Travels with Gunther and Kara

Well…with today’s post our sojourn up here north of the border is coming to an end…

Lest ya be thinkin’ we haven’t had a good time these past two+ months based on my description of the country as a wasteland…it’s really not, well not completely anyway…I mighta been engaging in the slightest amount of hyperbole…we have enjoyed our time here. However…it’s not the US (dun!)…and even the locals who’ve lived on both sides of the border agree with us that once you get outside the big city the standard of living and the ability to find things is lacking compared to south of the border. I guess if we lived up here permanently we would get used to it…but the lack of what we in the US consider basic service choices is pretty stark. We have found nice things to see…and there have been pubs and restaurants that rivaled any we’ve been in anywhere ‘round the world…but the overall number of choices in any particular service…bar, gas station, grocery store, what have you…is much lower and the percentage of the available choices that are less than adequate is much higher than we’re used to. Western Canada out in Alberta, BC, and the Yukon seemed much more US like in both availability and choices…although overall the people up here have been extremely friendly, outgoing, and easy to engage in conversation.

Couple of interesting things we ran across. 

First up…ya know how the left is always harping about how the “rich aren’t paying their fair share” and how there is too much “income inequality” in the US. Turns out…there was a post on the Wall Street Journal…ya know, that bastion of fake news and yellow journalism…that sort of debunks this theory. A large part of this is based on numbers by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development…which ranks the US as least equitable in income among the seven largest developed countries. It does this based on a formula known as the Gini Coefficient…which is 1 if income is universally equal and 0 if one person has 100% of the income. However…they do not consider government distributions in the calculation of this Gini coefficient. Under their numbers…the US has a Gini coefficient of 0.39 or last among it’s peer group. What it doesn’t take into account is Medicare and Medicaid…which distribute $760 Billion a year to the bottom 40% of American households or the 93 other federal redistribution programs which distribute $520 Billion a year to low income households. When these are included as income to poor households in the Gini coefficient…the US rises to 0.32 which puts it right in the middle of it’s peer group. The US also has the most progressive income tax in it’s peer group…the top 10% of earners have 33% of all income but pay 45% of all the income tax…their share of income-related taxes is 1.35 times as large as their share of income. The same group in France pays 1.1 times and the Germans 1.07 times their share of total earnings. What this means is that the bottom 90% of German households pay 77% more income tax than their American counterparts and the French bottom 90% pay nearly double what their American counterparts pay. Even in Sweden…the supposed liberal progressive utopia…top earners pay 5.9% of GDP in taxes while their American counterparts pay 22%. Relative to the share of income they earn…American high earners for all high income brackets is greater than their counterparts in any other country rated by the OECD. In order to make America more like Europe…which is what progressives want…the liberals will need to redefine the American middle class as “rich” and double their taxes. This would make our middle class shoulder an equivalent share of the burden as their European counterparts…which sorta runs contrary to the line the liberals peddle about how grossly unfair US income is distributed and how the rich aren’t paying their fair share.

Now the numbers in that study…while true and correct…the article was put out by conservatives…but come on…facts is facts. While I would not be surprised if some of the particular examples were carefully chosen to highlight the author’s (Phil Gram and John Early) positions…I also know that the “rich aren’t paying their fair share” is a lie…don’t forget that during an election a few years back Mr. Romney stated…and his facts were 100% correct…that 47% of American households paid no net federal income tax…and he was severely scorched by the liberal outrage over that…despite his statement being absolutely correct that little tidbit was lost in the liberal and media condemnation of the statement.

Second up…well, I can’t remember what the other one was right now…we all got CRS ‘round these parts ya know…Can’t Remember S***. It will come back to me though and I’ll write it down this time…it was another interesting story but I just can’t ‘member it right now…I had it when I wrote that Couple of interesting things sentence but it’s a goner now.

Last night…we headed off to the local pub Saltwater’s Lounge…but we couldna find it based on our having looked at the map earlier and we weren’t smart enough to write down either the address or the GPS coordinates…we’ve been forced in many instances up here to use GPS coordinates as the accuracy of street addresses in the map data in both our Garmin dedicated RV GPS and Little Red’s built in GPS has left much to be desired. Both GPSs have tried to direct us on roads that were non-existent…both have tried to take us really screwy ways that make no sense, particularly the RV GPS…and both have had street addresses in the wrong place. No matter though…we learned the first week here to always take coordinates as well as street addresses…but last night in the absence of either we were just looking because we knew where it was on the google map. After failing there…well, actually before failing there…we tried to go to Silly Billy’s Tavern at the local Days Inn…but at 1700 in the afternoon when we looked in the lights were dim, there was no bartender, there were no barstools at the bar, and there were no customers…so we decided that was a lousy place to go. Consequently…we changed our plans and drove over to Campbelton to eat at 1026 again.

We had a beer each and split a couple of appetizers…wild mushroom dip served with deep fried pita sections and then an order of the bacon wrapped scallops. We considered a pizza or the salmon plate but after the pita with the dip didn’t want anything more with bread involved. Then we had a couple of 3 Mousse dessert plates…they were tasty but a lot denser than most mousse we’ve had in the past…on further review we shoulda had the maple cheesecake instead. Oh well.

Friday morning Neil went out early to get some photos of the lighthouse at sunrise…then after breakfast and coffee we headed out for our final Fun Stuff© trip up here…a visit to the Battle of Restigouche Historic Site and a waterfall to the west of Campbelton over on the Quebec side of the river.

The battle marked the end of the French colonial presence in North America…most of this area of the continent was known as New France back then…but there was actually not much of a battle. It was supposedly a naval battle…but (a) it was in the river and not the ocean where your typical naval battle would take place and (b) there wasn’t much of a battle anyway as the French…instead of shooting at the British ships, did the prototypical French thing of scuttling their vessels and surrendering. They would have lost anyway…and the local Acadian population…at least those that hadn’t been deported yet…ran guerrilla type attacks against the British for another year or so past the 1760 battle before it all petered out at the end of the French and Indian War. 

The French flagship was dug up from where it had been buried in the muck some decades back and portions of it adorn the museum…we didn’t get any photos inside the museum but Connie did get a couple of the area where the ship was scuttled and eventually dug up.

Next up…we headed for the waterfall but discovered two issues…so we turned around. First up…it started to rain a bit and nobody really felt like hiking in the drizzle…second Neil wasn’t feeling too well, some sort of stomach upset…so we turned around, went to the grocery store to pick up a few things we’re out of and came home.

We stopped and filled Little Red with gas on the way in and after lunch Neil ran up and got enough diesel in Big Red to comfortably get us to Medway over the weekend…diesel is about  75 cents US more expensive per gallon up here so he didn’t fill up.

We’ll rest and recuperate the rest of today and then head south…well, actually west and then south…in the morning.

On to the photos.

Great Blue Heron down by the water…just standing there waiting for breakfast to swim by.

Looking out toward where the sun would eventually come up.

Almost there…the sun is still below the promontory on the horizon but is lighting up the clouds very nicely.

Zip…the crack of dawn.

Neil can’t decide whether the one above or one of these last 3 is the best shot of the day…he waited until the light rotated ‘round so you can see the lantern in the light.

After he came in and we started with breakfast…he ran out to behind the rig to get this one…after the sun cleared the first line of clouds it provided a beautiful reflection across Chaleur Bay off of the Gulf of St. Lawrence…the bay then narrows at it’s western end and becomes the Restigouche River.

On further review…he likes this last one with the reflection best. 

At the battle historic site…looking out from the back balcony of the museum toward where the “battle” took place. This is on the north side of the Restigouche looking south…so the sea is about 15 miles out of frame to the left. The French vessels were on the right center here and the British ships on the far left. The French were outnumbered by 6 to 5 in ships and outgunned by about 40%…so naturally scuttling and surrendering rather than carrying out the orders of your king and engaging the enemy was the correct thing to do…not. Particularly as the loss of this “battle” led directly to the failure of the French to recapture Quebec City…and hence to the end of the French in North America. That’s some mighty fine fightin’ there Louis…

Interesting things found on the net.

Missed opportunity here.

Ya know…there’s a story behind every warning sign.

I really hope I’m not…

Strangely suspicious circumstances.

There is hope yet.

Hope I’m not related to this guy either.

Cyas.

So…this is the penultimate…(that means next to last) post from Canuckistan.

What’s that you say…we’re supposed to be across this side of the border for awhile longer?

Yup…that was the original plan…but lemme do some ‘splainin’ to ya.

Tis true…we were supposed to be up here until Aug 19…but on our trip today we got to talking. After our bust at the first waterfall of the day…we were headed over to our second waterfall…and Connie sez…I’m ready to go home…this country is just a wasteland. Neil agreed with her…and said…ya’ know…if we’re not having fun anymore here then it is time to go home. They talked about it a bit…nobody asked me or Kara…our ‘pinions don’t matter…but since they’re RVers and plans are by definition done in Jello…they can always just change them.

