Epic Adventure 2: Carved out (Part 5 of 6)

(This is a continuation of a series of posts on our second long distance trip, see the first post if you want to start at the beginning.)

With another dream stop on the way home and limited time, we pulled out of Prince Edward Island the next morning. We began to retrace our steps back to the Maine border. As we crossed New Brunswick, we stopped off at St. Johns again now that it was clear and were able to take in Reversing Falls. It's an interesting site and there's plenty of rapids and whirlpools. We went to a little park on the north side of the Reversing Falls Bridge. It's a nice area and there are 3 islands in the middle of the river upstream. Unfortunately, there's a giant paper mill on the opposite bank that kills the natural beauty of the area.

We headed back on the road and made the border crossing later than anticipated but without any issues. Back in the US we made a detour to St. Croix Island International Historic Site. The site is maintained by both Canada and the US as the actual island sits in the middle of the river on the border. You would need a boat to access it but on the U.S. side there is a visitors center. While it was closed when we were there, they have a self-guided tour with character sculptures that is quite good. It tells the story of how the French landed and began to build a settlement there. One of the first French settlements. A harsh winter killed about half of the men and while they did make some friends with local tribes, they eventually packed up and moved on to start another settlement that is now Port Royal, Nova Scotia.

After the brief stop we headed south winding through two-lane highways until we reached the coast. We ended up on US1 and stopped in Machias where we grabbed some dinner. We happened into town as the sun was setting and lots of folks were milling around. As we climbed back into the car to try to reach our campground destination, we heard pop, pop, pop. It dawned on us that we had just arrived back in the U.S. on the 4th of July after spending Canada Day in Canada. We had seen lots of little New England towns with their American Flags decorating the towns on the way north and thought about how nice it was to see the flag everywhere you looked. But it hadn't settled in that we would be returning on the 4th of July. The kids watched the fireworks out the window as I drove south trying to get to our destination for the evening.

Our destination was the new campground on the Schoodic Peninsula of Acadia National Park. We pulled in late and found our reservation information on the bulletin board. We found our site and proceeded to setup the minimal essentials to get everyone to bed. It had been a long day of driving from PEI to Acadia, about 360 miles. As I was getting stuff setup a couple of park rangers pulled up to check on us. They were the friendliest rangers I've ever run into. They asked if we needed any help setting up since it was so late and told us to swing by the office in the morning and they would give us some keys to the best spots to visit and how to get around since there was apparently a lot of road construction going on around Bar Harbor. We laid our heads down for some much needed rest with the anticipation bubbling inside to see what Acadia had to offer the next day (well at least my excitement was bubbling!).

The next morning we had breakfast and then headed over to the office. We picked up Jr. Ranger books for the kids which is a must at any park. I strongly recommend the Jr. Ranger program. It's free and it really gets the kids deeper into the history and science of the parks. After getting the low down on the constructions and hints on what to check out, we disconnected from the camper and climbed in the car to explore the Schoodic Peninsula. Schoodic is about 45mins north of the main part of the park, Mt. Desert Island. As such it's quieter and the campground is super nice since it is only a couple years old. The campground is very wooded and secluded with lots of trees between sites. There are no showers at any campgrounds in Acadia but Schoodic has nice restrooms and electricity and water hookups for campers. The Schoodic Peninsula has a loop road that you can drive around and eventually wind your way out to the point. the views are amazing. the rocks are incredible and while we were out there at the point the crab/lobster boats were pulling in pots not more than 100 yards offshore.


After a wonderful morning on Schoodic, we headed down to Mt. Desert Island. This is the main area of Acadia National Park. Scientists believe that diversity in landscapes were caused by a glacier carving it out, moving and depositing rocks and boulders from further inland. Thanks to the rangers we were able to by pass traffic and construction and move along fairly easy to the loop road. We enjoyed all the stops along the loop. Jordan Pond is simply gorgeous though this was busy season and the wait to get into the Jordan Pond House (at 2pm) was almost an hour. We drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain and had a great time. We ran into a NASA volunteer who had his telescope setup to view the sun. The kids really enjoyed looking through it with it's special filter and learning about what they were seeing. It was an incredibly clear day and you could see for miles from the top of Cadillac Mountain. Back down off the mountain,we left the park and wound our way to see some more of the coast and the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse. The kids did complete their Jr Ranger program and got their badges. Over all it was an incredible day. I want to go back and spend some time doing hiking and fishing. Maine in the summertime is a wonderful experience.

