July 26-27, 2013: Lake Placid and the Lake Champlain Ferry

We went through this town and Elizabeth wanted her picture taken in front of the sign with her name on it.

A little bit of a detour to see some of the sights leftover from the Winter Olympics.  

Impossible to show in this picture, but this ski jump still used for training, is so much higher than it looks; we were amazed by the heights.

This gives a little bit more of a perspective.

Countryside looking the other direction from the town of Lake Placid.

The town of Lake Placid was packed!  We read in a book about all the events which are constantly going on, training, games, tourist attractions, but lots and lots of sports activities; this is a "fit" town.  To complicate the traffic further, an Ironman Competition is being held on Sunday.  We saw the 2.5 mile corridor marked off for the swim and everywhere we drove we saw painted green arrows and people running and biking preparing for the 110 mile bike race and 26 mile marathon race to follow the swim.  These amounts of exercise are just too hard for me to comprehend.

Leaving Lake Placid and going over to Plattsburg, New York to spend the night.

Saturday morning, July 27, 2013.  Time to cross into Vermont.  The Ferry acoss Lake Champlain will take us to an island in Vermont which has roads built on marsh connecting to the mainland.

A little windy and chilly.

The other ferry boat returning.

Getting ready to dock

The Green Mountains of Vermont

Crossing the bridge is how to get to the very small town of Montpelier, the capital of Vermont.

The State House in Vermont, just across the river.

More Vermont beauty

One of my favorite things about coming or being up North is looking for these statues in every town we go through; it's like a scavenger hunt for me.  Almost every single town, hamlet, village, or city has one of these exact same statues in the center of their town.  Each is worded slightly different but all memorialize the dead of the War Between the States and refer to it as the War of the Rebellion or the War of the Great Rebellion.  For some reason this amuses me so that I find myself looking for each one knowing I will never see anything different, just different names.  

New Hampshire and the top of Mt. Washington in the White Mountains.  You can just barely see the buildings up on top.  We went up there last year, up the Auto Road and spent some time.  Jeff, Jackson, and I went up 6 years ago when we spent some time in Maine so this year it's not on the "to do" list although this is a beautiful day to go.

Summer Travel to Maine

As usual all good blog posts pop into my head and right out extremely quickly if I don't get them onto paper.  In this case, that's what happened so this post will be "Just the facts ma'am, just the facts." 

In the past 4 days we have traveled hundreds of miles, spent a small fortune on diesel gasoline,  gone through multiple states, cleaned out a grocery store, ate lunch in the car 3 days straight, walked along the Erie Canal, hiked in the Adirondacks, explored an abandoned garnet mine,    

crossed Lake Champlain on a ferry, nestled ourselves in a cabin (ok, a camp) in Maine, jumped in the lake a hundred times (only the boys have made it to that number), canoed, kayaked, visited an 1850 era church, hung out with our friends, and whined a little (mostly children), ached a little (mostly the newbie waterskiiers), and laughed so hard that now we look at each other and start giggling.  And lastly, but not the least of which, the bird whisperer, and if you know who the duck whisperer is, you're ahead of the game, this bird whisperer helps a frightened wren who is trying to get in our screened window tonight, seems she likes the light but the bird whisperer easily catches, holds, and calms her before she hurts herself and lets her go in safety.  Maine has that effect on you I guess with it's soothing temperatures (not hot Charleston), it's glistening lake, beautiful mountains, loons calling to you in the early evening or morning, and the breeze.  I admit, there are a few bugs, mostly mosquitoes which should qualify as the state bird even though they are insects, but nothing a can of spray can't hold at bay. 

 

As busy and GO GO GO as our life has been, it seems that relaxing a little has been good for all of us!

 

Ferry Ride from Prince Edward Island to Nova Scotia

*Just in case you just checked back with my blog, I posted 4 or 5 different entries last night so scroll on down to catch up.  We had been having lots of issues with internet coverage and with posting pictures.  Now that we're in our house, we have coverage but only one laptop will work to post pictures so I decided to spend a few hours last night getting caught up.  All the posts had beeen written for day but without the pictures, that's why they all got put on at one time.  The last 5 or 6 posts will take you through the last 4 days.*

Lobster Traps out beside the ferry docking area.

