20 August, 2013 We’ve been home for almost a week and it is time for some statistics and final thoughts. First for the stats: We drove 6,535 miles, touching 13 states and 3 Canadian provinces (4 if you count the times we were on the Ontario side of the St. Lawrence River in the 1000 Islands area.) We stayed in campgrounds 33 nights at an average cost of $31.88 per night. This is higher than we normally spend, but everything is more expensive in the northeast US and Canada. We purchased 517 gallons of gas at an average price of $3.928 per gallon. The cheapest gas of the trip was $3.259/gallon in Virginia (although the price of gas here is now at 3.169.) The most expensive was in Nova Scotia at $5.317/gallon (Canadian dollars.) I took ... read more

10 August, 2013 We were out before nine this morning, early for us, but we were eager to get to the Mt. Washington Auto Road. There were bicyclists everywhere as there were two separate bicycle races underway. We could see there were clouds at the top of the mountain, but that is the case 60% of the time. We opted to take the guided tour, one with a professional driver who knows the road and gives interesting bits of information on the way up and down. I knew Kerry would not want to drive this road, which is steep, narrow and winding. And the winds are ferocious. We bought tickets and only had about a 10 minute wait before our guide, Erik, called us to load up. We ride in a van with a special transmission, ... read more

7 August, 2013 After breakfasting together this morning, the four of us loaded into our truck for more sightseeing on beautiful Cape Breton. First stop was in Baddeck’s visitor center for directions to the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site and museum. The museum sits across the road from Baddeck’s harbor (harbour in Canada,) which today happened to be having a regatta. So this corner of Bras d’Or Lake was full of sailboats with colorful sails going in all directions, or so it appeared. The gardens of the Bell museum were beautiful with lots of flowering plants. We were all surprised at the variety of inventions Bell created. His father was creator of visible speech, a way of teaching the deaf to speak. Bell worked with his father in this field, but was also encouraged in ... read more

3 August, 2013 We were up early this morning. I put together a lasagne in the crockpot and off we went to the town of Truro to see the Tidal Bore in the Salmon River. A tidal bore is, to the best of my understanding, when the incoming tide meets the water flowing down a river, it will create a wave, like a curl, and travel up the river until it overcomes the force of the downflowing water. This tidal bore can vary from a ripple to several feet, and the size is affected by lunar phases, tidal variations, and I guess by how much water is coming down the river. According to the printed schedule (and they do print out estimated time of tidal bore) today it was supposed to show up at 11:05 am. ... read more

31 July, 2013 It was foggy yesterday morning, so we weren’t in a big hurry to get going. Bob and Gena came over (all the way from next door) and we ate bacon and blueberry pancakes. The blueberries were from their wild blueberry plants in Florida. Then we headed out for a day of sightseeing on Prince Edward Island. We drove west on Highway 2 to Portage, then took Hwy 12, the North Cape Coastal Drive. We stopped at Northport on the Gulf of St. Lawrence to see the lighthouse there. We spotted a lighthouse and drove over. Unfortunately, it was a fake lighthouse next to the community center, but we got some nice pictures of the harbor, in spite of the fog. We finally spotted the real lighthouse just visible through the fog and got ... read more