Saturday, August 31, 2013

Nova Scotia (NS) and Prince Edward Island (PEI) Trip. Day 2

This day began with a 3-4 hour drive to the Province of New Brunswick to see the tides at the Bay of Fundy and the Flowerpot Rocks at Hopewell Cape. We made a rest stop at the town of xxx.  Penny and I got a coffee at Tim Horton's and then spent the rest of the time taking pictures of the town, primarily the church there.IMG_5243

The church had tree stump people in front.  These are figures carved onto an existing dead tree trunk.  Here they are:

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The Church was impressive inside too.

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It would be low tide when we got to the bay and along the way all the creeks and inlets we saw were little dribbles with lots of muddy banks waiting for the incoming tide.

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This drastic tidal action is what caused the Flowerpot Rocks.  The best way to explain them is to show some pictures.

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That’s Penny in the last picture.

We took pictures of the water level when we arrived and when we left and in the couple hours we were there the tide came in remarkably.  Tourists that come at high tide kayak among the rocks.

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Next we travelled to PEI crossing the 8-mile long Confederation Bridge.  The bridge has a remarkable story about its construction and it is the longest bridge in the world that crosses water that freezes each winter.

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We made a rest stop just over the bridge and took more pictures.  They had a large flower bed that Penny and I enjoyed happy snapping.

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After that our last stop was at the Northwinds Hotel.  We were out in the Boondocks of PEI and suddenly there’s this large hotel complex.  The rooms were surprisingly comfortable and had a great view of a grassy field.  Here’s our room.

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That evening we ate at the PEI Preserve Company.

Here’s our group (that’s the lawyer and his 3 boys in the front):

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They grow a lot of potatoes there and I had potato pie for dinner.

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It has bacon crust and tastes a lot like potato skin appetizers.

On the way back to the hotel we drove to the national park there and saw their red sandy beaches as the sunset.

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That was Day 2.

Nova Scotia (NS) and Prince Edward Island (PEI) Trip. Day 1 Travel to Halifax.

I' haven’t been taking time to blog lately so here is an attempt to document our recent trip. This was our 40th anniversary celebration trip. 

Day 1 was the travel day to Halifax, NS. We flew out of Jacksonville .  K&T took care of Brie our cat and Karen drove us to the airport.  We made her get up early to get us to the  airport 1.5 hours before the flight.  The flight experience was typical.

In Halifax we met 2 other couples at the shuttle bus stop who also were on our Caravan bus tours. The hotel we stayed at was a Hilton Garden Inn-very nice but isolated at the airport.  That was OK because we only stayed there to get on the bus the next morning.

The hotel had coffee available any time and very good cookies were available all afternoon.  We started our vacation-mode diet right then and there!

At 8PM we had the first gathering of our group and met our tour director, Blair, and introduced ourselves to the group.  Everyone was from the USA and most couples were our age.  There was one guy, a lawyer from PA, who had 3 young boys with him.

My first impression of Blair was quite negative.  He was mild mannered and reminded me of Eore from Winnie the Pooh.  It turned out that he was very good at his job and since he was a local he had a tremendous amount of backstory to go with the standard tourist information about each local.

That’s Day 1.  Now we will see if I ever get to day2.