That night we slept at the campsite and I was a little sad that we would be leaving the next day for the long trek home.

The adventure continues with Epic Adventure 2: The Sun Sets.

Epic Adventure 2: The Land of Kindred Spirits (Part 4 of 6)

(This is a continuation of a series of posts on our second long distance trip, see the first post if you want to start at the beginning.)

Prince Edward Island was our primary destination for this trip. After almost 2000 miles, I found myself approaching the bridge. PEI sits in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and is separated from the mainland by the Northumberland Strait. There are 2 ways to get a camper onto PEI. You can go through Nova Scotia and take the ferry which takes about 75 mins to cross. Or you can take the Confederation Bridge from New Brunswick across. The Confederation Bridge is about 8 miles long and is the longest bridge over ice-covered water in the world. It takes about 12 minutes to drive across the bridge. It's quite a marvel to be driving over that much water for that amount of time. The bridge replaced an old ice ferry at that location and was opened in 1997.  It is a toll bridge but you only pay to get off the island; there's no toll to get on the island. The base rate was about 50 CAD + 8 CAD per additional axle. It's a bit cheaper than the ferry crossing and definitely faster.  (Crossing the Confederation Bridge)

After crossing the bridge, we wound our way across the island to the northern shore. We were headed for Cavendish. The area where Lucy Maud Montgomery lived and that became the setting for  Anne of Green Gables. We drove to Prince Edward Island National Park and setup camp at the Cavendish Campground. The campground at Cavendish is rather large and seemed to be busy while we were there. It's very wooded though (at least in the B section where we were). Two downsides to the campsite we soon discovered. First was the time of the year and the fact that (like other beach areas in the south we've visited) there are a ton more mosquitoes inland. On the beach with the wind they're not bad, but bug spray was a must. The second was the nice sign they ranger had put up behind our site warning of the poison ivy. The woods right behind our site were covered in it. It didn't really bother us since the kids are old enough to understand and stay on the road's trails, but you might have to keep your eye on younger ones. There are some camping spots closer to the beach which are mostly for tents/popups with no services. They do have an amazing view though. We wandered on the beach at night and watched the sunset. It was really nice and the sand is red at Cavendish. It's a unique sight to see a long red beach. After we setup camp, we went to sleep anticipating a lot of adventure the next day.

In the morning we woke up and headed for Green Gables. The Green Gables Heritage Place is located in PEI National Park at Cavendish. It's down the road from the campground and surrounded by a golf course. This house is the inspiration for Lucy Maud Montgomery's 1908 novel and actually belonged to her aunt and uncle. The house and grounds are well kept and staffed with knowledgeable folks. They do walking tours and you may even see Anne and her kindred spirit, Diana. After many photos and walking in the Haunted Woods, we left Green Gables and drove down the road to Avonlea Village. This is a period town area with shops and restaurants built to match what Cavendish looked like during Montgomery's time. It's a great place for lunch. We had some amazing Grilled Cheese sandwiches at Moo Moo Grilled Cheese, which locally sources all of their ingredients from the island. I had a Cheezy Mac and Pulled Pork sandwich (which is cheddar, mac and cheese, pulled pork and caramelized onions) all from the island. I could probably eat lunch there once a week if it was closer. We also visited the site of the house (no longer standing) where Montgomery grew up.

French River, PEI

Fishing villages dot the landscape along the bays and inlets. We fell in love with French River, a small fishing village on the north side of the New London Bay opposite of Cavendish. As you come into French River there is a field of lupins (which cover the island along the sides of the roads).The lupins were in full bloom in July when we were there and it's quite amazing to see all the flowers covering the whole island. With lighthouse among the dunes and red sand beach that stretched into a red rock shoreline, French River was one of the most beautiful places I've been. It's low key and there was only about 3 people on the beach.

