End of the road

Today's ride was an uneventful, 350 miles through intermittent rain, the big city of Montreal and the pretty countryside along the St. Lawrence and along Rte 37 from Ogdensburg to Watertown, where we sent Cherif (Skip) on his way to Michigan.

So there you have it, home again after 2600 miles, 4 states and 5 provinces in Canada. We saw beautiful mountains from The Adirondacks to the Green to the White and finally the end of the Appalachians. Water was plentiful as well from the mountain streams and lakes to the powerful ocean and all of the bays and coves along it's shore. We loved the Harbors and wharfs and the great food and took part in festivals and celebrations along the way and marveled at the blessing to be able to witness it all.

It's good to be home and sad to say so long to my good friends, unlikely trio that we are, the retired lawyer from Michigan, the crazy gal from Canada and I but we are the best of compliment to each other as we take on these adventures and ride our beloved Harleys down the roads. We have now been on this trip as well as cross country to California together and to New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville and Cleveland and by Charlene's count 32 states in all. I hope there are more adventures in store for us down the road.

So thanks for traveling along. It is always fun to share all of this and to hear that you enjoy and appreciate it. So long until next year and whatever adventure awaits.

On the way home, via a northern route

We did decide that we would head home today rather than spend another day in Moncton and risk bad weather. We were rewarded nicely for our decision too with a beautiful, mostly clear and just warm enough day.

We had a couple of options for route and we chose to head north through New Brunswick to Quebec and to Riviere du Loop (Cherif tells me it means River of the wolf) on the St. Lawrence. This took us through the eastern Appalachian range and specifically the Notre Dame and Long range Mountains. We rode along the St. Lawrence until Rte 20 turned south at Quebec City.

We had many beautiful mountain views today.

...and a lot of great river and lakes to look at.

We shared the road with a lot of campers and...

...lots of motorcycles

                                          And finally we had great views of the St Lawrence

Patti's job is to take pictures........over my shoulder, and sometimes she takes them OF my shoulder.





So here we are hunkered down for the night after a 500 mile day, tired but happy to have had another great day. With luck, we'll sleep in our own bed tomorrow night (after visiting Everett and Ellie of course ;), Molly and matt too of course)

PEI to New Brunswick

Another absolutely gorgeous day!!!

We left the hotel and headed to the northern coast of Prince Edward Island on the Gulf of St Lawrence. Along the coast are several harbors that are home to some of the lobster fleet which is idle due to a dispute over the importing of lobster from the US. It's odd to visit and see the boats and lobster traps idle. We also passed through a great provincial park that had a pristine beachfront and a killer view. We passed through Cavendish which is the home of Avonlea and Green Gables, inspiration for the tales of Anne of Green Gables.

After lunch and another visit to Cows Ice Cream, we headed to New Brunswick and Moncton. Now, to get there, you need to go over a bridge, a long bridge, 8 miles long, and I don't like bridges, but you do what you have to do! We arrived in Moncton late afternoon after a tour along the northeastern coast of New Brunswick. Had a nice dinner and listened to a little music in the street.

Lobster traps lay idle while the fishermen strike-lucky lobsters!

The northern coast of PEI is beautiful

                                            There are lots of different kinds of lighthouses

Charlene and Cherif following me across the bridge (my cycling friends will find humor in this)

Patti thinks it's funny that I hold on tight going across the bridge, so she took a picture.......

Charlene





So, after looking at the schedule for the rally (nothing happens until Friday night) and looking at weather, we are contemplating heading west towards home tomorrow, we'll keep you posted.

Onto every ride some rain must fall...

We left Halifax this morning in a little drizzle that soon became a downpour that lasted just long enough to get all of our bikes really crappy. Really though, we have been fortunate to have stayed dry for 8 days.