The ship has arrived and is open for business.

Parking.  We parked on the deck where you come on instead of using the ramp to go down into the bottom of the ship.  The clearance for the bottom is only 6 ft. 6 inches; we are 8 ft. 6 inches so we park with the big vehicles.

In her 16 months of life, Katharine Ellis has lived in 3 houses, 2 states, and visited 30 states, including Hawaii (it will be 38 states by the time we come home)  and 2 countries.  Unfortunately she won't remember any of this.

Getting ready to leave the boat.

We will be here in this province for awhile.

Sunday, July 8

Big foot (size 11.5 in Men's) and Little Foot (size 5 in babies) are ready to head out!

It's Sunday morning at 10:27 am and it is LOW LOW tide at the Bay of Fundy at the Hopewell Rocks. 

We are now walking along on the beach or rocks and seaweed rather that were covered yesterday by water.  We thought it would be fairly easy to run around however with all the deep mud and seaweed it's a little harder as you sink into it.

 I finally "lose" my flip-flops for bare feet; it's much easier walking and even the rocks are not so difficult, they're fairly smooth with all the water running on them constantly.  2 people did ask me "How can you walk on this rocky shore?"  I don't know; I go barefoot a lot so maybe that's why.  Anyway, it's like a spa on your feet; lots of abrasion from tiny rocks and great squishy mud, perfect! 

Drew and Jackson have lots of fun washing their own feet, now they are doing mine!

The children are pretty amazed by the difference between yesterday and today but after awhile it's time to head up the trail and head on.  

We can only go north now.  North to the Confederation Bridge which crosses over into Prince Edward Island.  We could go another way and cross a narrow land strip into Nova Scotia but it would be more fun for a bridge lover and engineer to cross an 8 mile bridge built in 2004; the first bridge to ever go from the mainland to the island.

Once on P.E.I, it is exactly what you would think of; extremely scenic and beautiful.  Lush grasses, fields of potatoes, wheat fields, red beaches, a big blue sky, and these gorgeous purple flowers that are described in every brochure but not named. 

We take a break from the scenic driving around the island on a red beach but the water is very cold.  No matter, they get in anyway.  Even the baby plays around on the sand and we chat with 2 local women; apparently we stumbled onto a "local" beach. 

Potatoes for sale on the honor system on the side of the road.  P.E.I. grows and sells lots of potatoes.

Church located on the famous Great George Street in Charlottetown, named for the wife of the infamous King George III.  Great George Street had beautiful Georgian architecture homes lining its sides.

A country church

Lighthouses everywhere

Here comes the ferry.

More driving towards the ferry this time and past lighthouses (there are 50 on the island, one which heard the first distress signals of the Titanic) so we can go onto Nova Scotia.  Again, the only way is back across the bridge and a long way around from where we are on P.E.I. and a cost of $45 (toll to go back across the bridge; it is free coming in) or we can take a car ferry across (a cost as well).  We are opting for the car ferry.  JB and I have been on several but of the children only SK has been on one and she was too little to remember taking it at the Outer Banks.  They are so excited about this 75 minute ride on the ferry.
The only problem is that we cannot get a reservation on the 4:30 ferry so we have to take the 6:15.  This gives us more time on P.E.I. but it gets us into Nova Scotia later and we still have a 2 and a half hour drive to the house in Western Shore, a small, small, small community on Mahone Bay near the small town of Chester right off of the Atlantic Ocean.  The largest town in N.S. is Halifax and with a population of just 100,000 people it too is small.  Nova Scotia seems very laid-back and relaxed.  Perfect!
A quick detour by the airport in Halifax, JB jumps into his rental car waiting for him in the parking lot (another plus of his traveling; he doesn't have to go in or wait in line; he just finds his name on the board, his spot number, and gets in the car), and we are off to our house in the middle of nowhere which overlooks Oak Island, the famous treasure spot.

Quote of the Day:  While we were driving in Nova Scotia, we decided to let the little ones watch a movie since we had almost 3 more hours of driving without stopping.  I have never seen Cars 2 before so they really wanted me to watch it with them.  As it started, Jackson must have thought I might need some advice and said, "Mommy, now don't be scared!"