So what they talked about was that being in Canuckistan is getting old…we been here 2 months now…nothing really major but a whole buncha li’l things. Now there are plenty of nice towns and cities up here…that are pretty much the same as places down in the USA…but once you get out in da boonies a bit…it gets bad a lot quicker than it does in the USA boonies.  For example…grocery stores are pretty much a wasteland…very few of the things we normally buy are available up here in the same form…and while you can find coffee, bread, and pretty much whatever you need…’cept for grits, they just don’t exist up here, nope, never heard of em…the selection and variety just ain’t what we are used to. Second…there’s the pub scene. Just about every pub in ‘Murica has food…but about 3/4 of those up here are drinking establishments only…and that just ain’t our style. I’m not sayin’ they don’t exist…but good ones are few and far between. The good ones are…well…outstanding…but the number of those is pretty slim. Then let’s add in the beer selection at the store…first off it’s god awful expensive…a 12 pack of Rickard’s Red…which is basically the equivalent of Yuengling…is about $25CN or $20US…down in the US we pay about $17 for a 24 pack. Wine’s the same…and let’s just forget about ordering a cocktail in the pub…even the rockgut stuff is $7 to $8 US a drink and they pour in milliliters up here so’s you’re only getting a half of a drink for your money…it takes ordering a double to approximate a US style cocktail and that’s $14 to $16…crazy I tellya.

So we’re tired of bad roads, bad (mostly) food although there have been a few exceptions like the 1026 Bar and Grill over in Campbelton last night which was really outstanding, less than fully satisfactory campgrounds…and most importantly the lack of a smartphone. AT&T plans provide calling and text for us up here…but data is pretty much nonexistent…and you don’t realize how important data is until you’re out on the road and need to look up an address or find a restaurant or whatever and just can’t do it. If you didn’t do it before you left the rig…then it’s not happening.

They talked about what’s left…basically the Gaspe peninsula up in French speaking Quebec…and neither of them was really all that enamored of any of the stuff they were going to do…so they said the heck with it…let’s see if we can change things ‘round a bit. When we got back from today’s drive…which included another bust at Pokesaw Rock that I’ll talk ‘bout in a bit…we called our first destination in Maine to see if we could check in early. We asked for this Saturday…Aug 11…which is when we’re due to leave Dalhousie, the got a cancellation just yesterday for the week on our site so we’re in…except we can’t get there until Sunday…so we made a reservation at…I kid you not…My Brother’s Place Campground in Houlton Maine right across the border. Houlton is about 200 miles from Dalhousie and Medway where we’ll be at Katahdin Shadows Campground right near Katahdin Mountain which is the northern end of the Appalachian Trail for 11 days is only another 60ish miles on Sunday…we’ll go to Mass in Houlton then hit the road for a noonish arrival in Medway.

With that reservation early arrival in place…we checked to see if we could stay in Dalhousie another night…we didn’t think we would be able to but the worst they can do is say no…which they did. So we made the reservation at Houlton, called and cancelled our week in Gaspe and overnight in Roumiski…and all is ready now. We’ll be back in the USA Saturday evening then continue the remainder of the late summer/fall as previously planned.

Last evening…we headed out to Campbelton for dinner…our first stop was at Taps…which according to the Yelp reviews had both food and beers. On arrival…no food…so we ordered a beer and told the bartender we would be heading out for some food after that. About the time we were done…the 3rd or 4th Canuck to come up to the bar and order to carry out to the patio…they each asked us where we were from and we gave them the standard story about being full timer RVers staying in Fort Myers for six months and doing the other six months on the road…and sure enough two more beers that we really didn’t want at that point as we were hungry showed up on his tab…it’s not sociable to refuse free beers…so we wandered out on the patio and talked to him and a couple of his buddies for most of an hour. On the way out…we stopped by the bar and sent him a beer on our tab…then we headed over to the 1026 Bar and Grill which is located in the Days Inn hotel…but it was actually outstanding. We ordered another pint each of Alexander Keith’s Red Amber Ale…which was what we were drinking at Taps. Connie ordered mussels…but they were out so she ordered the smoked salmon plate, and once she had a bite was glad the mussels were out. There was smoked salmon, pickled onions, dill cream cheese, and the largest capers you’ve ever seen along with some toasted bread to spread it all on. Neil tried a bit of her smoked salmon…and actually liked it…he would order smoked salmon again although he doesn’t care for grilled salmon at all. He had some bacon wrapped scallops which were also delicious. After that…they were still a bit hungry so they ordered one order of onion rings…which came with honey as a dip. While neither of them had ever even considered honey on onion rings…it was there so they tried it…and it was really, really good. The sweet goes with the hot and salty of the onion rings and is the perfect sauce for them.

Wednesday morning we were up early and after coffee and waffles…frozen as real ones are too hard for breakfast…we headed out about 0900 for a 4 stop trip of about 1250 miles or so…most south of Dalhousie along the coast. 

First stop was the Jaquet River Gorge overlook…this is actually pronounced Jack just like the name in American English…and while it wasn’t your classical gorge it was pretty scenic.

This is the…Visitor Center I guess you would call it although we were the only ones there…we stood outside the chain across the driveway for awhile trying to decide if it was actually where we were suppose to be or a private residence…finally decided it was OK since there were a dozen or so picnic tables scattered ‘round.

Some shots of the gorge looking from the deck on the back side of the building above.

Connie got a wider angle shot…her camera doesn’t have a very long lens not because Neil won’t buy her one but because she doesn’t want the extra weight of a longer one. Unfortunately…there were some flagpoles in the shot that the parks people rudely put right in front of the scenery…so Neil had to remove them. No…not with an ax but with a piece of software he has named SnapHeal…or Magic People Remover© as he calls it. You can’t tell it…but there used to be three flagpoles and associated flags right in the middle portion of this shot. I dunno how it works…it’s just magic. Seriously…if you take pictures…and need to remove flags, people, picnic tables, unsightly dumpsters or anything like that from them…spend the $50 it takes for this program…but you’ll need a Mac to use it as they don’t write for Windows at Skylum.com. It’s frickin’ magic I tellya.

Next up…we headed to Tetagouche Falls which turned out to be our first bust of the day…it looked like a really good waterfall but at the top where the viewpoint was the trees and shrubs had grown up so much ya just could see almost nuttin. There was supposed to be a path to the bottom…which would have made a good photo from what we could see…but it was farther than Neil wanted to hike down on his own as Connie’s hip told her she wasn’t going down and back up. This is the best shot we could get…believe it or not this is about a 45 or 50 foot drop but this shot is looking almost straight down on top of it. Bummer.

With that done; we headed off for Pabineau Falls…which turned out to be pretty nice.

While Neil crawled around on the rocks and got the shots above…Connie stayed at the top again and took a whole bunch of artsy-fartsy shots…some with the leaves in focus and the waterfall blurred out a bit…and some the other way around. This was our favorite one in the bunch…so Neil did a little post processing on it and we decided it really pops…just about our fave shot of the day.

Our final stop…was at Pokesaw Rock…which is a large flat topped rock about 100 yards off shore and about 60 yards long, 30 wide, and 120 feet or so high. We got there…and the only place to park had a hand drawn sign that said “pay fee at shack”…which we weren’t about to do as it wasn’t much to look at. So we turned around and headed home…having our lunch we bought at the Irving convenience store on the way…a pack of 2 bite cocoanut macaroons, bag of potato chips, small bag of beef jerky, and a Coke original with sugar in it…yeah, it’s not all that healthy but it sure tasted good. After we got home and finished up all the reservation stuff I talked about above…we wandered up and had a scoop of maple walnut ice cream from the campground store…and that was our day.

We’ll have one more Fun Stuff© day here on Friday…tomorrow it’s laundry on the rainy day…then hit the road back to our side of the border.

Cyas.

Monday morning we were up and started getting ready to leave about 0800…we were done and out of the campground by 0915 for our 150 mile trip up NB-11 to Dalhousie NB…where our destination was Inch Arran RV Park right on the water in downtown Dalhousie.

It was a good travel day…and then it was a bad travel day.

The first 10 km or so out of the campground the road was pretty rough…so we just went 35 instead of the legal 50 mph speed…once on NB-11 it was smooth sailing all the way to Dalhousie…good weather, little traffic…and Connie was pretty happy about the way things were going.

On arrival at the campground though…things took a turn for the worse. We backed into our waterfront site 18, hooked up power…and it immediately tripped the breaker. After a half dozen or so tries including bypassing our Progressive Industries power management system…which checks both the pedestal and the rig for a whole series of faults…Neil plugged into the next site over 30 amp plug and it worked fine. So we left it plugged in there and asked the campground what they wanted to do about it. They decided it was a bad breaker, told us to stay plugged into site 19 over night as it was unused, and they would fix it in the morning…Monday was some sort of bank holiday here in Canuckistan. Unfortunately…they wasted an hour of our time before they figured that out. We tried to just change over and go into site 19 since it worked…but the curmudgeon in charge declined to do that as she would have to…her words…jumble the reservations and make 3 phone calls to let people know their site number had changed. Didn’t seem to be that hard to us…just put whoever was supposed to be in 19 in 18 after they fixed it…but I digress.

We headed out to the local pub for brews and dinner…and found out that it was permanently closed. We saw another pub…but it was also closed. We spotted a third…but it was closed as Monday was New Brunswick Day hereabouts. At that point we gave up, picked up a pizza and headed home to eat it and have a beer. Turns out we should probably have done something else as the pizza was barely adequate…but we wanted pizza so we gave it a go…had some leftovers we kept for lunch.

