and learn to drive the double decker antique tour buses:

This bus is a training bus. He actually drives a pink bus

You will notice that they are right hand drive - quite a challenge at first.

So he spent the last two months driving cruise ship visitors around Halifax on a pink hop on hop off tour bus. And having a grand time.

Halifax is an old (for North America) city and the downtown streets are narrow and crowded
 and challenging to drive these big buses through.

He often works very long days as the cruise ships arrive at dawn:

And leave at sunset:

Photo from Nova Scotia Web Cameras

Giving the passengers lots of time to tour Halifax attarctions, or go to Peggy's Cove or Lunenburg, or visit the wineries in the Annapolis Valley, etc

Buses waiting for passengers from the ship

Some days there are so many cruise ships in town that the overflow ships are docked at the container port:

These folks are on such a ship and are waiting for the bus to transport them to the main cruise terminal.

Arch in his uniform. Note the Pebble Beach sweater - folks get a kick out of that

 

This picture is a little blurry but I included it to give all you oldsters a bit of encouragement. The man with Arch in the Scottish kilt, et al is in his late 80s and comes to the port everyday that cruise ships are in town to play the bagpipes to greet the arriving passengers.

 

So to all you 50 and 60 somethings out there planning your retirement be sure to include the possibility of a job of some type. Hanging out around the house will get old very fast.

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Montreal and Home

There is a strong connection between Montreal and Canada's east coast. It is our nearest "big" city and, back in the day, the place to go for shopping, big city holidays, etc. Or maybe that was just our family. Mom grew up in Montreal, my sister Ruth lived in Montreal for 40+ years, we went to university in Montreal and it was always our first night stop when driving between London, Ontario and Nova Scotia. So once we arrived in Montreal we were home - the rest of the drive was simply a trip over familiar roads.

The purpose of our stop in Montreal was to visit with Ruth's family so we planned a family bbq party at the Adventure Bus. Not many pictures I am afraid. I was too busy visiting. But here are a couple:

My niece Rachel and her partner, Michael

Rachel is a lecturer ar LSU in Baton Rouge LA. You may remember that we dropped in on her in Baton Rouge at the beginning of this trip. She took a leave of absence to be with her mom while she was ill and was to head back to Baton Rouge at the end of the month. (Which she did).

From right: nephew Jon's future mother-in-law and super chef, Rivka. Barry, Rivka's husband, brother-in-law, Bill and Arch

We timed our visit to coincide with Rachel's 40th birthday and the next night Bill hosted a dinner party at the local yacht club to celebrate:

My sister Mary and her husband, John (across the table), Barry Bill, Rachel,.
Beside Rachel is her brother Jon and Rivka across from him.

Our nephew, Jon, is engaged to marry Rivka's daughter, Amanda, next May in Nova Scotia. It will be a happy celebration we are all looking forward to. Rivka is generously allowing the aunts to participate in the wedding planning. Additionally, she voluntarily served as the family chef during Ruth's illness, preparing delicious meals and treats we all looked forward to. What a sweetheart she is!!

At this end of the table, Arch, Linda beside him and Al.
They  returned to Montreal from the cottage to attend the dinner and host Mary and John overnight

Jon and Rachel. Rivka made Rachel's "cake" - is is a raw food, vegan key lime pie!!
She is a genius cook.

Jon and Amanda are both working on Phd's at universities in North Carolina. Amanda at Duke and Jon at UNC. We will see them next on our way south in November. I don't think we will see Rachel until next May.

Boats in the marina at the yacht club - Bill's boat is out there somewhere

The next morning we were up and off to our next overnight, the Walmart in Edmundston, New Brunswick.

There is much to see and do in Quebec - if you are visiting for the first time plan to spend two or three days in Montreal (the KOA south has a bus service into the city), at least 2 days in Quebec City (stay across the St Lawrence River in Levis and take the ferry back and forth to visit.). And be sure to drive around the Gaspe Peninsula - a terrific drive that doesn't receive enough attention. The province also has a terrific trail system for hikers and cyclists.

We have done all this before so we were headed straight to Moncton, NB to have some repairs done on the Adventure Bus.

We left Edmundston on a hazy morning for to drive down the beautiful St John River Valley:

The weather cleared quickly as we drove along New Brunswick's seemingly endless section of the Trans Canada Highway.

Beautiful, isn't it? New Brunswick is very hilly (some would say mountiany, so, if you are in a large RV drive through with empty water tanks if possible.) 

Our next planned stop was Woodstock, New Brunswick which is just 10 kms from the USA border crossing and the Walmart at Houlton, ME. The plan was to unhook the car, drive across the border and pick up several cases of wine at the Walmart (we are allowed to import and pay taxes on 40 litres of wine per person for personal consumption.) Then we were going to spend the night at the Woodstock Walmart.

Not a bad spot to Wally-dock

Unfortunately, we weren't able to get as much wine as we wanted (Houlton is not exactly a major metropolis) and when we got back to the Adventure Bus it was very hot out - about 30C - much too hot to spend the night without electricity (i.e. air conditioning). So we decided to drive on to Mactaquac Provincial Park near Fredericton. Not our best idea. We should have realized that something was amiss when we saw a man selling a generator at the side of the road on the way into the park. Then we saw this:

And this:

And then this:

Oh! Oh! This is really not looking good

As it turned out this was storm damage from post tropical storm (aka hurricane) Arthur which blew through the week before. We had no idea the damage was so extensive and it turned out there was a whole area which still had no electrical service and had not yet seen a repair crew. They were not happy campers.

