Okay... so i spent a long, long time last night uploading pictures... making this perhaps the single longest blog entry i have ever attempted... a feat beyond all imagination! As i type, i listen to the Cottars and the Barra McNeils to get myself in the mood for recounting memories of down east. I have at last put some of the pics from our vacation up for your viewing pleasure and hope you get a small taste of what our little mini-vacation-blitz of the east coast of our dear country... it was short and sweet - six days in the car with four adults - fortunately we got along well cause that could have potentially been the recipe for a disaster...but we manged(haha, i was going to fix that one - thanks to my defective space bar key, occasionally my usually neat typing skills get messed up and this one made me laugh!) just fine... enjoying a lot of great scenery and laughs whilst whizzing down country lanes and big anonymous highways. Enjoy!
A very common view from the backseat - asphalt and cars... just outside Quebec City
A hitchhiker whom we did not pick up - he would have had to sit on the travel guides and that would never have worked...
Isn't this a bit creepy? Paranoid Quebequers! What are we going to do - steal the squeegee??
They warned us constantly bout moose - and i looked diligently into every lake, swamp and clearing but the moose were scarce - i think they were all on vacation in Florida...
Our oblivious passengers had no idea we were actually driving them to .... Alaska. Yukon Ho!
Carina and I were in charge of driving through New Brunswick and Nova Scotia - we were having some fun goofing off whilst our passengers slept on...
We must be out east! They weren't really very good disappointingly...
Driving onto the Confederation Bridge - Anne, here we come!
Hmmm... are we actually in Alaska? It was pretty chilly when we arrived at our cottage on the sea - we should maybe have brought our parkas. The first night, the temp went down to 3 degrees! So much for shorts!
And you never knew that mermaids were real - they apparently serve hamburgers on PEI!
A lovely little shot of the PEI coastline with a typical island house
They warned us constantly bout moose - and i looked diligently into every lake, swamp and clearing but the moose were scarce - i think they were all on vacation in Florida...
Our oblivious passengers had no idea we were actually driving them to .... Alaska. Yukon Ho!
Carina and I were in charge of driving through New Brunswick and Nova Scotia - we were having some fun goofing off whilst our passengers slept on...
We must be out east! They weren't really very good disappointingly...
Driving onto the Confederation Bridge - Anne, here we come!
Hmmm... are we actually in Alaska? It was pretty chilly when we arrived at our cottage on the sea - we should maybe have brought our parkas. The first night, the temp went down to 3 degrees! So much for shorts!
And you never knew that mermaids were real - they apparently serve hamburgers on PEI!
A lovely little shot of the PEI coastline with a typical island house lost in a sea of waving vegetation.
Recognize this? It was neat to see the house - anyone up for watching the mini-series again?
Hmmm, what has happened to dear Carina? She's turned black and white in the old house - is this what people looked like in the 1900s?
Aaaahhhhh.... how cute - Ronn and Annie-Lynn trying out the local transportation
Hmm, Anne, your braids seem to be askew!
Carina found a new fellow - he's a bit brassy but solid as a rock!
A bowl of lovely fish chowder just waiting to be dug into... it was so good!
Cow's IceCream - a PEI tradition - it was sure yummy even though the weather wasn't really icecream weather - still kinda chilly...
The Maasdam - my mom immigrated to Canada on this boat - well, her predecessor but the same name - that was cool to see - it was in dock at Charlottetown.
My faithful travelling companions, patiently waiting for me once again to take some photos - hey, they wouldn't have had any pics of the trip without Carina and I diligently doing our job!
Lupins - growing wild everywhere out east - hmmm... nope, no lupin seeds in our car, officer...
Recognize this? It was neat to see the house - anyone up for watching the mini-series again?
Hmmm, what has happened to dear Carina? She's turned black and white in the old house - is this what people looked like in the 1900s?
