Hi, All -- As we were heading out of Maine the first week of September, we serendipitously drove into Camden at 4:00 PM Saturday just as this event was beginning. Lucky us! The following is from their web site: Every year on Labor Day weekend thousands of visitors from as far away as Alaska and as near as Bay View Street in Camden gather along the wharfs and parks to explore the ships themselves, learn salty crafts and skills, and swap sea stories and songs in talent shows and concerts that appeal to landlubbers and swabbies alike. Now in its sixteenth year, the Camden Windjammer Festival has become a wildly popular event for tourists as well as locals. The town of Camden is interesting in that a substantial stream runs through the town, mostly alongside or ... read more

Hi, All -- About five days ago Bob and I took a short ferry ride to Tadoussac, the northern side of the opening to Saguenay Fjord, which flows in and out of the St. Lawrence. We spent two nights in that little village and did some whale watching as you can see in the last blog. Then we drove down the northern side of the fjord, around the lake at the end, Lake St. Jean, and came back on the southern side, about 350 miles altogether. The photos that follow are of the fjord, around the lake, and an historic village, Val-Jalbert -- a village and pulp mill built around a waterfall beginning in 1901. In 1927 the mill abruptly closed and everyone was forced to leave. The little village sat for over 40 years, decaying, ... read more

Hi, All -- The first event of this year's trip was a family reunion for Bob and his cousins in Wykoff, NJ. Two days later we drove to Liberty Park in NJ and took a tour boat to see Ellis Island. We could have toured the Statue of Liberty, too, , but we had miserable head colds and didn't have to where-with-all to do both. The Statue of Liberty is on a little island right next to Ellis Island in the New York Harbor with New York City right across the water. As you probaby know, Ellis Island was left to decay for decades until New York State began renovations some years ago. The building off to the side of the Main Building (kind of a mundane name . . . ) has been completed and ... read more

This museum is amazing! Paula Canadian Museum of Civilization From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Established 1856 (1989) Location Gatineau, Quebec Type Human and cultural history Visitor figures 1.3 million per year The Canadian Museum of Civilization is Canada’s national museum of human history and the most popular and most-visited museum in Canada. It is located in Gatineau, Quebec, directly across the Ottawa River from Canada’s Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, Ontario. The Museum’s primary purpose is to collect, study, preserve, and present material objects that illuminate the human history of Canada and the cultural diversity of its people. For the visiting public, the Museum of Civilization is most renowned for its permanent galleries, which explore Canada’s 20,000 years of human history, and for its architecture and stunning riverside setting. ... read more

Well, we're back. Thank goodness the weather is so perfect here at home. Going from snow to hot, humid weather within a day would have been a shock, even more than coming off a great trip. Here are some photos of the Smokey Mountains just this past Saturday and Sunday. We stayed at a campground in the Smokey's just outside of Bryson City, NC for three nights, leaving Sunday afternoon. On Saturday we headed up to Clingman's Dome and ran into snow on the way up. By the time we reached the top (minus the long uphill walk), we ran into almost blizzard conditions -- high winds, ice mixed with the heavy snow, several inches on the ground already. By the next morning Clingman's Dome had around a foot of snow and the road was closed. ... read more