PEI Trip Day 8

Thursday morning we got up early in Bar Harbor and checked out of our hotel. We headed back to Acadia National Park and went to a beach there. Even though it was a bit cool the kids got used to the water and were soon splashing around in the waves. I think this was the 6th beach area that we visited on the trip.
We left Acadia around noon and headed for Philadelphia. We decided to drive through New York city since it was evening. This is times square at about 10:30 pm. Went down Broadway and then down 7th avenue all the way to the end of Manhattan and then went over to New Jersey by going though the Holland Tunnel.

PEI Trip Day 7

Lobster boats sit offshore of Bar Harbor. It was a perfect day for visiting the area. Temps in the low 70s and sunny.
We took a tour on a lobster boat. They pulled in lobster cages and told all about the lobster business and the kids all got to hold lobsters. We also went out to an island and saw lots of birds, including bald eagles, and seals. The tour was really awesome and the weather was perfect.



Wow, Acadia National Park is pretty amazing with the rocks and the sea. We will spend more time tomorrow touring the coast.Graham takes a crack and sawing a log at Maine's greatest Lumberjack Show. We saw demonstrations of ax cutting, pole climbing, axe throwing and log rolling. A really fun time for the kids. The show is run by Timber Tina who Dawn and I recognized as a contestant on "Survivor" a few years ago.

PEI Trip Day 6

A very long day on Tuesday. We started out with an early breakfast and then headed to the other end of the island to catch the ferry to Nova Scotia.

We leave PEI behind on the car ferry to Nova Scotia. It took only 75 minutes to cross over. Three hours later we arrived a Joggins, Nova Scotia on the Bay of Fundy. In parts of this bay are the largest tides in the world. Tides are regularly 75 feet. We arrived just 10 minutes after low tide. Even where I was standing to take the above picture will be at least 20 feet under water at high tide. The black line is a coal seam that is showing. The cliffs of Joggins are famous for their plant fossils. Fossil trees are found and lots of different extinct fern trees and lycophytes are found there.

Here we are at Joggins again on a hard band of sandstone that sticks out into the bay. This will also be under water at high tide. While we were there the tide came in at least 200 feet as the kids played at the edge. Dawn started at a rock far away from the kids and by the time we moved from there an hour later the water was coming up around her rock. Every little wave came up higher than the one before. It was a very vivid example of rising tide that the kids will never forget.

After Joggins we made are way back to New Bruswick and then down the Bay of Fundy to the Maine border. We only could find two of the kids birth certificates before we left so I wasn't sure what would happen but was planning on being grilled an having to spend some time at the border. But, he just looked at my passport and Dawn's drivers license and wished us well.
We drove into the sunset and finally came to Bar Harbor. We searched for 1 1/2 hours for a hotel with a room. we finally found a place with no internet or any frills at all but at least we could finally lie down at 11pm.

PEI Trip Day 5

Another full day of fun! We headed out for "Anne's Land" and visited Avonlea which is a recreated town from the books. In this little village they have characters that reenact many scenes from the book and many of the events. The actors were great, especially Anne. I didn't have high expectations myself but we spent 5 hours there and we all had a great time.

Andrew and Graham are shown here partaking in a real potato sack race with Anne directing.
We are waiting for the "Anna breaks a slate" scene from the book. New sweatshirts helped with the cool and cloudy morning. As you can see below the clouds soon disappeared and we were able to head to the beach.



Anna poses for a picture with Anne Shirley .
A certain boy really had a blast at the red sandy beach on south PEI.Andrew and Graham take on the waves.

Tomorrow we leave by ferry for Nova Scotia.

PEI Trip Day 4

Our first full day on the island. We started out with a great breakfast made by our host and then headed out to the west end of the island to attend a local Free Church of Scotland service.
Here is the church we attended. There were about 25 of us in attendance including the 6 of us. There are 8 FCS churches on PEI and all 8 are being attended to by just one pastor right now. After the service a family invited us to their home for lunch. We spent 2 hours with three families talking about their family histories, PEI, and the church. It was really nice to be able to hear these families talk about their 8 generations of living on the island and all the intricacies of the relationships between the towns and areas of the island. The house we were at was only a few miles from the very northwestern tip of the island which represented the farthest north that we have been on the trip. We are standing one a rock outcrop at the very northwest tip of PEI. It is near low tide. At this point the waves are coming in from the north and the west and run into each other. It was extremely windy to the point that it was difficult to stand or hold the camera to take a picture.
We toured down the coast to the south west corner and went to this beach. The wind was much lighter and the sun was peaking through. The kids got in the water and got progressively wetter and wetter to the point of being soaked. Just as we were leaving a big rain storm came up. The kids were quite cold at that point but they had had a fantastic time running in the waves.