Tuesday morning…the electrician showed up and replaced the breaker…and we plugged back into site 18’s pedestal. Waited the 2 minutes and 15 seconds while our Progressive said everything was OK…then it tried to close the relay to put power to the rig and the breaker tripped again. The electrician checked site 19 that worked…and said that the only reason it worked was because site 19 didn’t have the GFCI connection to the breaker connected…and that the problem was clearly in the rig.

To further investigate…Neil opened all of our circuit breakers except the main incoming breaker and tried again…again the pedestal breaker on 18 tripped immediately…but it clearly ain’t the rig as nothing was connected with the breakers open. I guess there could theoretically be an issue with our cord reel or power cord…but if so then the fault should have been detected by our Progressive EMS.The real problem methinks is that the electrician didn’t want to have to fix it in a drizzle, he had already made $250 just to show up and replace the breaker and wasn’t looking to do any more work.

For those who are mystified by this electrical stuff…GCFII stands for Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter…it’s the kind of outlet that is in bathrooms and kitchens. Turns out that under the Canuckistan electrical code all outside wiring less than 6 feet above the ground has to have them. What the GFCI does is look for any problem in the ground system…in and of itself a ground fault isn’t a problem but if there is any other ground on the circuit then you get arcs and sparks and potentially electrocute yourself…GFCI outlets are required in bathrooms and kitchens due to the proximity of the outlet to water…if there was a fault in the real ground system and the outlet was touched with a wet hand then the person’s body becomes the ground and…as we say in the bidness…bad things happen. We’ve never seen campground pedestals that have GFCI requirements down in the US…but since we were hooked up to 30 amp power at Richibucto with no faults in the rig it’s most likely not us but something in then campground wiring.  

So we hooked back up to 19…and told the campground to solve the problem. Don’t know what they’ll do…we again offered to move over to 19 since we had paid for a premium waterfront site…haven’t heard anything from them yet. Guess the folks supposed to park in 19 this afternoon will be pissed when they get here unless the campground solves the problem. We’ve verified as best we can that it’s not on the rig…power worked fine yesterday morning and while it’s possible we developed an electrical problem between 0900 and 1300…it’s not very likely.

Stay tuned for further developments…in the meantime let’s put in a couple of photos.

Two shots of the lighthouse right here in the campground from yesterday just before sunset…one was taken with Neil’s iPhone 6s+ and the other with his Nikon…those darned smartphone cameras are getting pretty darned good photo wise.

Right offshore are a set of rocks…plenty of shore birds nesting on them.

Ok…power update. About 1100 the guy with the duty in the office today came down and told us we could move over to site 19…gee, I thought that was too hard…but at least we got the ok to move to a site with power that works. The only drawback was that it was drizzling so we spent the next hour or so moving 1 site over and getting re-setup in the rain. After that we had our leftover pizza for lunch and have plans to try the pub thing again tonight…but we’ll take along the address for a backup or two over in Campbelton 10 miles or so west of here. According to this French Canadian lady who talked to Neil the Salt Waters Lounge we saw the sign for yesterday has food…assuming that she understood his question correctly.

Interesting things found on the net.

The Church of the Chicken.

So the bar is closed I guess.

Can’t say I did know.

Cyas.

Well…I wish we could tell ya we dun did a whole passle more Fun Stuff© here at Richibucto Village…but Ida be lyin’ to ya if I did. We pretty much dindunuffin while we were here.

Thursday we stayed home and did nothing. Friday we got up early…like zero dark thirty what the heck am I doing up this time of the day early…so that we could head back up to Kouchibouguac National Park to the Bog Trail…which supposedly had some nice wildlife if you were there early in the morning.

Having had some issues with roads and street addresses up here…we mostly put GPS coordinates into the navigation system in the car…then it normally finds the right roads to get there. So heading up…we punched in the coordinates for the Bog Trail parking lot…and then promptly found out that Little Red’s nav system has roads in it that simply don’t exist in reality. We figured this out after we passed what we sort of thought was the right road…but continued another 6 or 8 km up the road before deciding that yes, that was in fact the right road and turning around.

Heading down the correct road now…we eventually gave up on the GPS since our review of the park map said that the parking lot was at the end of the road…so we just ignored all of the suggested turns and we got to the Bog Trail…where we headed a few hundred yards down the trail to the observation tower…where we could see precisely zip, nada, nothing, zilch, nyet…you guessed it…nuttin.

We grabbed a couple of photos from the tower for you though…it was cloudy and murky that morning…but not a single example of wildlife of any sort did we spot. Nope…not a one.

We turned around after that and retraced our path to the campground…we had to pass on stopping by the fresh seafood place for something for dinner since they didn’t open until 1000…and we were back home taking a nap in the recliners by 0730…that was after a 40 minute transit each way and the walk out to the tower.

We sat out under the awning for the remainder of the day…had a nice chat with Marcel and his wife whose name escaped us…he’s in the Army up here and is retiring in 4 years with plans to become full timers. We talked for a couple of hours…their biggest concern was whether his pension and her salary…she can work on the road and is only mid 40s so can’t retire yet…would be enough to live on. They plan to winter down in the US somewhere and spend travel seasons up here in Canuckistan…on learning what their income would be we assured them they had more than enough cash flow to finance a really good RV lifestyle.

It’s been hot in the afternoons here…so in the interest of keeping the windows open and not running the A/C to cool us off Neil’s been cooking outside. We had pork medallions with wine, lemon, garlic and caper sauce served with roasted garlic parmesan mashed taters one night, steak another night, and halibut another night…we’ll end up the week with grilled chicken over Romaine lettuce with balsamic-honey dressing tonight.

Tomorrow we’re off on a 150 mile transit to Dalhousie NB where we’ll be in site 18 at Inch Arran City Campground…literally again right on the water about 4 sites down from the lighthouse. Connie’s got some stuff planned for there and we’ll probably do laundry as well.

Interesting things found on the net.

This past week Apple, Inc became the first company to reach market cap of $1 Trillion US…not that market cap really means much as it’s just the product of the number of shares outstanding and today’s stock price. However…Apple also had another record breaking profit this quarter…making once again a metric buttload of cash…and once again made about 90% of the entire smartphone industry profits. In light of this…Business Week pranked themselves by re-running a headline they originally posted back in 1996.

This seems like a pretty creepy greeting card.

Really?Who wouldathunkit?

In other news…a major new announcement from NASA.

Old people complaint.

From the mouths of babes…

Cyas.

Tuesday we had a short travel day…only about 120 miles so we didn’t really get going on departure preparations until 0830…which saw us pulling out of Pine Hills RV shortly before 1000 for the trip. We had an easy time early…heading back down to the Confederation Bridge back to the mainland…where we paid a toll of $71 for the rig and  $47 for the car to get back across the 12 km long bridge. Once across we continued on NS-16, then NS-15 and NS-11 until we got off the exit to Richibucto with fine roads all that part. Once off the highway…it got a little dicier for the leg down NS-505…it was a bit bumpy as it had a lot of patches on the roadway but overall it wasn’t too bad and it was only the last 10 km or so before we turned onto the beach road Cap Lumiere for the last km or so until we arrived at Camping Cap Luminaire for a 5 night stay. Again…as we were in Cow Head NL…we’re right across from the beach although this time instead of overlooking the harbor the view is straight out into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. There’s a bluff about 40 or 50 feet high down to the beach and it’s a sandy beach for a change so hopefully we’ll be able to get out there one morning so Connie can catch a couple of rays.

The closest civilization is Richibucto Village…which has like 12 people in it I think…with the next closest being Richibucto itself…at least the latter is big enough for traffic lights, grocery stores, and a few more amenities that we might go take advantage of. Luckily…we knew ahead of time that we would be out on in the near boonies so we brought enough beer and groceries to make it.

We quickly got settled into site 37… a nice level grass pull through site…and after lunch went about our setup chores. Neil had found and corrected a slight problem with our water supply shortly before we left PEI…although we had good pressure and flow at the spigot the inside flow and pressure were lacking…they started off when you turned the faucet on at poor and got worse from there as the pressure in the system bled off…there was a flow restriction somewhere. We have a dual water filter setup outside…first is a sediment filter that gets changed on a 3 month basis and second is a charcoal filter that’s normally a 6 month change. He had changed the sediment filter shortly after we arrived at PEI…which improved the situation just slightly…and it was about due anyway…but hadn’t done the charcoal one as the sediment one while looking like it was time to be changed wasn’t really that bad. But with the continued lack of pressure and flow he started at the spigot and connected one thing at a time checking flow to see what might be up.

Regulator on spigot only…good. Added hose to filter…good. Connected filter and checked filter output…no good so he says to himself “there’s the problem.” Since he had already changed the sediment filter he temporarily removed the second filter and it’s canister and checked flow…good. So it was something with the second charcoal filter. It looked fine and there was nothing else in the canister or head to cause an issue so he replaced the charcoal filter, screwed the canister on and checked again…filter output good. He skipped the hose to the softener and softener and checked the final hose output where it connects to the rig…good so problem is solved. Hooked back up and voila…pressure and flow inside restored. He still needs to back flush and regenerate the conditioner as they’re due August 1…but will leave that until next week when we’re on city water instead of well water…well water is fine for doing the job but he feels better about the extra usage for the operation when we’re on city water instead of a more limited flow/capacity well system. From an engineering standpoint doing it on a large well system like a campground has would most likely be perfectly fine…but it just seems more courteous to wait to him.

