The BACK IN THE USA - Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania

Thursday Sept 8

We drive down the Bay of Fundy, going thru Calais as our point of entry. US Customs is far more relaxed than our Canadian counterparts were. Here a series of questions suffice and we on our way to Acadia National Park, reputed to be the 10th most visited NP in the states. When we arrive we are told the campground is full (a 2nd one is closed early for the season) and that this is their busiest year on record. Our Golden Age Pass gets us in for free and we drive around the park loop. It is foggy and misty and there are almost no views at all. We head to the Mount Desert Campground in the middle of the island where we find a spot in the woods. It's almost full too but we find a spot. It's 4:30 so I pull out my easel and set up on the camping platform provided for tents. I spend the next hour and a half enjoying myself immensely painting a small 6x8 of the Cape Breton coastline. 

Pink Granite Coastline | Pastel |6x8

We have Butter Chicken with rice and I do my yoga which I now look forward to each evening. 

Friday, Sept 9

We're on our way today to Portsmouth area is New Hampshire where my friend Chris Erickson lives. Chris is a close friend of Suzi Long and I met her at Suzi's at the Mendocino Open Paint Out- MOPO- its first year in 2013.  I use the Wi-Fi at the campground and we start a leisurely 4 hour drive down the coast, stopping for lobster roll and photo ops.

It's lovely to see Chris again and she shows us why she chose Portsmouth and the town of Stratham as her domicile. She has lived in her lovely new home since November. She makes a great suggestion for our Friday night - Taj Majal is playing in the park in Portsmouth! Off we go into the darling town of apx 28,000 and it's great harbor and new bridge where we sit for several hours listening to the blues of Taj Majal! Amazing fortitude of this (I'm guessing) +80 year old blues player! 

Saturday Sept 10

Today is Remembrance Day for me. We are headed to drive by three places I lived during my time in the Boston area. First, we head for Rockport to see the infamous Motif #1 (pronounced 'motive'). This fishing shack on the pier is one of the iconic artist scenes of America. No time for painting today but we do stop for clam chowdah as it is called here and I sample fried clams.

I lived in Massachusetts twice- after college, while flying for Pan Am, I married a Bostonian I'd met at Univ of Colorado, Peter Carleton. We married and lived on Beacon Hill in the heart of Boston. 

I believe this is our old home on Chestnut Street. We lived in the third floor which we accessed by walking thru the oval door on the left to behind the house and up a teeny elevator that was added to the outside of the building.  I moved from Boston to Charlottesville Virginia after splitting from Peter and falling deeply for David Greene, an engineer with Stone & Webster who was transferred to the Charlottesville area while I was on a six week vacation to Nepal and Bali. When I returned, I followed him there. A year later, he was transferred back to Boston where we bought a wonderful old house on a granite rock with a marsh out front in Hingham Mass. I find the home again and, seeing a man out front, head up the driveway. He and his wife and three children have bought the home just a year ago and have beautifully transformed it! They show us the inside and photos of the old house I remember nostalgically. I loved this home but it was also the place where my heart was broken. It is heart warming to see it loved and lived in by a family who will keep it for generations.

When David and I split, I moved just a few miles away to Hull - a peninsula south of Boston where I commuted to work by ferry. The house on Beach Avenue I rented- right on the ocean -  also has many memories attached to it as 4 of us lived there for the winter of '77-'78 when the Blizzard of '78 came thru the home in February, leaving seaweed on the fireplace mantle. Rendered uninhabitable, after evacuating to a friends house for two weeks (huge wine cellar, 7 of us feasting on lobsters washing in with each tide!), I moved out west. 

Memory Lane has exhausted my patient husband and we head for a nearby state park in Hingham that turns out to be a true hidden gem in the middle of the affluent Hingham/Cohasset area. 

Sunday Sept 11

Flags are flying at half mast today in remembrance of 9/11. We head due west in the direction of Niagara Falls which I haven't seen before. It's too far for one day's travel so we head a bit north in upstate New York to the Adirondacks. We're enchanted! It's beautiful country. We find an open campground on Sacandaga Lake and it's early enough for me to paint a quick one. 

Collin directs me to a particularly gorgeous kayak launch, then brings over two glasses of wine just as the sun is setting. 

