Our Travel Blog

Woke up to a dreary morning, it had rained overnight and the humidity had remained. The place we stayed at last night was great, more like a “real” hotel than a motel, but still at motel prices.

We headed out of Stowe and took a cross country route to St Albans. This took up a fairly narrow and twisty road over Mt. Mansfield where we climbed to around 2000 ft.

Our first stop was a quilting machine store where Lyn wanted to try out a Long Arm Quilting Machine (calm down Vickie!, for others if you want to know what one of these is speak to Lyn!). The store obviously sold high end stuff, as Lyn needed physical support when she asked the price. Problem is she seems to have fallen in love with that type of machine after playing with one.

We headed around the top of Lake Champlain to another store, and more play time for Lyn. Next stop was Ogdensburg, for me to pick up my toys, then over the border to home.

We traveled just over 3500km (~2200 miles) through Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, PEI, Maine, New Hampshire Vermont and New York. This was our first trip in our new car, and I was blown away with the fuel consumption. The truck gave us around 11.5 MPG with the trailer or around 20MPG without it. Our old car gave around 30 MPG average All MPG relate to US Gallons). The new car averaged 44 MPG (53 MPG British Gallons) and on the trip back driving around 85-90 kph we were getting 51 MPG (61 MPG British). Add to this the fact that we were given a gas card with the car that gave us 30% off fuel our fuel bill was minimum! (Most of the above was for my info, but you get to read it as well!)

PEI was amazing, we tend not to be city tourists but “scenery” tourists, and PEI was great for that. The place was green (both colour and recycling wise), laid back and there was an unbelievable pride in ownership showing for 99.9% of the houses we past. All lawns were very well kept, house all in good repair etc.

Overall a good break for 10 days, now we have to wait until January for our next vacation. The blog should start up again around Jan 14th.

We set off this morning in the fog and drizzle; we were really hoping the weather would clear for a trip through the mountains. We used the interstate for a while and then handed navigation over to the GPS. Unfortunately I had left the GPS in “Shortest Route” mode, so it wasn’t too long before we found ourselves on a dirt road!

Changed GPS modes, and slowly came back to the route we had expected to follow.

The weather slowly cleared and the temperature started rising from the early morning low of 16C. The visibility was still not the greatest but we managed to see across the valleys and the distant mountains. There sure are a lot of trees in the New England States.

As the day wore on the temperature climbed to a very sticky 33C (92F). As we got closer to destination the thunder clouds started to build, and very soon we saw a few spectacular lightning bolts.

We managed to arrive at the hotel after the rain, so at least it was dry unloading the car.

Tomorrow is the final day, and I’ll try to put a final entry up tomorrow night or Friday

Our final morning was cloudy, warm and dry. After breakfast we packed up, said farewell to our hosts and headed off to the mainland. First stop was the Confederation bridge, where we paid what I would guess to be one of the more expensive bridge tolls around at $44.50. At least it was free coming onto the island.

We finished up on the Trans Canada highway until we hit the town of Woodstock NB, where we picked up the road to the US. Customs was painless, and we were back in the US.

In a few years time all the days we spend in the US will increase my pension! Under some weird archaic agreement, between the UK and Canada, my British State pension which I have contributed to over the years can be collected while I live in Canada, however it will NOT be index linked. Because such an agreement is not in place with the US (or practically any other non commonwealth country) should I be living in the US or one of the other countries, my pension becomes indexable for the number of days I was residing there. Go figure, you can be sure that each and every day will be recorded and claimed once we reach 65.

Rant over, plus there wasn’t much else to say today!

We stayed in Houlton Maine, which on first seeing the place (and the motel) left us wondering what we had done wrong. Normally I manage to pick semi reasonable night stops. In this case I was “forced” into getting into the US for this evening to give me the extra time out of Canada so I could claim my full duty free allowance. Anyway, the motel room is fine and we found a fantastic restaurant in the town centre so my record remains intact.

That it for today, next stop is Stowe in Vermont. So far only two people have confessed to reading the blog, surely there are more!

After yesterdays deluge we woke to a clear, cool, sunny and winy day. We decided to give the Church one more try to see if we could track down the record of Lyn’s parents wedding. Lyn phoned them before we set off and got hold of someone this time. They said they would try to unearth the records book for her.

We headed out to the west end of the island with only one planned place to stop. Again we followed the coast as close as we could, although we did cut across the central part of the island at one stage and climbed to the dizzy height of 130 metres (425 ft).

Once we got to the west coast, we headed into French territory, with many of the locals speaking French and a lot more French signs. We found a small fishing harbour where we stopped for lunch, then headed out to our destination.