We didn’t do anything the remainder of the travel day…took a nap and had leftover pasta casserole for dinner…although we did walk down and look at the beach.

Wednesday we drove into Richibucto and went to the visitor center then drove out to Kouchibouguac (pronounced coochee-boog-wack) National Park Visitor Center to check the lay of the land…Connie found a hike we’ll probably take later in the week and a soap making operation and beach boardwalk we’ll check out as well. We then sat outside under the awning in our recliners with a cold drink and our iPads most of the afternoon…it was quite pleasant in the shade with the breeze blowing…before heading inside for leftover grilled chicken, stuffing, freshly baked garlic knot rolls, and grilled green beans for dinner.

Wednesday…it rained in the morning as scheduled…so after coffee Neil made us a nice open faced bacon and fried egg sandwich for breakfast then chilled out…we had mostly planned this week as rest period anyway with another a whole lot of Fun Stuff© scheduled…we’ve been at it pretty steadily since we got into Newfoundland and a few days doin’ nuttin’ seemed like a great idea to us. Of course…we’re doing pretty much the same thing next week although she does have a few more things scheduled…but nothing really strenuous at all, sunrise at the lighthouse, sunset at the mountain…Happy Hour on the veranda at the beach bar…really hard stuff like that ya know.

Neil grabbed a few photos around the campground…used only his iPhone today.

A couple of views of our site 37…the first was taken with a new iPhone camera app he’s trying out named Obscura 2 and the second with the stock iPhone camera app…he needs to read the manual on Obscura and figger out ‘xactly how it works…as the sky in the second one is much more true to what it looks like this morning.

It had stopped raining by the time he went out there…but the clouds haven’t broken up and were still providing a pretty dramatic background. You can see in the last one out on the horizon how the overcast is. beginning to clear and turn into a blue sky day.

A shot of the still operational Cap Luminaire Light…it’s right opposite the campground entrance and marks Cap (or Cape) Luminaire.

The private beach owned by the campground and the tiny harbor here at Cap Luminaire.

In the afternoon…we headed off for a couple of activities. First up was a visit to the Olivier Soapery…which makes hand made cold process soap. Basically you melt some fat…they use a combination of olive oil, cocoa butter, and beeswax which makes the resulting soap last longer…and melt it. Then they add a solution of sodium hydroxide mixed with dye and it undergoes a chemical reaction with the oil making soap. They also add essential oils or fragrance oil…the difference being whether they’re naturally produced or artificially produced in a chemical process…and then pour it into molds. We watched a demonstration of soap making and then Connie…naturally…bought some.

Next up was the Richibucto River Winery…we had a nice tasting…and again naturally…Connie picked out 8 bottles to take with us…strangely enough Neil will naturally help drink it. They were only about $150 Canadian or a little over $110 US which for 8 bottles of wine including 3 bottles of the expensive fortified wine…it would be Port except it’s not made in Portugal so they can’t call it Port. 

After the winery…we headed home where Neil made a gourmet meal…it was warm so he cooked it outside on the camp stove…pork cutlets with lemon, garlic, wine, and caper sauce…mashed taters with roasted garlic, butter, and Parmesan cheese, corn casserole with shallots, cheese, and green chiles, and the remainder of the bottle of Clos Du Bois Chardonnay wine that we opened to make the sauce on the pork. All was amazingly good…we ate outside as it was still warm. We’ve had the windows open but it was in the lower 80s this afternoon…so we turned the A/C units on for a couple of hours to suck out some of the residual afternoon heat.

More Fun Stuff© is scheduled for tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday…I will report on that later.

Interesting things found on the net this week.

Typical progressive/liberal idea here…let’s ban plastic straws because they’re single use and bad for the environment…then let’s individually wrap our bio-degradable paper straws in plastic that will get tossed into the same place the plastic straws that were banned used to get tossed. Yeah…that’ll help.

Spoken by a person who knows the true value of alcohol.

How does one get elected as a Senator without passing basic high school civics and understanding the definition of the word treason.

No Senator Dumb Ass from Oregon…but maybe being from Oregon is indicative of something…here’s the definition of treason…and it ain’t your sore loser BS.

The truth about this whole collusion thing…is actually pretty simple…despite both the President’s continual tweeting about the “rigged special prosecutor” and the other side’s defending the righteousness of Mr. Mueller and his charge…all of that is primarily a bunch of political BEP (bovine end product as I’ve mentioned before).

First off…the sole idea behind any political campaign…especially these days…is to win the election…and it’s been proven far too often that mud slinging works. Sure…Trump did it…but so did Ms. Clinton…and while two wrongs definitely don’t make a right…handicapping yourself and handing the election to the other side is political suicide.

Second…and let’s look at this from the other countries point of view…I’m sure that from as the Russian government sees it they have a preference who wins our election…just like we have a preference who wins theirs. And while Russians don’t get to vote in our elections…as Americans don’t get to vote in theirs…in any political process it’s certainly not illegal for anybody to advocate for the candidate they prefer. While it is illegal under US campaign and election law to disguise funding sources for political action committees promoting a specific candidate as opposed to general committees promoting any particular agenda…those groups doing the latter are subject to the same limits, requirements, and scrutinies as the former groups are. All politicians have PACs that both support them directly and those that support particular agendas and hence have fewer legal requirements…and all politicians and their political professional operators understand the laws…and pretty much all of them bend the requirements and go right up to the line of legality…I’m not justifying that, just recognizing that politicians are first and foremost self serving scum.

Finally…and most important…not a damn bit of any of that actually fricking matters…the only thing that matters is votes cast on Election Day. It doesn’t matter if the Russians wanted Mr. Trump to win or if the any other country wanted Ms. Clinton to win. What matters is the number of votes…and unless Mr. Mueller and his supporters on the left have some proof that the Russian government actually interfered with and changed the vote totals…then all this talk about collusion is primarily a case of sore loser griping…just like it was primarily a case of sore loser griping when President Obama won election and reelection with all the BEP the other side said about him.

Sorry ‘bout the rathole…I started just to call out the idiocy of Senator Dumb Ass.

And finally…Neil really likes this one.

Cyas.

We had originally planned a visit to another lighthouse Sunday morning after Mass…but Connie woke up feeling poorly and it was raining so we blew it off and just came home after Mass. Our other scheduled activity for Sunday was a visit to the Irish Pub downtown for an early dinner and then the show Anne and Gilbert in the evening.

First up was dinner at the Olde Dublin Pub and Claddagh Oyster House…they share the same building and menu although there’s a separate kitchen in the pub upstairs for patrons up there. We started with a dozen Malpeque oysters on the half shell…these are smaller than what you would normally get in either the Outer Banks or the Gulf of Mexico coast but are pretty sweet and tasty…and at $1CN each quite a bargain…along with that Neil had a Guinness and Connie a Harp Irish Ale. Next up…we split a lobstah stuffed mushroom appetizer…I can confirm that there was cheese, buddah, and cream involved in addition to mushrooms and lobstah…then we ordered first 6 to split and then another 3 for Neil ‘cuz he was still hungry bacon wrapped scallops…again these were smallish but they were very tasty and were actually scallops as opposed to the fake ones made out of shark that you typically get. The way you can tell that they’re real scallops is that they’re not uniform…the ones punched out from a shark steak are uniform on size and thickness whereas real ones are variable. Connie had another Harp but Neil switched to Redbreast Irish Whiskey straight up with a dash of water in it to bloom the flavor and cut the harshness.

Turns out there’s a lemon shortage in Canuckistan…we talked about it with Ashley the bartender and another couple of other couples dining at the bar…because you meet a much better class of bum sitting at the bar dontchaknow…they had heard that it was a either a result of the retaliatory tariffs that were placed on US goods after the recent import tariffs the government imposed…or that there was a freeze that limited the lemon crop in California. Based on the fact that limes and oranges are readily available…and since the freeze area they talked about was pretty far north in California up by San Francisco which isn’t where the citrus groves are…I would guess it’s either the tariff or something completely unrelated. Anyways…since there were no lemons we had to squeeze lime wedges on our oysters…and we’re sold on using limes instead of lemons…they actually are better than lemons on oysters.

Here’s a shot of Ashley the bartender…holding up one of the aforementioned oyster seasoning limes for us.

Overall a really great meal…kinda on the pricey side but that’s because of the Irish whiskey…but the food was great, the company great, and we chatted with several other interesting folks at the bar. In fact…it was so good we went back Monday evening for more.

After that we walked ‘round the corner to The Guild which is a local playhouse…where we had prime seats 3 rows back right in the middle of the stage…for a production of Anne and Gilbert…which is sort of a sequel to Anne of Green Gables after she grew up. Gilbert was a boy in her class who teased her at first then later helped her manage the bullying children in the class after Anne was orphaned and adopted by the Cuthberts who owned a farm in PEI named Green Gables…later in life, at least according to the sequel…they fell in love and naturally lived happily ever after. It was romantic comedy with a cast of 22 that we counted…and was actually a lot more entertaining than we thought it would be.

Monday we headed off for our last day of PEI Fun Stuff© before heading out to Richibucto Village 120 miles up the coast from Charlottetown on Tuesday…after we pay the over $100 Canadian toll to get off of PEI.