We return to camp for steak cooked over the fire and baked potatoes. It's chilly and the lake is special. 

Monday Sept 12

Upper New York State is very pretty but the roads are horrible. It is shocking to me that the main travel route to Niagara Falls is one butt wrenching pothole after another. Along the way, I see signs for 'Maple Syrup. No Sun Service'. We stop and it is an Amish farmstead where the men are planing logs and constructing wooden sheds. I snap a surreptitious photo of a small child with her kitty.

We arrive at our campsite just 16 miles from the Falls at around 4:30. Collin makes the brilliant suggestion that we go see the falls at night. The parking gates are open and free and there's not even 20 people on the point! The Canada side is truly impressive with huge high rise hotels. 

The falls are lit up, the mist of the Horseshoe Falls rises high up into the sky!

Tuesday Sept 13

Now heading south thru Buffalo, we stop in Salamanca, NY to visit Collins former brother-in law, Bill Taylor and his wife Jane. It is Election Day and Bill is running for Alderman. A most interesting town, the land on which Salamanca is built is owned by the Seneca Indians and leased to the home owners. A former rail town, the place is dieing a painful death. The old downtown is deserted. A great many of the former residents have left and many old homes have sold to slumlords. Bill tells us drugs are rife. The Seneca who formerly stayed in a separate town, now enriched by their Casino, have moved in. Since they are a sovereign nation, white man's laws do not apply to them. If a cop pulls an Indian over, he has to notify one of the Indian Marshall's who basically don't prosecute or punish or take any action. They do not have to pay property or any kind of taxes, leaving the town in further decline from having no funds to work with or to attract new business. When the current lease on the lands expires in 2070, it is believed the Indians will not renew it as they want to take back the town. We had a lovely visit with Bill and Jane but I can't help but leave slightly depressed at the Catch-22 predicament they are in. Bill grew up here and has dedicated his life and time to the town, having been an Alderman twice previously. His desire to be involved and try to unite the two sides of the town are most admirable. 

We head into the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania just a few miles south for the night.

A LAKE IN THE ADIRONDACKS

Sacandaga Lake, Adirondacks | Pastel | 8x6

As we head from Boston to Buffalo/

Niagara Falls, we decide to take a quick jaunt north to drive thru the southern part of the Adirondacks. It's gorgeous here but were mindful that their winters have to be tough. 120" of snowfall average were told. We find a campground in Sacandaga Lake called Moffitt Beach where Collin's quick tour of the campground reveals this lovely view of an island in the lake. After a brief hour of painting, he brings over wine and we sit and watch the sun go down over the Adirondacks

Painting Notes: Quick strokes to finish this up leave me still wanting to add a few more. Later perhaps. Two ducks visit me while I'm painting so I quickly sketch them in. I kind of like that I didn't overwork this but do want to correct the light marks in the front rocks as they are from sunlight reflecting on the wet rock and I didn't make that clear.

THE PINK GRANITE COASTLINE

  Pink Granite Coast | Pastel | 6x8

Cape Breton Highlands National Park of Nova Scotia Canada is a grand place! A circle loop called the Cabot Trail drives thru boreal forests of balsam fir and birches filled with mooses who favorite meal is ... birch! Every mile it seems there is a pullout with an awesome vista - on the west of tall hillsides from the plateau that is the Cape down to the ocean, on the east side, rocky inlets of pink granite diving into azure seas. I learn pink granite is so colored due to the feldspar in it. Good to know as I am thinking it's more like fairy dust for artists!

Painting notes:  It's been 3 weeks without painting or sketching as we travel long miles daily on roads that are bumpy, making our way from my last plein air painting in South Dakota, thru Canada to Nova Scotia and now into Maine. We are camping in a forest that doesn't inspire me to paint so I set up my easel on our camping platform and choose a favorite photo from just a few days ago. I hear myself humming as my strokes flow into my small surface, totally engrossed. I finish 75 minutes later, high and happy!

NOVA SCOTIA - Nouvelle Ecosse - New Scotland

Sunday Sept 4

From the beginning our goal has been to reach Nova Scotia. It's a long haul of driving today as we continue down the Gaspé peninsula. The coastal drives are scenic and we make some miles on the freeways inland. Finally we reach the Causeway over to Nova Scotia. We stop at the Visitors Center and learned that there is a LARGE motorcycle event (Wharf Rats Festival) happening in the southern part of the island and the campgrounds are packed this Labor Day. Many have come from nearby Maine and the States.  