This is the scene just down the road from our bed and breakfast. Fields of golden hay, some alfalfa and lots of potatoes. We learned that all the french fries for Burger King come from PEI. One of the truckers that brings the fries to the US was at the home were we had lunch.
Here is where we are staying. Part or our room is the porch on the second floor where the kids are sleeping.

PEI Trip Day 3

A lot of action today! We left from Bangor Maine at 7:45 and arrived at our bed and breakfast on PEI at 6 pm local time (we are in the Atlantic Time Zone now). On the way we saw vast expanses of evergreen forest, lakes and swamps. We stopped at a beach in New Brunswick just across from PEI. This was the first time the kids had ever seen the ocean. They were pretty impressed. Even though it was only in the low 60s and there was a very strong wind they really enjoyed themselves.The worlds longest covered bridge in New Brunswick. We drove through twice and then walked a little down the walkway added to the side. Anna was a bit "freaked out" by the creaking and being able to see the river through the cracks in the floor. We stopped a provential state park in New Brunswick near the PEI Confederate Bridge. This was the first time the kids saw the ocean . It was very very windy and fairly cool but they found shells and lots of seaweed which seems to have overcome the weather.
A beach on Prince Edward Island near Summerside. This is in a bit of a cover so there were no waves but the kids loved picking up shells.
Our first PEI sunset.

PEI Trip Day 2

We are in Bangor Maine this evening. We started out in Rutland Vermont and traveled up the state going up a valley between two lines of moutains. We stopped at several water falls along the say. It was a perfect morning with temps in the 60s and a bit of mist rising over the mountains. We then went across the Vermont and then through New Hampshire just north of Mt. Washington.

Apparently Maine wasn't as exciting for some of the kids as they had hoped. So far no Moose sightings.

Tomorrow we leave early for the last 380 miles to our place on Prince Edward Island. The weather should be cool be clear and sunny while we are there.

PEI Trip Day 1

Our trip got underway at 5:34 am on Thursday. As you can see the troops were a bit groggy even two hours into the trip.

We made it to Rutland, Vermont by 4:30 PM and found a room at the Ramada Limited. The only adventure on the trip was when I looked back in the afternoon to see Elijah spewing all over himself. It just suddenly all came out and I mean every bit of feed he ate during the day. It was a huge mess. Dawn is at the laundromat right now cleaning his blanket, clothes and "moo moo."
The kids enjoyed the pool. They are really getting much better in the water. Even though the pool was too deep for Graham once he jumped in once he was just diving in over and over. Here he is on his way in again.

Anna's 10th Birthday

Anna was 10 on Monday. In addition to a new bike we all went out to the mall to watch her have her ears pierced.
The moment of first impact. She hardly realized it happened and has been talking all day today about how she can't believe it didn't hurt. The green shirt was also a birthday present.

Theatre Camp Performance

Anna attended two weeks of theater camp this summer. At the end they put on a performance of School House Rock. There were nearly 80 kids at the camp and well in excess of 200 people in the audience. Anna did a great job and had a lot of fun with many of her friends from her class in school who were also attending. I believe this is part of "Conjunction - junction, what's your function"

Anna and her classmates, Molli W, Abi, and Molly K

Bridgestone World Golf Championship

Wednesday morning Andrew and I attended the practice round for the Bridgestone World Golf Championship tournament to be played at Firestone golf course in Akron this weekend. Kids get in free and I like the practice rounds because you can take your camera. We saw quite a few of the best golfers of the world and Andrew got five autographs and VJ Singh asked him to throw him his ball which landed in the rouche a few feet from were we were sitting. That's the two of us ready to watch some guys hit a little white ball around some extremely think and dark green grass.

The Firestone golf course is really beautiful . This is the players clubhouse overlooking the tee to hole #1. We followed Sergio Garcia for several holes. Here he is signing autographs. A bit later Andrew decided he wanted to see if he could get some autographs and so we got a course map and he handed it right to Sergio as he was heading to the 9th tee and Sergio signed the map right on the 9th fairway. Andrew then got several additional autographs. He wants to save the map and see how many more he can get next year.
Here is our glimpse of Tiger Woods. For most players there were only a few to maybe 10s of spectators but as you can see everyone is following Tiger around. This is Ian Pouter from England. He has a bit of a rep for his flamboyant outfits. I distinctly remember taking many pictures of him last year as he stood on the 2nd green putting while talking to someone on a cell phone the whole time.