Aaaahhhhh.... how cute - Ronn and Annie-Lynn trying out the local transportation
Hmm, Anne, your braids seem to be askew!
Carina found a new fellow - he's a bit brassy but solid as a rock!
A bowl of lovely fish chowder just waiting to be dug into... it was so good!
Cow's IceCream - a PEI tradition - it was sure yummy even though the weather wasn't really icecream weather - still kinda chilly...
The Maasdam - my mom immigrated to Canada on this boat - well, her predecessor but the same name - that was cool to see - it was in dock at Charlottetown.
My faithful travelling companions, patiently waiting for me once again to take some photos - hey, they wouldn't have had any pics of the trip without Carina and I diligently doing our job!
Lupins - growing wild everywhere out east - hmmm... nope, no lupin seeds in our car, officer... I sat in a ditch with Ronn and enjoyed the views whilst our erstwhile companions took off without us down the road - as you can see from the following photo - they received their justice as they had to wait for a farmer to cross his herd of cows to their pasture.
What would PEI be like without potatoes? Everywhere we went - fields of them!
Rocks, what rocks? We don't have any rocks in our car, officer... nope, not us - hmmm... how did those get there? No idea - must have jumped in when we weren't looking!
We watched the tide come in one evening from atop a cliff at a local church campground - fun times indeed - it was super relaxing.
The incredible dunes on the north-east side of the island - they were super cool and the skies were amazing that day - clouds fascinate me as always!
I like this shot - lots of scope for the imagination - as our heroine Anne would say...
The red, red rocks and cliffs of PEI - we spent the afternoon toodling through a bunch of small villages and just seeing what there was to see - and reading our guidebooks faithfully along the way - we had a collection of about 6 that we used intermittantly, learning little facts along the way and little tidbits of info that we would promptly forget...
Gotta have a flag picture - the PEI lion flying high in the bustling village of Georgetown, hub of the universe!
We went to a ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee) one evening - lots of energetic fiddling and step-dancing and fun! We really enjoyed that!
Ronn's favorite people in the whole universe - they seemed to stop us very inanely and at strange intervals - "i can just go past him...
Settlers anyone? Every evening we played a couple games - here we got a game going on the ferry to Nova Scotia - I think Ronn beat us all in 22.3 minutes!
I took over navigations on Cape Breton Island for a little while - somehow we ended up on a little dirt side road that ended in a quarry - the map did say it was a short cut but neglected to tell us that it was a road normally frequented by SUVs and ATVs... "Lost Mountain Road" should have been a clue, ya think?
We came across Joe's Scarecrow Village - had to stop and pose with the scarecrow guys - i was just glad to get out of the car and stretch my legs and breathe the free air! Do ya like my new fellow?
Ronn found himself two babes - "Princess Diana" and "Queen Elizabeth"... they looked a little funny but you never know where they might pop up...
Our van - abandoned in search of a good photo - made me laugh when i looked back at it - i'm not sure that we needed to be so desparate for a picture of a mountain that isn't going anywhere in a hurry but nevertheless!
A beautiful sunny day on the Cabot Trail - a perfect day to be driving - i kept my eyes peeled for whales to no avail!
Good friends sharing good times on the east coast!
At long last - my moose! You don't know how long this was in coming - i was super excited - hence the very poor quality photo of the only wild moose i have ever seen...
Braving a lobster dinner in Nova Scotia -i wasn't too sure how to attack it - but the waitress gave lots of tips - i will admit to being a little creeped out and being unsure how to attack old Larry but eventually i got under his shell and really enjoyed it!
Our "mom and dad" (just kidding) at dinner - poor Annie-Lynn had to suffer with all the fish suppers that we ate - she doesn't like fish much - she had to eat a lot of chicken...
A close up of Larry - i swear he was looking at me with disgust the whole time, whilst holding onto his lemon for dear life!
An attempt to be artistic - a lobster trap in Neil's Harbour - our one night on Cape Breton - i would have loved to have stayed longer there - it was beautiful....