We decide to keep driving all the way north to the Cape Breton Highlands. It takes six or seven hours to finally arrive at our campground for the night - a lovely small 20 site place overlooking the Atlantic where we watch the sun sink into the pink sky. 

Monday Sept 5

This morning we drive a few miles up the Cape to the Skyline Trail where we a hike 6.2 miles loop thru balsam fir tres. First the spruce budworm attacked the balsam firs and birch thrived. Then the moose ate off the birches and the balsam revived. Now they have several trial plots where they've planted birch inside fences called Moose Exclosures, seeing if they can get the birches to revive. 

Cape Breton is a high plateau the runs all the way out the point. Collin observes that this is one place where you can see the sun rise and set over the ocean.  Next up is a short informative boardwalk thru a bog (technically we are told it's a sloped fen) where there are pitcher plants in bloom.

We continue across to the east side of the Cape where we stop for me to buy 8 Aspy Bay oysters to eat on the half shell tonight. We cruise on down the gorgeous coast taking advantage of the frequent pullouts - windy and with info placards on the geology, the final and the flora of what we are looking at. The coastal rocks are primarily pink granite which lends a dynamic contrast for the intensely azure sea. Equally gorgeous are each inlet where rivers run to the ocean.

We stop for the night early at 3:30 and head down to the Ocean for twilight. The sand is pink from the granite!

Life is good and so are the hot showers!

Tuesday Sept 6

We continue driving down the east side of Cape Breton in the Cabot Trail that circles the island. The vistas are of rocky headlands with trees capes. Every hamlet has at least a sign for local arts/crafts, a boat service offering bird watching or zodiac drives, and a place selling lobster, crab, mussels and oysters. It really does look like the Scottish Highlands here and and the names are too - McCloeds Bridge, Mackenzie River, Skir Dhu - and the town name plaques have it written in Gaelic as well. I'm reading the second book of the Outland series - Dragonfly in Amber - throughout this trip, spending my evenings with Claire and the Scot Jaimie so I feel a bit like I'm immersed in all things Scottish!

We are headed for the famous Peggy's Cove. I knew it was a lighthouse and cute fishing village but am pleasantly surprised to find the park itself is many miles long and filled with windswept granite rocks and gorgeous vistas of the 

Bay and Atlantic. It gets foggier and misty as we get there and even tho there are hoardes of visitors it is a magical scene.

We continue on southward to the Unesco Heritage town of Lunenberg, filled with wonderful vintage homes! We're in our element here!

We leave Nova Scotia aware that we are now on the return trip home. Another night in New Brunswick and we will head stateside for the remainder of our trip home. As we drive along the Bay of Fundy, we are traveling next to the Chocolate River. The funnel shape of the Bay of Fundy results in the highest tides and the churning of the red clay soil causing the river leading the bay and the end of the bay to be a milk chocolate color!

We head for one more Must Do- the Hopewell Rocks. This interesting feature occurred from the dramatic high tides (35' difference between high and low tide!) and erosion. We arrive just 30 minutes before high tide peaks so are unable to walk to the Flowerpot Rocks. They are nonetheless unusual and lovely.

In the gift shop, I spot the perfect t-shirt for Collin:

If I thought he would wear it, I'd buy it but suffice with showing it to him. Now I'm reminded that my time in Lobster Heaven is short and I start fantasizing about eating another before we go.  I'm banned from cooking one in the van now but manage to cajole Collin into eating out. We stumble upon the local favorite, the Alma Lobster Shop. There I indulge my passion while Collin sups on Seafood Chowder and lots of rolls & butter.

We spend our last night in Canada at Fundy National Park- the first park to have Wi-Fi available!  Hot showers, banking, emails and Facebook!

Thursday Sept 8

It's been one full month of traveling, staying two nights only in the Tetons and Yellowstone, traveling +7500, miles, 166 hours of driving time, averaging 21 miles to the gallon thanks to the blessed Bluetech diesel system on our Mercedes Sprinter we've named Sadie! 