After that we drove around the island some. PEI is a big agricultural community with over 1/3 of the land being farms. Potatoes are the largest crop and export for the island, but they also raise pigs and cattle and grow other crops. Roaming further along the north shore of the island we found teacup rock along an unmarked beach near the entrance to Malpeque Bay.

The next day we packed up camp as we expected to head south on the first leg of the trek home. Before that, we wanted to do a little more exploring of the island. My wife wanted to visit the Anne of Green Gables Museum just outside of French River. This house was where Montgomery was married and lived for a bit after being married and she called it Silver Bush in some of her other novels. They also do carriage rides but we unfortunately didn't have time to do one and they had a tour bus there who had booked out the rides till after lunch.

Next we headed for the south shore of the island and turned northwest at Canoe Cove where we spotted some fields of Canola in full bloom. They looked like a yellow sea waving in the wind.. We drove northwest along the south coast headed for the Confederation Bridge. At Cape Traverse we took a local road down to the beach to get a view of the bridge. The bridge connects New Brunswick to Borden-Carlton which is about 5 mins northwest of Cape Traverse. Cape Traverse was the original ice boat ferry launch. The iceboat would launch from there and cross the Northumberland Straight to New Brunswick. The Ferry had been operated out of there for much of the 1900s until the bridge opened in 1997. We talked with a local man, who'd spent most of his life on the island and learned a lot about the old ferry from him. I could sense a sadness when he talked about it that it was now part of the history of the island and no longer part of the character of the island. While a ferry takes longer to cross, it does give you the opportunity to slow down and enjoy life. You get to meet folks and talk. With the bridge, as much of a modern feat of engineering as it is, you drive across solo. No interactions with anyone. The destination is more important than the journey in these times. I probably spent 30-45 mins standing on the sea wall where the old ferry used to be talking with him. A stranger sharing a culture and way of life I wouldn't get to experience except through his words and memories. (Always take time to talk to the locals, you will learn more than any tourist brochure has to offer.)

I thanked him for his time and we headed on. It was time to leave this beautiful island and begin our journey home. We still had a lot of days and miles and adventures to go. One day we will come back. It's such a wonderful place; a dream land. You can really understand how much Montgomery loved this place and why she wrote about it.

The Trans-Canada Hwy stretched out before us towards St. John as we settled in for a bit of drive time it was going to be a long travel day. Maine, here we come...

The adventure continues with Epic Adventure 2: Carved Out

Epic Adventure 2: Not where we're supposed to be... (Part 3 of 6)

(This is a continuation of a series of posts on our second long distance trip, see the first post if you want to start at the beginning.)

It was the day I was going to meet up with my family after being on the road a week. The plan was that they would fly from Atlanta to Manchester, NH where I would pick them up. I had spent the night at a quiet truck stop halfway between Concord and Manchester. Their flight wasn't expecting to land till after 4pm. I was a bit ahead of schedule due to leaving out Tuesday night instead of waiting till Wednesday morning. But one thing I've learned in life is that things don't always go as planned...

My family was to catch a flight that morning out of Atlanta to Charlotte with a 2.5hr layover. From Charlotte, they would fly to Manchester, NH where I would pick them up. I was in Concord and grabbed an EZPass for the toll roads that we would hit on the way back south while waiting on them (post on the toll situation coming soon). While airports aren't designed for RVs, they are designed for shuttle buses and fortunately the U-haul is about the same height as shuttle buses. So I wasn't worried about clearances inside of an airport. My biggest concern had been about whether I could find a spot in the cell phone lot or if I'd have to wait at a gas station or something off site. Little did I know when I woke up that morning that would be the least of my worries that day. The plane was delayed an hour getting to Atlanta. Once it arrived, my family boarded expecting to still be able to make the connection in Charlotte. Unfortunately, the plane had a flat tire and that takes an hour or more to change. By the time my family got to Charlotte, they landed 10 mins after the connecting flight had taken off. There was only one other connection to Manchester later that day. I had hope that the family could get on it since they only had carry on backpacks and no checked bags. That didn't work out as the flight was oversold and only had 2 seats available. My family needed 3 seats.