Our ride took us through the center part of Nova Scotia and to the ferry to Prince Edward Island across the Northumberland Strait. While the ride up was through some beautiful country, there wasn't much to see except wilderness and some farms around Truro where we had breakfast. The ferry takes about 75 minutes and comes into the southeast of PEI at Woods Island. As you approach land here you can tell right away that you are in for some beautiful scenery. Our first stop was at the Point Prim Lighthouse where the sign on the road promised a chowder house as well. The lighthouse was really cool, the chowder house was unfortunately closed.

One of the things that we have had to pay particular attention to is gas. While we are used to plentiful gas stations, not so much here and we have learned to not allow our tanks to get too low so after the lighthouse we went in search of a fill up. That led to a recommendation for a place to have lunch-a place called The Chuckwagon Farm Market. The special burger of the week was a " Hound Dog" which was a burger slathered with peanut butter. I tried it and don't particularly recommend it!

The ride along the coast to Charlottetown was beautiful and invites further exploration of the Island this morning before we head to our next destination, Moncton, New Brunswick and a couple of days at the Canadian Harley Owners Annual Rally.

After riding in the rain, the ferry was a welcome sight. There were quite a few other motorcycles boarding.

The ferry runs every hour and a half, you pass the sister ship mid cruise.

Cherif and Patti enjoying the cruise from the upper deck. Charlene found someone she knew on the boat and talked to them the whole trip.

This beautiful lighthouse greeted us as we arrived on PEI.

The lighthouse at Point Prim on the southern shore of Prince Edward Island.

Our stop for lunch. This place also had a tractor race track and a corn maze.

We have Ben and Jerry's ice cream, The Canadians have Cows. I can attest that Cows is much better. It is made at this factory in Charlottetown and found throughout the Maritimes.

Have to make sure that we keep the bikes clean! The hotel was good enough to provide a hose and some old towels to the project.

So this morning it is off to some coastal exploring both here and across the bridge in New Brunswick before we go to our next stop. (I am posting this morning because the internet went out last night)

A fun day in Halifax

When we scheduled a day in Halifax little did we know that it would have to bonus of being a holiday here in Canada. Apparently, the first Monday  in August is a national holiday but it is different depending on which Province you are in. Charlene, who is from Ontario, kept talking about it being "Civic Day" but when we went to the waterfront, we found out that in Nova Scotia it is "Natal Day" which honors the national military. So there were a lot of military here, especially sailors as there were at least 4 Naval ships in the harbor. On top of that, it is "Buskers Week" here. Now I had no clue what that was but it seems that to busker is to street perform. So, we were treated to a lot of different street performances from mimes to comedians and jugglers and even a contortionist that managed somehow to stuff herself completely into an 18x18 inch box!

One of the many "buskers" performing in the streets of the harbor.











The waterfront here is quite nice and has a nice mix of a little bit of everything from nice restaurants and shops to some pretty impressive boats and a lot of older buildings with residences on the upper floors. High above the harbor is the old Citadel and the "town clock". We also visited St,. Paul's Anglican Church which dates back to 1749 and is the oldest protestant church in Canada. This church held most of the memorial services for the victims of the Titanic disaster whose bodies were brought to Halifax and are buried here. It is a beautiful building that as been well preserved over the centuries.

St Paul's Church

The "town clock" sits above the harbor and below the Citadel

The view from the Citadel shows why it was placed high above the harbor for the protection of the city. Note the lighthouse on the right side of the island in the harbor.

One of the many boats in the harbor is this novel tug. It really does work!







After a day of restful fun on the Harbor we enjoyed a nice anniversary dinner in one of the seaside restaurants. Tomorrow we hit the road again, this time with Patti as a passenger.

Another fun, foggy day....

I guess that it is quite normal in this part of the world to experience fog on a daily basis. In fact it is now the exception rather than the rule for this trip. The first part of our trip this morning ended up being on the main roads because the fog made it seem futile to head down to see the coastline.

Our first real stop of the day, other than to gas up was in the coastal town of Lunenburg. The Town of Lunenburg, was formally established in 1753 as the first British Colonial settlement in Nova Scotia outside of Halifax. These early settlers were from various parts of Germany, Switzerland, and the Montbeliard region of France. It's a neat little village of old multi colored buildings built into steep hills above the harbor. Today it is a combination of a tourist destination with dozens of shops and resturaunts, ship building fishing and lobstering and  a port for sailing ships.