We've seen so much it's hard to put it all into perspective. We've loved the countryside- boreal forests of conifers and birch, wildflowers in full bloom -fireweed, goldenrod, pearly everlasting -along every road, lakes, lakes and Lakes, moose, elk, bear, a black wolf, porcupine, martens, cranes, hawks, eagles and ospreys, plains and mountains, and lovely people speaking French and English with equal ease. We are headed for Bar Harbor Maine today to stay at Acadia National Park. Our intent is to travel from there to visit a friend, Chris, near Portsmouth New Hampshire. From there to Boston where I lived until the Blizzard of '78, over to Buffalo and Niagara Falls, down to Elizabethtown and Glendale Kentucky where my parents were born and raised and now lie interred, over to Kansas City to visit nephew Tony and his house full of beauties, then perhaps a stop in Boulder Colorado where I went to college, then back home. Lots more beauty to see, loads more interesting people to visit!

ONTARIO, QUEBEC & NEW BRUNSWICK

Monday Aug 29 - Ontario

Our first stop is to see Rainbow Falls, so called because the waters of Lake Superior fall down (N) over pink granite. It is raining off and on today and the pink rocks are a lovely midtone pinky eggplant (lt. aubergine) shade.  There are 181 steps to climb back up the falls = 105'=10.5 stories. (Those who know me well know me to be a counter!)

At Wawa (great name!), we make a bad decision to go east thru wilderness rather than south along the shore. The first two campgrounds are closed so at 6pm we turn south, hoping the only one on that 200 mile road will be open. We drive endlessly thru logging country. A thin row of trees separates us from checkerboard squares of trees clear cut, then replanted with pines. To our surprise, the lake at the end -Wakami Lake - is a real beauty and quite filled. Our campsite is right on the lake and looks out to two small islets. We fall asleep to the sound of loons calling and small waves lapping the shore. 

Tuesday August 30

We are seeing our very first signs of changing leaf color today. Today marks the end of our third week on the trip. We need to make more miles today as we have been realizing the vastness of Canada.  We drive over 300 hundred miles - south to the TransCanada Hwy, then east across the north shore of Lake Huron to Sudbury. We stop at a Tim Horton's Coffee Shop/fast food emporium where we get free wi-Fi and both catch up on our banking and emails. We spy two sand hill cranes along the road. 

Still heading east we continue past North Bay to the Samuel de Champlain Prov Park where we choose a lovely large campsite right on the river. Dinner, fire, yoga for me and bedtime when the rains begin and last til early morning. 

Wednesday Aug 31

Our goal today is to get half way between Ottawa and Montreal. We travel SE into and along the Ottawa River Valley - a beautiful flat agricultural area filled with old 2-story farmhouses with wrap-around porches, classic barns and fields of alfalfa, soybeans and corn. Tall silos are at every farm, dotting the sky.

We stay on the freeway thru Canada's capital of Ottawa which is seems an attractive town much the same size of Sacramento. Along the Ottawa river, the homes become more upscale. Just before the border out of Ontario and into the province of Quebec, we find a sweet campsite on the Ottawa River.

We take an evening drive to a local village known for its vintage homes. Called Vankleek Hill, it bills itself as The Gingerbread Capital of Ontario - referring in real estate-ese to their brick mostly two story homes with sometimes ornate trim. It's definitely a cute village. 

We ask a local where to go for dinner and head to Stephanie's Bar & Grill. It's huge and full to capacity! Obviously everyone from the surrounding areas is dining here tonight. So close to the Quebec border, all are speaking French. Delicious Ocean Platter and Pinot Grigio for me.  

Thursday Sept 1

As soon as we hit the border from Ontario into Quebec Province, all road signs change to French. Montreal is huge and sprawling as we drive thru it. Outside, we deviate from the freeway to take the Kings Route - Chemin du Roi (Roy) - which takes us along the St Lawrence from one cute village to another. Manor houses start appearing and we're obviously viewing some pricey real estate right next to the original old farmhouses. This area is known as the Eastern Townships - an area given to Loyalists of the King of England who had been living in the US until the Brits lost our war of independence. We realize too late that if we were to go more easterly, to the area just above Vermont, we would find several villages/inn that were the inspiration for Louise Penny's village of Three Pines from the Inspector Gamache series- one of our favorite reads. We encounter signs that read "Coule Pas Chez Nous". A quick consult on Google tells of a quickly proposed and forthcoming pipeline from central Canada up the St Lawrence that is being protested by a grassroots movement (just as Keystone pipeline is) who's motto means "Don't Dump On Us". 