Heading home again - we left Cape Breton at around 9:30ish and were in Bangor, Maine by 9:30ish that night -a long day of driving -and another long day the following day - we were all pretty sick of driving by the end of the trip - a nearly two hour border crossing didn't lift our spirits either - crazy customs - for no apparent reason!
What would PEI be like without potatoes? Everywhere we went - fields of them!
Rocks, what rocks? We don't have any rocks in our car, officer... nope, not us - hmmm... how did those get there? No idea - must have jumped in when we weren't looking!
We watched the tide come in one evening from atop a cliff at a local church campground - fun times indeed - it was super relaxing.
The incredible dunes on the north-east side of the island - they were super cool and the skies were amazing that day - clouds fascinate me as always!
I like this shot - lots of scope for the imagination - as our heroine Anne would say...
The red, red rocks and cliffs of PEI - we spent the afternoon toodling through a bunch of small villages and just seeing what there was to see - and reading our guidebooks faithfully along the way - we had a collection of about 6 that we used intermittantly, learning little facts along the way and little tidbits of info that we would promptly forget...
Gotta have a flag picture - the PEI lion flying high in the bustling village of Georgetown, hub of the universe!
We went to a ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee) one evening - lots of energetic fiddling and step-dancing and fun! We really enjoyed that!
Ronn's favorite people in the whole universe - they seemed to stop us very inanely and at strange intervals - "i can just go past him...
Settlers anyone? Every evening we played a couple games - here we got a game going on the ferry to Nova Scotia - I think Ronn beat us all in 22.3 minutes!
I took over navigations on Cape Breton Island for a little while - somehow we ended up on a little dirt side road that ended in a quarry - the map did say it was a short cut but neglected to tell us that it was a road normally frequented by SUVs and ATVs... "Lost Mountain Road" should have been a clue, ya think?
We came across Joe's Scarecrow Village - had to stop and pose with the scarecrow guys - i was just glad to get out of the car and stretch my legs and breathe the free air! Do ya like my new fellow?
Ronn found himself two babes - "Princess Diana" and "Queen Elizabeth"... they looked a little funny but you never know where they might pop up...
Our van - abandoned in search of a good photo - made me laugh when i looked back at it - i'm not sure that we needed to be so desparate for a picture of a mountain that isn't going anywhere in a hurry but nevertheless!
A beautiful sunny day on the Cabot Trail - a perfect day to be driving - i kept my eyes peeled for whales to no avail!
Good friends sharing good times on the east coast!
At long last - my moose! You don't know how long this was in coming - i was super excited - hence the very poor quality photo of the only wild moose i have ever seen...
Braving a lobster dinner in Nova Scotia -i wasn't too sure how to attack it - but the waitress gave lots of tips - i will admit to being a little creeped out and being unsure how to attack old Larry but eventually i got under his shell and really enjoyed it!
Our "mom and dad" (just kidding) at dinner - poor Annie-Lynn had to suffer with all the fish suppers that we ate - she doesn't like fish much - she had to eat a lot of chicken...
A close up of Larry - i swear he was looking at me with disgust the whole time, whilst holding onto his lemon for dear life!
An attempt to be artistic - a lobster trap in Neil's Harbour - our one night on Cape Breton - i would have loved to have stayed longer there - it was beautiful....
Heading home again - we left Cape Breton at around 9:30ish and were in Bangor, Maine by 9:30ish that night -a long day of driving -and another long day the following day - we were all pretty sick of driving by the end of the trip - a nearly two hour border crossing didn't lift our spirits either - crazy customs - for no apparent reason! Anyhow... that's it - you made it through if you're reading this - hope you enjoyed the pics - we thoroughly enjoyed our trip and i'd love to go back and spend some more time out there - just soaking things up instead of just getting a little sprinkle for taste!
I daren't pop it open lest i should get a scare...