This is one of the streets that goes up from the harbor. These old, multi colored buildings are found throughout the town.

One of the masted ships that was in the port today was the replica of the "Amistadt" a slave ship that was over taken by slaves of of cuba in 1835. It was the focus of a Steven Spielburg movie of the same name.

The other ship in port is a replica of the "Bounty" of "The Mutiny on the Bounty" fame.

Like many of these coastal fishing towns, Lunenburg has a memorial to the souls lost at sea. Sadly, this one had a lot of names.

What would a tourist town be without tours on a horse drawn carriage? This picture also gives you a loo at how steep the hills are that the town is built on.

We had a great lunch and were soon on our way to our other must-see destination for today, Peggy's Cove and the Peggy's Point lighthouse. Peggy's Cove is one of the most visited destinations in Nova Scotia. Peggy's Cove sits on St. Margaret's Bay and on the south shore of Nova Scotia. It was established as a fishing village in 1766. The first lighthouse was built here in 1868 in a small wooden building with a kerosene fired beacon on the roof. It was replaced in 1914 by the current octagonal lighthouse that still operates there today.

There is a real, old fashioned, British style phone booth here!

Peggy's Cove remains a vibrant fishing village to this day.

The video gives you a sense of the visitors that come to Peggy's Cove and what the shorline is like here. (and a little musical accomaniment.)

After Peggy's Cove, it was a short ride to our home for the next 2 days, Halifax. Patti has flown in to join us for the rest of the trip, and of course, to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary tomorrow.

Across The Bay of Fundy to Nova Scotia

It looked pretty bleak when I first looked out the window this morning, fog so thick that I couldn't see the end of the parking lot. The weather gods were on our side again though because by 10 o'clock, the skies had cleared and we were blessed with another near perfect day.

The front of the ferry opens to let the vehicles in

Today was sailing day as we had booked passage on the ferry across the Bay of Fundy to Nova Scotia and a whole new round of discovery. It is a 45 mile crossing that takes 3 hours on the ferry, The Acadia Princess. The terminal was quite a busy place with a lot of motorcycles, cars and walk on passengers. After we boarded we found our way to the 3rd upper deck where we had nice seating in a lounge and access to the outside decks to do some whale watching. Unfortunately, we didn't see any but we did spot a few schools of porpoises.

There were a lot of motorcyclists making the crossing from St. John to Nova Scotia today

School of porpoise

We had a couple of porpoise sightings during the crossing.

The coastal view of Nova Scotia is impressive

The view as we approached Nova Scotia was quite beautiful. I had heard how it had these great rock faces and was not disappointed.

Gilbert's Cove Lighthouse

The "light" in the lighthouse

After we got off the ship it was off on another coastal ride to the south and Yarmouth. One of the features of Nova Scotia that we all want to check out os the  lighthouses. It was not long into the trip today that we came upon the Gilbert's Cove Lighthouse, which overlooks St. Mary's bay and was built in 1904. Unlike the lighthouses that we see in movies, both that we have seen so far have been just small houses with a 2 or 3  story tower that houses the lamp. This house had a fixed red kerosene fed lamp that was 4 feet above high water and could be seen from 7 miles out. The light was maintained until 1965 by two generations of the Melanson family when it was converted to an untended electric lamp. It's neat to see how this family lived in the small house (there were 5 children) and to climb up the narrow stairway to the light.

The ride to Yarmouth took us along the coast and through several coastal towns. Since there is no evident manufacturing or commerce, I always wonder how the people who live in these towns make their living. One of the more remarkable things that we noticed are that several of these communities had these huge churches, almost as if they built them in competition with each other.

We got to Yarmouth just in time for dinner. Charlene was off to visit relatives and Cherif (Skip) and I found a nice waterfront restaurant for dinner. It will be an early start tomorrow as we have many miles of exploring ahead of us.