We arrive in Vieux Quebec - the old City of Quebec within its fortified walls ( a Unesco World Heritage site) where we walk the streets, dip into the lobby of the Chateau Frontenac and end the day with a lite early dinner at a cafe. 

Friday  Sept 2

Back thru Quebec City to get on the last bridge north over the St Lawrence. The further north we head, the more lovely it gets. Soon we are traveling through an obvious seaside vacationers area. Houses are perched on the shore looking out into the bay. We stop at midday to view the Phare de Pointe-au-Père to see the view from the top of the lighthouse. Unfortunately it is closed for upgrades for an upcoming celebration of its 100th birthday. 

The engineers cottage in the foreground has the typical roofline of the area - described as curved waves to direct the rainfall (& snow) off the roof but not down the walls. 

Miles further north and the Gaspé Peninsula begins. We head inland to a Park where we immediately feel like we're in a different world - our beloved mountain world! Destination is Parc de Gaspédie. Our campground is on the banks of a lovely lake and we watch people embarking in their canoes for a sunset paddle. The temperature descends during the night and we use our heat all night.

Saturday Sept 3

  We begin the day driving south thru the mountains alongside the Cascapédie River. These mountains are the topmost points of the Applachain chain. The rounded hills are covered in thick woods that have never been decimated by fire, wind, insects or logging. They are so dense, the paths down to the river for the fly fishermen are each marked with a name and a number. 

Once again we are in moose territory but so far have only spotted the one mother and two calves. As we drive along the north side of the next bay south of the St Lawrence - the Bay of Chaleur- we find the town of Carleton-St Omer to be a real holiday resort. Chi-chi inns and restaurants and full of people this Labor Day weekend.  

We make a special trip to the Acadian Historical Village - a well done apx 2 mile walk thru time at the sight of what was a real village. We go back in time to the 1840-1890s as we enter each house and hear the costumed guides tell their stories.

Acadia was a territory that once encompasses all the Maritime provinces (Quebec, New Brunswick & Nova Scotia) and part of Maine. Isolated and ignored, they grew into a distinctive people-contented, hospitable, practical , independent and indifferent to authority- and French speaking. When they refused to swear an oath of allegiance to Britain, some 14,000 of them were cruelly rounded up and deported to British colonies in the south. The Cajuns are one example. The few who returned are fiercely proud if their heritage. The Acadian flag flys outside their homes and many have a star in the side of their house.  A wedding is going on today and we follow the bride and her groom posing for photos.

We are heading for a park with a truly fabulous name - Kouchibooguac - koo-chee- boo-guac (like guacamole). All day we playfully recite its name but once there ... It's FULL!  We're told there is a private large campground just 2 km down the road. It's packed tightly but there's a space for us! I have purchased a lobster for my dinner. Collin refers to me as his 'Shellfish Bitch' with emphasis on the first word thankfully. I love all things in shells from escargot to mussels, clams, crabs and most of all lobster! I'm thrilled to be back in the 'Land O' Lobster' for the first time in 38 years. Collin basically hates shellfish and most everything from the sea! He's not hungry and takes a bike ride. I tell him to be sure he's gone for at least twenty minutes as I need to cram my 1 1/4 lb lobster down into our small pot of boiling water. He abhors the act of killing food for dinner so I don't want him to witness my indulgence/act of murder. Sure enough, ten mins later - RIGHT as I'm pushing the lobsters head down into the boiling water with my tongs, he opens the camper door!  He slams the door with disgust and I now have a full half hour to boil it to perfection, micro my butter, and sit down with paper towels, pliers and scissors, making small cooing noises as the lobster butter drips down my chin.  I'm admonished for my act of lobstercide for the next four days, all the while anticipating my next taste of it! 

Tomorrow we're headed for Nova Scotia - the destination we have said will be our endpoint. At this point we've driven some 6000 miles! We will return via the US, starting in Maine and visiting Boston where I have never returned since my departure after the disastrous Blizzard of '78.