After many phone calls and my wife communicating with airline representatives in Charlotte, they were able to get them on a flight to Boston which was only 2 hrs from me. It would take the flight 2 hrs to get to Boston so I had time to make it there. At least the airports in the NE are close together. Once I received the text from my wife that they were seated on the plane departing for Boston, I had to recalculate our trip trajectory. We had booked a campsite that evening in the White Mountains near Mt. Washington at White Birches Campground. I called them to let them know we would not be able to make it due to the flight issues. And that I now had to drive 2 hrs in the opposite direction to get to my family.  Unfortunately, they refused to refund my money for the situation. I can only guess that they must have been so busy they were turning folks away before I called and had no empty sites at all.

I've heard nightmares about navigating Boston. I've never been there so I didn't know what to expect. The only thing I did know, was that most of the routes to the Logan involved tunnels. And you can't take propane tanks or other hazmats into the tunnels. That left me pulled off at a gas staging on my phone looking at a way to route around those to get to Logan. There's one bridge the Chelsea St. Bridge. But to get there you have to wind through surface streets. So i got off the I-93 before the tunnels and routed into the surface streets of Boston. I'm not sure I could find the exact route again, but it involved cobble stone back alleys and many complicated and confusing intersections. A couple of wrong turns due to being in the wrong lane and traffic (did I mention they were landing at 6:30pm?) and I found my way to the bridge. After crossing it came the fun of getting into the airport and finding out which terminal they were at. By the time I got to them, they'd been on the ground for about 30 mins. Clearances in the airport weren't a problem as I'd originally thought. Some large buses roll into Logan and are way taller than my camper. It was great to finally be able to be together again as a family. It was quite the adventure for my daughter's first plane ride too. 

With everyone in the car, we headed north for I-95. First stop was to find some dinner. We stumbled onto Sal's Pizza in Newburryport, MA. The pizza was really good, and we were all hungry from a long day. A few more miles north we crossed back into New Hampshire and pulled into the welcome center to spend the night. We found a quiet spot at the very back of the truck and trailer parking area and bedded down for the night as a family.

The next morning after a breakfast at Dunkin Donuts (they're one very corner in the northeast which made me super happy), we headed north into Maine. Our EZPass came in handy on the I-95 in NH as we cruised through the EZPass lane without having to slow down at all. Once into Maine we split off onto US Rt 1 for a while and wound our way north. Lunch was an incredible portion of Seafood at Ken's Place in Scarborough, ME. The fried clams were amazing! We stopped in Freeport, ME to visit the big L.L.Bean store and continued north.

Just north of Bangor we swapped over to the ME Rt 9. This is a long road to Calais (our targeted border crossing for Canada) with not much on it. There's only 1 gas station/restaurant we passed as we drove for a good 2 hours (~100 mi) on this road. After refueling in Calais and fixing a tail light that was out on the camper, we headed for the border crossing into Canada. It went fairly smooth and only took a few minutes and then we were into New Brunswick, Canada. An hour later we found a hotel in St. Johns. Tomorrow would be the final northbound leg of our journey.

Exploring the bottom of
the Bay of Fundy at Alma, NB

Exploring Hopewell Rocks
at the Bay of Fundy in NB.

We woke up anticipating a stop at the Reversing Rapids in St. John, NB which was only a couple miles from our hotel. Unfortunately, it was extremely foggy that morning and you couldn't see anything. We decided to stop by on our way back through. Our route was going to take us on a scenic drive around part of the Bay of Fundy. We headed for Fundy National Park, Canada is celebrating their 150th Anniversary this year so all the Canadian National Parks are free as part of that celebration this year. We picked up our free National Park Pass at the ranger station in Fundy National Park and drove through the park with some stops at various sites in the park. The road dropped  us out at Alma, NB which is a little tourist/fishing village. By the time we got there, the fog had lifted and the views were amazing. After an expensive seafood lunch and refueling, we drove along the bay taking in the amazing scenery and stopped at Hopewell Rocks. These are some amazing and large rocks carved out of the cliffs on the edge of the bay. During low tide you can walk around them but during high tide the only way to get to them is via boat/kayak. After a fun filled day taking the scenic route, we left the bay late afternoon and headed to the peak destination of our trip.

Prince Edward Island here we come...

The adventure continues: Epic Adventure 2: The Land of the Kindred Spirits