Our first stop was at the Point Prim Lighthouse…which is the oldest lighthouse on PEI…it’s 61 feet high and was in service from 1841 to 1969, it had 13 keepers over the years with Angus Alexander Murchison being the longest serving at 35 years. It’s different from any other lighthouse in Canada save one…as it’s circular and constructed of brick…it’s counterpart with this construction is Fishgard Light in British Columbia.

Sorry ‘bout the number of lighthouse pictures you’ve had to see the past month…but the DLETC hasn’t found any waterfalls and since her hip has been hurting the hiking opportunities have been scarce lately.

Point Prim is south and east of Charlottetown…after finishing up there we headed back through Charlottetown and then north to the campground…where we dropped off a few groceries we picked up on the way…then stopped and had ice cream for lunch…it was Mint Chocolate Chip Swirl for Neil and S’Mores for Connie…both were good, we decided that we could afford to have ice cream for lunch every once in awhile. Then we entered another section of PEI National Park up along the north coast of the island where we stopped by to see the Covehead Harbor Lighthouse right on the beach along with another couple of flowers. This light is still in operation and is smallish at only about 27 feet high…although it’s 20 feet or so above the beach so that increases it’s effective height.

With that…our day was done and we headed back to the rig. Neil put the grill and flagpole away in preparation for our travel day tomorrow…then we had a shower and Connie washed her hair as it was time again for that…then headed out to dinner and an early night of it.

Interesting things found on the net.

Cyas.

So…just to note a couple of items from the news this week before I head on.

Tragically…there was a mass shooting incident in Toronto this week…and this is in a country where handguns are 100% illegal and long guns (rifles and shotguns) are regulated much more than we have down in our neck o’ the woods. I’m not turning this into a political thing…but it’s become clear over the past 15 years or so that progressives/liberals/Democrats/whatever you want to call them really want to overturn the 2nd amendment through nibbling around the edges since they’ll never have the votes to pass a constitutional amendment overturning it…but if this can happen in a country where handguns are 100% illegal…then why in the heck do they think that that overturning the 2nd amendment would reduce gun violence in the USA. Toronto has the highest murder rate in Canuckistan…and again handguns are 100% illegal up here.

Second thing is a ruling this week from the 9th Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. In a 2-1 vote…and this is far and away the most liberal Appeals Court District in the USA…held that open carry of firearms is constitutional despite state laws to the contrary. Don’t have any idea why that particular count supported the 2nd amendment that liberals hate.

Third…some dumb ass down in Sweetwater FL decided to park illegally in a handicapped space at a store and run in to get some snacks. Another citizen came up and was explaining with no violence to his girlfriend in the car that they were parking illegally. The dumb ass came out…ran up and pushed the citizen to the ground…and then got shot for his efforts under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law…and is not at this point being prosecuted. The dumb ass chose to make a discussion a physical altercation…and the citizen apparently thought his safety was threatened so there you go. Dumb asses girlfriend said that the citizen was “attacking her”…clearly disproved by the surveillance video…and that she had a right to park wherever she wanted. Idiots.

Me…we own a couple of long guns that Neil inherited from his grandfather and uncle…and have never really had any desire to own any more firearms…particularly as we occasionally travel north across the border and taking them into Canuckistan is either illegal or very hard…but Neil’s said for years now that if they ever try to overturn the 2nd amendment he’s going out and buying one of those scary looking guns that aren’t really assault weapons before the ban takes place. Anyway…Neil as a former Navy guy who took an oath to uphold the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic…sort of feels strongly about what the Constitution says. He’s perfectly fine…well, he’s actually not but at least it would be doing it the right way…if a constitutional amendment was passed to overturn or limit the right guaranteed by the 2nd amendment.

On a non political note…take a look at this video that our friend Ray Danet sent us…Millennial Video…the video is here. This girl is…15 years old from Beverly Hills CA and currently has a $1,000 a month allowance and is demanding two things. First is that her mother raise her allowance to $2,500 a month since she can’t live on $1,000 a month…and second is that her mother buy her a $231,000 Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen for her 16th birthday. Her reasoning is that her mother has a Bentley so she owes her a suitable vehicle. Dr. Phil suggests she get a job and the snowflake bursts into tears. She doesn’t even go to a regular high school…since she was traumatized at her old school…so she’s taking online classes to get her GED. Now the main problem here is that her parents are 100% responsible for her entitled behavior…since they’ve raised her this way…but can you get the nerve of this spoiled child…I certainly can’t. Daughter will have a rude awakening one of these days Ima thinkin’. What a complete pair of losers…both mother and child.

Ok…enough of that…let’s talk about more Fun Stuff© here in PEI.

Wednesday…we had a trip planned down to Southside to visit the the College of Piping and Celtic Performance Arts of Canada…basically it’s a high end place that teaches bagpiping, step dancing, highland dancing, fiddling, and drumming to anybody that wants to show up. They have an evening concert during the summers…but it’s 30 miles from here and we didn’t feel like coming home at 2200 in the dark after it so we went to the mini-concert and demonstration at 1100 instead. We saw demonstrations of highland dancing…which is the typical sort of dancing Scottish lasses in kilts do, step dancing which is sort of a cross between clogging and tap dancing, bagpiping, and drumming. All in all…it was pretty decent…and in addition to learning all about the various parts of a bagpipe…like it wasn’t actually invented in Scotland but rather in the Syria in the Middle East and that it has reeds in it very similar to the double reed that a bassoon uses…we learned the answer to a question I know has been burning in Neil’s mind since he asked Connie if she knew the answer. Anyway…everybody knows that Scottish men go commando (i.e., au natural) under their kilts…and he wondered if the same was true for Scottish women. Turns out the answer is no…at least for women in kilts dancing Scottish dances in PEI…I’ve no idea bout whether it’s true in Scotland proper…mebbe we’ll find out the answer to that one of these days.

After the demonstration…we headed down to the waterfront in Southside and had lunch…a couple of sandwiches we brought with us…and then a beer…Gahan Brewery Red Ale which is brewed right here in PEI…it was good but a bit more hops flavored than we prefer. After that we headed home and made rigatoni casserole out of leftover bolognese cream sauce, mozzarella cheese and burned in the broiler Parmesan cheese…along with some red wine it was excellent…and we’ve got another casserole of it in the fridge for later in the week…although he will probably grill a steak tomorrow.

Here’s the entrance to the College of Piping.

Outside the college building…Connie got this shot of a carved wooden bagpiper.

On the way back to the RV park we passed this beautiful golden field…Neil got a shot and processed it because it was really cool looking. On further research…we determined that this is actually a field of canola…which is processed into both the canola oil we use for cooking and as a source for ethanol which is used as an additive for car gasoline.

A shot I forgot to post yesterday…this was taken at the Northport Rear Range Light…it’s a Great Blue Heron…they’re everywhere ya know. Haven’t really seen one since we left Fort Myers…but you can pretty much find them wherever you go.

Connie took a short video of the canola field blowing in the wind while Neil was getting photos…you can see it here. They really looked pretty cool blowing in the 20-30 knot wind.

Thursday was chores day…it was raining on and off all day so it was laundry, haircut, and groceries…then a nice steak for dinner…unfortunately Neil had to cook it inside but it was still tasty.

Friday Connie got her nails done…and then it was lobstah boat ride and lobstah dinner time…

Captain Mark ‘splaining crab parts.

Connie posing with a rock crab…they actually live on sand.

Connie and a lobstah…this ain’t the one she ate for dinner.

Connie pulling a pot…got it first try.

This is Larry the Lobstah…he’s a 9 pounder…she didn’t eat Larry either. Larry was in the pot Connie is pulling in the shot above.

After our crabbing and lobstah pot pulling demonstrations we had a PEI style lobstah dinner…this means it’s cooked and then stuck in an ice bath to stop the cooking process and served cold…with butta’ of course…along with some tater salad, a bun, and coleslaw.

We were out in the harbor area or a couple of hours before motoring back to the dock and heading home for the night.

Saturday we were off early on a trip around the eastern coast of the island…most of it was via a Points East Road…catchy name eh? Along the way we got some shots of lighthouses, cliffs, and flowers.

This one is still operational but is located on private property…don’t know how that works.

This one is decommissioned.

But has some nice cliffs right outside of it.

There are tree swallows nesting in the bank.

East Point Light…this is the farthest eastern point on PEI.

Sailboat heading out for a sail.

We’ve got 2 more days here in PEI…tomorrow we’re heading downtown after Mass in the AM for dinner and a show about Anne of Green Gables…the famous novel set in PEI. Then Monday a drive the Ann of Green Gables National Historic Site and getting ready for a short (125 mile) travel day on Tuesday.

Interesting things found on the net this week.

Ladies…this is a fake lesson, trust me. Don’t follow these instructions.

Cyas.

Monday morning we were up early at Cranberry Campground for our 213 mile transit over to Prince Edward Island (PEI). PEI is a crescent shaped island about 200 km long nestled along the northern coast of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick at the southern end of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. It’s known primarily for potatoes and…of course…the novel Anne of Green Gables.