It was getting late (about 5 pm) and we had no idea where to go next so I called our friends Elaine and Rick of  E & R's Travels. They live in Riverview - 170kms away- and were our next stop after Fredericton. I was hoping they could suggest a campground close to where we were where we could spend the night. No such luck. Elaine suggested that we drive straight through to their place instead. We were frustrated, tired and the idea of doing this broke all our rules for RV driving, but after some discussion off we went. We knew that a late evening visit with them and a great RV hook up site on their property would be just the cure for a difficult day.

We spent two nights with Elaine and Rick. The plan had been to get our range oven repaired or replaced at the RV dealership where they both work but, as it turned out the part we needed was obsolete and a new range was $900+ so we decided to let it go for now and seek other solutions. Instead we enjoyed a great visit with Elaine and Rick, (thanks guys) a brief visit with my nephew David and his family who live just a few blocks down the road and then on to Truro for a two day stop at Arch's sisters and then home to St. Margaret's Bay.

The view from our window, Wayside RV Campground, Glen Margaret, NS

And thus we ended a 16,000 km trip around North America from Halifax to the South Padre Island, to San Diego, to Vancouver, and then across Canada on the Trans Canada Highway. Not one breakdown, no crises situations (unless you count the "Car in the Imperial Sand Dunes" episode), just a great time seeing lots of interesting sights and things and meeting lots of great people. The old Adventure Bus did us good as we say in Nova Scotia.

Whats next? Well, summer and fall in Nova Scotia (more blog posts to come) then winter in Florida. After that, who knows.

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The Old Folks go for a Walk

I am so far behind in blog posts I just realized that I missed one. This story should appear before "Traveling with Friends". Oh well!! Here it is now.

While we were visiting with Arch's family in Truro his sister Grace suggested we go for a morning walk in Victoria Park. Located in the heart of Truro this is an amazing spot to discover in an urban setting. It has everything you could ask for in a park:

There is a huge picnic area plus lots of smaller picnic spots tucked away within the park:

There are the usual baseball and soccer fields, tennis courts, etc and of course an outdoor swimming pool:

tucked in behind the trees

And a bandshell for outdoor concerts:

But, for us, the main attraction is the miles of hiking trails through the forest. We chose to take the trail to "the falls" - about a mile or so long. There are two ways to get there - a high trail thats takes you up over a very large hill and the trail we took, along Leeper's (read frog's) Brook.

Along the way there is the option to climb to the higher trail via "Jacob's Ladder"

there is another level to this stairway that you cannot see.

And various spots on the brook have interesting names - the easier to tell someone where you are:

The Witches Cauldron

And at the end:

The Falls

The next morning we went back and decided to take the "high road" to the falls. It as quite a climb but really good exercise.

To go back we had to climb up to the route we took in and, for some reason, the up looked a lot more tricky that the down. Also, it was a very frosty morning and there were a lot of slippery spots on the trail and we thought a hand rail would be useful. So we decided to follow the mid-level trail back.

What we did not know was that this trail ended  - guess where? At the top of Jacobs Ladder!!!

Looking Down

So there we stood. Three old folks (two seventy somethings and an eighty year old) and one very tiny dog. Looking down.

What to do? what to do? Go back to the top of the slippery hill? Or go down the frosty ladder?

We chose the ladder. Arch went first, carrying Dash, Grace's dog, Then Grace, then me. I thought I would stay a bit behind to take a picture but it was too scary, so sorry, no more down photos.

It was a terrifying trip but, needless to say, we made it safely.

And, don't tell Grace's children about this excursion, they will kill her!!!

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Starting Out on Our Big RV Trip

We left our home base in Seabright NS on October 27. After bidding most of the family farewell at family supper the week before my sister Mary and husband, John dropped in that morning for a final good by.

Arch, Mary, John

The we very carefully hooked up the dolly and loaded the car. You may remember last year's disastrous starting out day when the car went over the end of the dolly and then the Adventure Bus would not start. And we spent our first night "on the road" in a garage parking lot. So it was a great relief when the car was loaded and the Adventure Bus started and was ready to go.

We spent two days in Truro NS visiting with Arch's sister and family:

Arch's niece, Linda, brother-in-law, Cyril, sister, Grace, Me and Arch

New to this picture, Arch's niece, Jan who cook us a wonderful supper

and college classmate Janet (Walker) Killawee and her husband Arch.

Janet, Arch and Arch

It was great to see Janet again and catch up and to meet Arch.

Then it was on to Moncton, New Brunswick to stay with RVing friends Elaine and Rick Cochrane of http://e-rstravels.blogspot.com/

in the Adventure Bus in their backyard, with full hook-ups. Very convenient

And to visit with my nephew David and his family:

Here are grand nieces Renee and Emily in their halloween costumes. I "borrowed" this picture from David's Facebook page. We and Rick and Elaine actually left Moncton halloween morning to head to the USA. But that is the subject of my next post.

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