The destination was a small property with buildings made from bottles! There was a chapel, bar and small house.

Bottle Bar

Bottle House

Bottle House

Bottle Chapel

Bottle Chapel

From the land of bottles we continued along the west coast where we “discovered” a craft store! Quelle surprise

We then slowly made our way back to Summerside to visit the church. True to their word, the 1945 records of marriage book had been found and Lyn was able to see the entry for her parents. Unfortunately the regular administrator wasn’t there, and the person showing us the book wasn’t sure whether we could take a photo of the entry or not, so no photo.

When we first saw the Church on Saturday it looked to modern to be the one where the marriage took place. That mystery was solved when we were told that the Church burned down in 1946.

The Old St. Paul’s Church

Seems the Priest’s house was way larger than the Church!

We then headed back to the apartment for dinner and a start on the packing. Tomorrow we head out for Confederation Bridge and then across to Maine for the return home through the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire. We have three stops planned, two involve sewing machine shops (Lyn is researching a new toy) and one is a parcel pickup office where I have had a number of “toys” sent to so that I could taker advantage of low mailing costs in the US plus take them over the border as part of my duty free allowance.

I am not sure if there will be internet available the next couple of nights or not, so the blog entries lie in the hands of the cyberspace gods.

Time for you guys to ‘fess up, who has been reading this, messages please!

See Title

Another beautiful morning, clear skies and warmer temperatures. Today we were on a mission as well as a sightseeing trip. About 68 years ago Lyn’s parents were married in Summerside PEI, so today’s destination was Summerside to track down where they got married. To get there we followed the Red Sands Route along the South Central Coast of the Island.

First stop was Rocky Point across the River from Charlottetown

Charlottetown

From there we continued along the coastal route to Port-la-Joye / Fort Amherst Historic Site. This is where the French and British fought it out a few hundred years ago. The Brits eventually won and shipped all the French off the Island (one way to quell future rebellions I guess). From this site there were some good views of the red cliffs, although the camera doesn’t do the colour justice.

The Red Sea!

Looking Down the Cliffs

Red Cliffs

Red Cliffs

The colourful sands, cliffs and water continued for a while, then we edged away from the see to Victoria, where many artsy folk had settled. It was also a good place for lunch out on the wharf.

Lighthouse – Victoria

After lunch we continued past the Confederation Bridge to Summerside via an excellent (according to Lyn) fabric store. In Summerside we tracked down the church where Lyn’s parents were married. We were hoping to be able to see the marriage register but being a week-end the office was closed.

St. Paul’s Summerside

Next we headed off to what remains of the Summerside Air Base. This is where Lyn’s father was a flying instructor during WW2. There is very little left of the base, now it is home to an industrial park and small wind farm, although it appears that one runway may still be operational.

With our mission completed, we headed back on the inland route to the apartment.

Woke up to a cool but cloudless day. Today’s plan was to visit Charlottetown and then make the obligatory pilgrimage  North to Green Gables. For those across the pond Green Gables is the setting of a famous book entitled Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Green Gables is probably one of the largest income generators on the island.

First stop was a walk along the wharf in Charlottetown, the area can now accommodate cruise ships, and is being restored to handle all the additional tourists. The city also has the usual double decker tour buses albeit with a slightly different paint scheme.

Tour Bus

A few blocks up from the wharf are some of the older streets with buildings dating back to the 1760’s.

Old Charlottetown

Old Charlottetown

Lyn’s New Business

After getting in some walking exercise it was time to play hunt the craft store, which despite roadworks and detours we managed to find. Lyn now has even more material for even more projects!

Quilt Store

Next stop was Stanley Bridge, a cross country drive to the North Side of the island. Much of the centre part of the Island looked similar to the English countryside with its gently rolling hills.

Country View

At Stanley Bridge we found a nice seafood restaurant on the waters edge where we stopped for an excellent lunch.

Next door was an aquarium featuring a selection of the local fish population, together with a display of wildlife found in the local area. Also in the same building, but totally unrelated to the area, was the worlds largest collection of taxidermed (aka stuffed) birds, all 750 of them.

Starfish

On to the highlight(!) of the days tour, Green Gables. Having never read the book or seen the movie I needed a quick briefing on what all the fuss was about. Somehow this was a book that went viral before the term viral was used in this sense! The house was in a National Park, and the displays were well done. Luckily we are outside the holiday season as I believe the place is normally jammed, with a good number of the tourists being Japanese visitors.

Green Gables

We then followed the road along the North Shore to North Rustico Harbour which features a temporary parking lot at specific times of the day.

Car on Beach Parking Lot

Traps and Floats

We then continued following the coast line before heading south back to the apartment.