We had a pretty good trip over…although we got slightly confused by our GPS units and ended up needing to make a couple of U-turns in order to get on the right road to our destination at Pine Hills RV just north of Charlottetown about in the center of the island. Well…the first U-turn was caused by Neil’s GPS…it was zoomed out a bit far and didn’t really show the details of an interchange we needed to navigate through…he only saw two roads on the screen and we needed to take the one that curved right…we had seen a sign a mile or two back that indicated Charlottetown was the left hand branch. We took the wrong one…and about 5 seconds later he figured out the issue with his GPS…when he zoomed in more it showed all the detail and confirmed that we were on the wrong road headed to Southside instead of Charlottetown. We quickly figured out we needed to turn around…and luckily there was a wide spot just after the interchange where he could easily turn around in the road…we wanted a minute or two until there was a gap in both directions and got turned around. He had Connie come around front so we could have two sets of eyes reading the signs and looking at the GPS units…and she took the wrong exit again…she caught it quickly and told him on the radio not to come down here…but as the guy in the old song about the Streaker said…it was too late…we were headed back towards the bridge off of PEI. So we needed to make another course reversal…luckily again a mile down the road there was a seafood store with two entrances into the parking lot…so we quickly turned in one and out the other…and found ourselves once again approaching the original interchange where Neil’s GPS tricked him. This time we went the correct direction…and amazingly enough when you don’t have the GPS zoomed out too far it shows you the whole interchange including the correct way through.

We continued on another 20 miles or so to Charlottetown…then headed north around the bypass road to Brackley Point Road and thence north 10 miles to the campground. We quickly got checked in and headed to our site…they told us it was a pull through 50 FHU site…it was actually two back in sites that butted up against each other that they use as a pull through…but hey, it works. We pulled all the way forward to get on the most level portion site…which actually turned out to be almost perfectly level despite our original thought on looking at it that it would be a difficult leveling job. Little Red is parked in the unused portion of the second site behind the rig. Neil had to get the guy next door to move his car temporarily…although the site is long the road was pretty narrow with a lot of trucks and cars parked along it and while he could probably have gotten in just fine sometimes it’s easier to get the car to move instead. The owner was happy to assist though which made it an easy peasy parking maneuver.

We got setup and then headed out to the local pub named Outriders…where we had a couple of brews and dinner…we were originally going to have left over bolognese sauce from the night before but Connie was out of sorts after the double U-turn thing so he bought her a brew instead.

Looking at our schedule and the weather forecast…which changes almost hourly so it’s hard to really figure out what days to do Fun Stuff© and what days to do laundry, groceries and other chores…but we decided to head out Tuesday morning. Before we got here…she had a drive planned around the northwest end of the crescent that forms the island (the horns of the crescent point north)…this area is…strangely enough…named North Point. Anyways…on the way in after the pub we stopped by the office and picked up some of the local tourist propaganda…and after some deliberation the DLETC announced that the drive around North Cape had been replaced by the Epic Technicolor Six Lighthouse Extravaganza…it’s the same road but we had some actual destinations along it instead of just a drive around the coastal road.

So off we went after breakfast…Connie had planned a lunch stop for us…but something went wrong with her calculations and instead of getting there at 1200 for lunch we didn’t actually get there until 1330…which means that after lunch dinner would mostly become a non-thing. No worries…we’ve done that before and we’ll do it again…but Neil had really hoped for a normal lunch this time and had even talked to her about it…but somewhere between the google mapping and figuring out how long the various portions of the drive would take things got confused.

So the…well I’m just going to skip calling it the Epic Technicolor Six Lighthouse Extravaganza and use ETSLE instead as I’m gettin’ tuckered out just typing all of that…anyway the trip included stops at Cape. Egmont, West Point, Howard’s Cove, North Cape, Tignish Run, and Northport Back Range lighthouses. All of these are still operating except the Tignish Run light…and construction dates ranged from the 1865 until 1978…and the lights here actually have some differing physical characteristics so they could actually be recognized during the day as compared to some other areas we’ve been in.

So…off we go on the ETSLE we go…and the drive started out as sort of an adventure.

Ya don’t know what those last two mean? Huh? Surely you do…it’s simple. Why it was over the river and through the woods…but we definitely didna make it to grandma’s house…no sir-ee…no grandma’s house here. Instead we got to Cape Egmont light…we didn’t stay there very long as we discovered a ridiculously huge number of ‘skeeters there…so we got a few shots brushed ourselves off, got into the car, killed a couple that came in with us, and headed back up the road…hoping that the ret of the day would go better bug wise.

Cape Egmont Light

Naturally Connie found some flowers.

While Neil grabbed a couple shots of the cliffs down to the water on the seaside of the light…the bugs didn’t really get bad until we came around to this side…there must have been a bog somewhere over there they were breeding in.

Second stop was West Point Light…right on a sandy beach so it was the tallest one of the day as it didn’t have any land height adding to it to help get the light higher off of the water.

Next up was Howard’s Cove Light…this has got to be the smallest lighthouse we’ve ever seen at 19 feet tall…and it doesn’t really look that tall.

A couple of shots of the harbor at Howard’s Cove…we saw a lot of boats up on blocks like this in yards away from the water…they were either stored there or were getting worked on or something. We wondered how they got them back and forth to the water until we saw the specialized trailers they use to move them. They’re essentially flatbed low-boy trailers but instead of picking the boat up and driving the trailer underneath there are movable wheels on top of the trailer that conform to the hull…these wheels have tires on them so the trailer can essentially back under the boat from the bow and pick it up off of the ground . I presume they then back it down a ramp and float it off just like you do on a 16 foot outboard boat from it’s trailer. All of the ones we saw had cradles mostly in the center and rear portions with boards stabilizing the bow…those get gradually removed as the trailer backs under the bow and the boat is picked up off of the cradle then winched forward on the movable wheels to get it fully loaded. We didn’t see one loading but the standard support arrangement as seen here and the one we did see completely on the trailer make this really the most likely method. I wouldn’t have thought you could pull a 45 or 55 foot boat like that onto a trailer without a crane…but obviously they do it as we saw several boats and trailers moving around and not a crane in sight.

There’s a cute 20something Nova Scotia gal with a short bright red dress and matching unmentionables under it sitting on this rock near the light…she was having troubles keeping the dress down in da wind. Ya don’t see here? That’s because she jumped off before he could get the camera out…and he didn’t want her boyfriend to beat him up…but use your imagination and she’s there…trust me.

Up at North Point there are an awful lot of wind turbine generators…we saw at least 300 or so of them. Each one is about 210 feet tall and has 3 blades like the one displayed before. These are 3,000 kilowatt (KW) generators…the same electrical out put as the ones Neil used to have on his submarine back in the day…3,000 KW is enough for at least 250 US houses with standard 100 amp service…and probably double that since most homes outside the US have much less than 100 amp service. I don’t know what Canuck homes have in them…but Italian ones that normal people live in have 20 or 30 amp service only…so if the ones here are 50 amp service that would be about 500 houses per generator. The 300 or so number of towers the we estimated would be about 900 megawatts total…or enough for about 75,000 homes at 50 amp service…and 900 megawatt would be about average compared to the output of a power plant which typically run 500-1,500 megawatts.

North Point Light

Connie got a closeup of the light rotating.

These are called inuksuks…they’re person shaped rock cairns that are constructed by native people in the arctic regions of North America…because there are few natural landmarks in arctic regions. Nobody is sure whether they’re used for navigation, as a point of reference, a marker for travel routes, fishing places, camps, hunting grounds, places of veneration, drift fences used in hunting or to mark a food cache. There were no information signs here…so it’s not clear whether these are ancient inuksuks or modern reconstructions…but given the number located in one place I’m guessing the latter. Size ranges from a foot or so tall up to about 4 feet…and they’re fastener free, relying solely on gravity and friction to remain upright.

Neil really liked this one the best…it’s about 18 inches tall.

And there were hundreds of ‘em I tellya.

Better photo of the North Point Light taken at the right moment to get the light in the shot…took 4 or 5 shots to get it perfectly straight on.

After lunch…which was a burger for Neil and seafood chowder for Connie…we found a place that has shrimp free chowder for her and Neil figured out how to get a decently cooked burger in Canuckistan. They have this ridiculous national health department rule that says burgers must be cooked to 180 degrees…which essentially means every bit of juice is boiled out and it’s practically jerky. Your standard medium burger that is still pink inside in the US is cooked to about 130-135 degrees max and even a well done one in the US is only 155 or so…180 is just crazy. However…if you tell your waitress (or waiter as the the case may be) that you want it cooked as close to pink as they are allowed to make it…then they cook it to what we would in ‘Murica would call medium-well…not pink but still with some vestiges of juice left in it and at least edible as opposed to a burnt cracker.

Then it was off to Tingish Run Light…this is the only one that isn’t still operational and the only one we should have skipped. It’s been turned into a day use area…and of the 15 or so shots we took this is the best one as far as being people free goes…sorry, can’t do nuttin’ about the cars, swing set, and picnic tables.

Yeah…we didn’t think much of it either.

Our last stop of the day was at Northport Back Range Light…which was pretty nice. This one is more interesting than your standard lighthouse though as it’s part of a range. Normally…a lighthouse is a single point of reference that you take bearings on. A Range consists of a pair of structures…usually flat rectangular panels about 20 feet square that are painted the same color and usually with a vertical stripe in a different color…anyway the two structures are positioned so that a line drawn directly between them and extended out into the water marks the center of the channel. The one in the back is higher so when you’re out at sea you can see both of them and you simply line them up as you drive from sea into the restricted shallow water areas. By looking at the two rectangles…you can instantly tell whether you’re left or right of the range due to the offset of the higher rear range compared to the lower front range…or whether you’re on the range and hence in safe water if they line up. Most ranges Neil has seen in the past are not lighted as they’re typically used in river passages that are only navigable in daylight hours when you can see the range markers. He’s never seen one that actually indicates the way in from deep water at sea…but as he thought about it it makes sense that for a relatively narrow channel in from the sea that needs to be navigable 24×7 using lighthouses is actually a great idea. The lighthouse was the rear range for vessels entering Northport (and Alberton) from the south and there would have been a seafloor mounted light south of the lighthouse at a lower height…so that from sea both the rear lighthouse light and the lower front range light could be seen. Simply line up the two lights vertically and your vessel is on the correct course and position to safely enter the channel mouth. Once inside the channel entrance the bay widens out and once can use multiple navigational aids on both sides to accurately fix your vessel position…then pass the front range marker either right or left as the channel is designed and proceed into port.

Here’s an image of the Nantucket Harbor range lights from wikipedia that will help explain how the front and rear ranges are used…in this image the range line passes to the right side of the photographer’s location at sea…so his vessel is to the left of the range and he needs to come right to remain in safe water depths.

Here is an image of a chart with a range marked on it…you can see the two range markers at the top right on the land, the purple line leading south shows the safe path through the center portion of the channel. Once inland…the range is not always ahead of your vessel, depending on whether you’re going in or out the range markers may be either ahead or astern of your vessel…the principle is the same  though, stay on the range and you’ll stay in safe water depths. Channels which have significant nearby shoal water or numerous turns in the channel have multiple ranges. For instance…the Cooper River in Charleston SC where Neil was based has about 20 different legs in the channel between the entry jetties and the Navy base and about 10 or 12 of the ones with the closest shoal water have range markers. San Diego Harbor on the other hand has no ranges at all for getting into the submarine base at Ballast Point but if you continue on around the river to Naval Station San Diego there are about 6 channel segments and 3 ranges as he vaguely recalls. Very handy ranges are…very handy, particularly in deep draft ships like a submarine or most other warships.

Anyway…this light is now the rear range light…it was formerly the front range light but the old rear range was demolished and the old front range became the rear range of a new range …from looking at google maps and the location of both this light and that of the former rear range light…he’s pretty convinced there’s something amiss with the range as lining up the old front and rear range markers doesn’t provide any useful navigational information and he couldn’t find the location of the new front range marker…but maybe he’s not fully understanding the layout. Perhaps the lighthouse ranges were only used at longer ranges from land to guide shipping closer to port where they could visually pick up additional navigational aids and fix position before actually entering the harbor. It’s a mystery though…geographically the marked positions of what are named the new rear/old front range and the old rear range don’t make sense from a navigational point of view…the line from rear to front then goes inland into PEI and not out to sea. I know…way more than you really cared to know about range markers. 

Now if you’ve been counting carefully…and you have been counting carefully, haven’t you…then your count would be six lighthouses so that means we’re done…right. 

As Billy Mays (of Oxyclean and many other commercials fame) would say…But wait, there’s more. Bonus Lighthouse!

This one is over on an island just north of Northport…it’s the Cascumpeque Light over on Sandy Island and marks the entrance past Sandy Island to Alberton Harbor just north of Northport.

Interesting things found on the net.

Everybody knows exactly what bears do in the woods…this is where they do it.

RV humor.

Librarian humor.

It starts early…borrowed this one from RandysRandom.com

Cyas.

After our long day on Tuesday we took Wednesday off as it was supposed to rain all day. Slept in…didn’t get up until 0730…had breakfast and pretty much did nuttin’ all day. Can’t really say much more about the day…it ended up not raining until later in the afternoon but then rained pretty hard most of the night.

Thursday morning…it dawned partly cloudy and we had a shorter day planned…a lighthouse, drive along the coastal road a bit and lunch at Neils Harbor. So we headed out about 0930…we wanted to make sure that lunch didn’t get too late since Neil had pork piccata planned for dinner…one of our favorite dishes but it’s a pain to make as it generates a lot of dirty dishes…didn’t want to be too full from lunch to enjoy it.

Our first stop was at the Saint Paul Lighthouse…which turned out to be a bust lighthouse-wise but we got some nice photos nearby so it wasn’t a total bust. The lighthouse is steel and has been moved several times over it’s lifetime…including about 10 years ago when it was moved to it’s present location at a small museum and although it’s near the water it’s way too far inland along the river it’s on to be useful as a navigational aid.

We got a photo of it anyway…then headed back inland about a half mile or so and got some nice photos of the fishing boats along the river along with some reflections on the pretty calm water today.

Next up…we headed down towards our lunch destination at Neils Harbor…along the way we followed the coast road for a few miles…got stuck in one construction zone for 15 minutes or so but we did get some nice photos as we progressed.We also stopped for a short hike at White Point out to the end of the point…maybe a mile or so total.

Once back at Neils Harbor…we headed to the Chowder House right next to the lighthouse for lunch…corn and crab chowder with a couple cans of iced tea…the chowder was decent but not great and it met the goal of making sure we weren’t too full from lunch to enjoy dinner.

After lunch we got a few photos of the waves breaking over the rocks just outside Neils Harbor and a shot of the lighthouse and harbor entrance at Neils Harbor since it was a clear day as opposed to the way it was on Tuesday on the east side of the island.

Our last stop of the day…the local library for some slightly faster than the campground internet connectivity…between our two laptops, two iPhones, and two iPads we had over 100 applications to update. So we spent almost two hours there catching up on email, downloading apps, and various other connectivity required tasks…and we even learned something along the way. There was a teaching seminar for a group of kids in the 10 year old range…they were talking about acids and told them that battery acid like in your car battery has a pH of zero. We said…nah, it’s only about 2 or 3, nothing gets to 0 on the pH scale. So we googled it and turns out they were almost right…sulfuric acid which is considered a strong acid and is what is in your battery has a pH of close to 0 but never actually gets there. Who knew?

Ok, on to photos from Thursday.

Saint Paul Light…yeah…we didn’t think much of it either.

Boats along the river the lighthouse is near…Dingwall River we think

Shot of the coastline as we headed toward White Point…most of the coast of Cape Breton Island is like this…steep cliffs right down to a rocky beach…there are only a few sandy beaches we’ve seen here.

About halfway out White Point looking back toward the cove.

There was an old cemetery out near the point…it had about 3 dozen obvious grave markers in it but only these two had any markings on them…the remainder were just blank stone markers. Guess you had to remember where grandma was buried back then.

A couple of small rock islands right off the end of the point…covered with shore birds. We missed seeing a juvenile Bald Eagle take one in the air and eat it for lunch but about 10 minutes or so. Darn the bad luck.

Views from White Point.

Really clear water…and the depth drops off pretty fast as you can see.

More flowers by Connie…she’s getting the hang of that depth of field bokeh thing.

The rocks down near the shoreline here are about 10 inches in diameter and as smooth as glass from all the wave action over the centuries.

Rocks outside Neils Harbor. We really liked both the water splashing up on them…

As well as the resulting temporary waterfalls after the wave receded.

Neils Harbor light and harbor entrance…the harbor is just around the point where the light is.

They got these signs all over up here both in Cape Breton and there were over in Newfoundland too…and they’re all damn lies I tellya.

Ok, on to Friday…our last day here on Cape Breton Island before we continue westward into Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island (PEI). We were out the door by about 0930 or so headed for our first stop of the day at Mary Ann Falls…this was deemed to be the adventure portion of the tour as it was 6.5 km up a gravel road…but it was far from the worst gravel road we’ve been on up here in Canuckistan…in fact it was a pretty darned good gravel road. We arrived at the parking lot just as the only other car there was leaving…so we had the place to ourselves for about 40 minutes…it was about a 120 foot descent down the gravel road past the parking lot then another 60 feet or so down the stairs to the base for photos. We turned off the Cabot Trail less than a kilometer from the campground and were almost immediately onto the gravel road heading up. Mary Ann Falls is the highest volume waterfall in the park according to the brochure…it’s about 60-70 feet tall overall but the creek it’s on is only 15 or so feet wide at maximum so it’s not really that much volume anyway.

After our 40 minutes or so alone soaking up the ambiance…just as we were about done…a couple more folks showed up so we hiked back up to the parking lot and headed back down the gravel road…passed 4 or 5 cars coming in so obviously we hit it at the right time for solitude. Once we were back down to the Cabot Trail we headed north 8 or 9 km to our second waterfall of the day…it’s located at Black Brook Beach…which incidentally is where Black Brook drains into the Atlantic…most of the beaches with sand here are at brook or river mouths and the flowing water has carried silt and sand downstream from the mountains to form a sandy beach instead of the more common rock beach. The falls itself is not on Black Brook but on Still Brook just north of the beach…it falls about 20 feet or so over an abrupt edge basically onto the beach.

On the way back down from Mary Ann Falls we got this shot looking southward along the coast.

Then once at Black Brook Beach some shots of both the waterfall itself as well as ocean swells breaking over the rocks.

Connie got this one of a swell breaking and splashing up over the rock almost perfectly timed…it’s the best shot of this variety we got here.

Next stop out into the ocean is either Iceland or Ireland.

Both a close up and a wider view of the unnamed falls on Still Brook…after the single drop you an see it sort of dribbles through the rocks down onto the sandy beach and then runs off into the ocean.

And with that our work here at Cape Breton NP is done…we went home for lunch then we’ll head down to the library to post this, get some more apps downloaded, and probably do some more planning for our time at PEI next week.

Interesting things found on the net this week.

Good advice.

You have to make it so you enjoy your job.

We need this app too…anybody know where to find one?

Cyas.

Several of our readers emailed us since we storm evacuated from Saint John’s and wondered if we were OK…we’re fine and the storm was pretty much a non event for us except for the rain and fog on our first day from Saint John’s over to Grand Falls-Windsor. But we were tired after working hard in Saint John’s to get all we needed to get done there done and after the 2 day 520 mile drive to Doyles on the west side of Newfoundland…so we just stayed home all weekend and dindunuffin as they say…well, nuffin ‘cept laundry cuz our hamper was full.

Monday we were up early for our transit to Cape Breton Island…and even though it was only 110 towing miles we were out of the campground at Doyles by 0730 or so for the 30 mile transit down to the ferry terminal at Port aux Basques. We arrived on schedule…Connie stopped at Tim Horton’s for breakfast…Maple Pecan Danish, yum…and more coffee…and got quickly checked in with the ferry folks…we were the second RV in line which meant pretty early boarding. We really didn’t care about early boarding…but early boarding means early disembarking and since we had about 80 miles to go after we got off the ferry early disembarking is what we know in the bidness as a Good Thing© for reasons which will become clear shortly. 

We loaded about 1030…and while the first two liner-upers let Connie get right behind Neil with Little Red so we would disembark together…separate means we have to meet up on the road and while we had planned for that ahead of time not having to link up is mo’ bedda ya know…anyways, the guy actually parking us on the ferry made her get out of place behind him and she was 2 rows over and 2 vehicles back. 

We got up to the seating deck and had lunch…then read books on our iPads ad took a nap…there was nothing to do as the entire trip over was in reduced visibility due to fog…it was rarely more than a half mile or so of visibility and the Blue Puttees was sounding fog signals the whole way over. We got into the pier about 1800 and headed down to the vehicle deck. Luckily…we were exiting out the bow of the ferry this time instead of the stern that has a wider door…so instead of offloading 1 column of vehicles at a time they offloaded one row across the ship at a time…Neil got out first as he was in the middle lane and Connie got out just about 5 or 6 vehicles behind him. She took one wrong turn as we headed west on the TCH or Trans Canada Highway…which is NS-105 in this part of the country…but quickly got things sorted out and we made the speed limit of 100 kph all the way to our turnoff onto the Cabot Trail…we had another 60 miles or so to go on there to get to Broad Cove Campground.

The first 40 miles were pretty nice…some curves and up and downs but the road was good and the speed limit was 70 or 80 kph most of that part. Unfortunately…we ran out of good road the last 20 miles…many more sharp curves and short but steep hills…and even a bunch of switchbacks to contend with. Yuck! Luckily sunset isn’t until 2045 so even though we arrived about 2050 it was still pretty light as we got checked in and headed to our selected site 7 for 5 nights. Turned out it’s a pull through…we thought we would have to back in when we made the reservation. However…since it was getting dark by the time we unhitched and we were tired…all Neil hooked up was power and left water and sewer for Tuesday morning. We did have to clean up our second kitchen disaster in the past 3 weeks…first it was the milk carton that tipped over and dumped milk all all over the inside of the fridge. Today it was a jar of jelly that fell out of our pantry…the glass was all busted up but fortunately most of the jelly remained in a single blob that he picked up for her…then we scrubbed the floor to finish cleaning up. The 30 minutes that took was the real reason behind not doing water and sewer last night. We had a cheese omelet for dinner and went to bed.

With 4 full days here in Cape Breton Island…and with rain forecast for all day and night Wednesday…we headed out to do the Cabot Trail on Tuesday about 0900. The Trail is about a 180 mile loop around most of the northern half of the island…with the top 1/3 of the loop mostly along the shoreline and the lower 2/3s of the loop mostly inland. Folks have suggested to us that it should be done in both the clockwise and counter clockwise directions for best viewing but that the counter clockwise direction is the better of the two. So that’s what we set out to do…circumnavigate the Trail counter clockwise. We quickly figured out after our first 2 stops that the entire east side of the island was fog bound…we talked about whether we should give it up for another day but decided to continue at least until we got to the west side of the island before giving up.

About an hour after we left we headed inland across the top portion that isn’t on the coast…and an hour or so later we arrived over on the western side of the island where it was pretty clear. There was still some haze out on the horizon so it wasn’t all the way to beautiful…but it was a heck of a lot better than the east side was. Our first stop on the west side was for lunch at the Rusty Anchor Cafe right on the beach…lobstah roll for Connie and deep fried haddock sandwich for Neil…both were good although the fish sandwich was too tarted up really…it had bacon, shrimp, garlic mayo on it and he left the guacamole and tomato off…it was decent but really didn’t need all that extra stuff. We had a couple cans of Breton Brewery Red Ale to go along with it and then continued our journey west and south along the island for another hour or so. When we got to Cheticamp right at the southern border of Cape Breton Islands NP…Connie said that she was Cabot Trailed out…so we pulled over and regrouped. It was about 100 km back the way we came but that would be mostly along the water and we would be doing it the other direction. Continuing on around the way we were going it was about 200 km back and almost all inland…since we like the water views better we turned ‘round and headed back. We got stuck in the same 4 or 5 construction/flagman/single lane sections that we had on the way over…but there would surely have been some on the southern half anyway. We stopped by a grocery store on the way home in New Haven…right north of Neil’s new favorite village…then headed the last 15 km back to the rig, arriving home about 1610.

Ok…let’s get on to the photos for the day.

Our first stop just a couple klicks north of the campground revealed this.

Straight out of the camera shot…it was actually more foggy than this visually.

Cleaned up a little in post…too blue but the best I could do with it.

We headed north a few more minutes and found Neil’s favorite new village.

It even had his very own lighthouse…the ocean is visible…well, it would be except for the fog…right behind the light.

Connie got a shot that shows the maple leaf on the top of the light…Neil didn’t even notice it there…and her version shows both it and gives a more realistic idea of what the fog was like.

And some rocks outside the lighthouse.

Connie found some flowers…Neil’s got to teach her to either find ones away from the fence or to select an appropriate wide open aperture so that depth of field is less and hence the background gets blurred out…the technical name for that is bokeh.

Really cool withy the fog that condensed out into droplets on the flowers though…

Here’s another version of the first one…Neil did some Photoshopping on it to simulate what bokeh would be like…it’s not exact but as you can see it makes the subject stand out a bit more.

And Neils Harbor has…naturally…his very own harbor. He thought about going down and showing this guy his license to prove his name and extract a lobstah royalty from him.

After continuing around to the west side of the island…these were taken from our table on the veranda at the Rusty Anchor.

After lunch we drove up over the top of Kelly Mountain…well it was actually a ridge…as we headed south along the shoreline.

Right at the center of this shot the white area near the shore is the parking lot of the Rusty Anchor…the next shot is a zoomed in one from the same location so you can see where we ate.

Looking the other direction from the top of the ridge…here’s a pano of the Cape Breton Island Highlands for which the National Park is named.

Another very far away shot…the little cove at the bottom is named Fishing Cove and is where the Celtic people that first populated this island went to fish…it’s the least developed area in the park…the only way in is about a 10 mile hike downhill from this point to the beach there. There’s a small primitive campground with a limited number of permits issued to go there…but there are no services. No water, toilets, trash, or anything else…you must pack in your water and pack out all your trash. The next shot after this is a zoomed in shot of the camping area at the beach. This is very similar to the Kalaulau community on the north shore of Kauai that we took some photos of years ago when we visited that island…again a very primitive campground at the end of a long hike down a valley from the top of the ridge to the shoreline.

Some more shots as we headed south down the coast.

The road just up from the beach you can see is the Cabot Trail.

A rock formation known as La Bloc…no idea why.

Looking the other way from La Bloc.

Just south of La Bloc are these two small…well, probably 40 feet high…rocks sticking up out of the water. Just on the other side of the cove is the town of Cheticamp where we ended up turning around.

After stopping by the grocery store in New Haven just north of Neils Harbor…we did stop for one more shot of our new favorite village…you can see the lighthouse and the harbor is just in between the top topmost rocky points in the photo. About 90 degrees to the right from this shot is a nice beach…located naturally on Neils River as it empties into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.

So that’s it for photos.

I can say that the Cabot Trail is probably worth it…but you need a really pretty day weather wise or else you get crummy views and pictures. Apparently fog is pretty common this time of the year…so perhaps coming a little later in the summer or earlier in the spring would be better. As to doing it both directions…sure, we saw different views on our way back home and that’s probably worth doing…but we would stick to the northern 1/3 of the Trail as that’s the only part with coastline involved…everything south of where we went is inland and the mountains aren’t really tall enough to be impressive…all the ones we saw were tree covered to the summit like most of the Appalachians are…and that’s just not as dramatic a skyline.

Tomorrow we’ll probably stay home…since it’s forecast to rain. There’s a ranger talk at the outdoor theatre in the campground at 1900…assuming it don’t get rained out.

Author dedication in an ebook we saw.

Looters.

Dogs have owners…cats have staff.

We know some RVers like this.

And finally…

Cyas.