You asked, we answered! Thanks to our loyal blog followers for submitting questions. Keep them coming. We love to hear from you.

Q: What music are you sick of? What haven't you heard enough of?

A: We aren't sick of anything, yet! We pass most of the driving time listening to audio books. We are making our way through the 13-book series The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan. Occasionally we listen to the local radio to catch up on the news or check out the local music. Actually, we tried to listen to the radio several times while driving across Newfoundland, but to no avail. There were literally no radio stations (AM or FM) in some of the more remote areas.

Q: Are there any foods you miss?

A: Hmmm, only the yummy Midwestern produce (strawberries, sweet corn, garden fresh tomatoes). We've done a really good job of cooking a variety of meals at our campsite.

Q: What do you guys eat? It looks like you're sampling a lot of local fare, but do you do a lot of cooking at your campsites? What about snacks for the car?

A: Occasionally we eat at restaurants, especially to try all the delicious seafood while we're on the coast, but most of the time we prepare our own food. Breakfast typically consists of peanut butter with marmalade, nutella & banana, or honey on bread, with chocolate milk if we have it. Sometimes we splurge and make a big breakfast with eggs and sausage or bacon. Lunch is usually a cold meat sandwich – these are easy to make on the go (which we often are) and are relatively cheap. Sometimes we heat up leftovers for lunch. We typically cook every evening. We've only grilled burgers once, to my surprise! Sample of meals we've prepared: Japanese style ramen noodles, spaghetti, split pea & ham soup, pork & veggie soup, fried rice, fish cakes, and grilled cod. As far as snacks in the car, we've taken to eating nuts and dried fruit quite a bit, mainly cashews and raisins. These are convenient to grab while on the road or to pack for a mid-hike snack.

Q: Do you miss yo' mamas?

A: Yes! And all our friends in Madison. We are having a great time, but I also know how wonderful Madison is this time of year and sometimes wish we were there to join in the fun.

Q: Has it rained a lot? Or remained sunny for you?

A: We have had a fair amount of rain, but also some really nice, sunny days. I thought all of the rain must be typical for spring along the Atlantic coast, but apparently this has been an especially rainy spring. Most rainy days tend to start rainy but clear up midway through the day. Newfoundland in particular seems to have lots of low clouds that fade to blue sky. I think the warmest day we have had so far is 80 degrees, and usually it is in the low-to-mid 60s, so I do miss the Midwestern heat some days! (Thinking of sipping mojitos poolside in Madison...)

Q: Have you seen any nice churches?

A: The best one so far was St. John the Baptist Basilica in St. John's, Newfoundland. It was massive and opulent. The church near Capitol Hill in DC where we attended mass, and another in Halifax that we popped in to visit were also very beautiful. A few times we missed out on attending mass in some beautiful churches. Once in PEI it turned out that the parish had moved out of their large, historic church and into a smaller building, likely due to shrinking parish size. A similar thing happened in Nova Scotia, where 2 parishes now shared a priest. The historic church where we tried to attend only had mass on Saturday nights, and the Sunday mass was held in a neighboring community. Unfortunately the mass times we found online weren't updated to reflect this.

Q: One month in (or however long it's been) are you still looking forward to the remaining 15 months as much as you were?

A: Yes, definitely. Still enjoying the ease of travel in Canada, still a little anxious about travel through Central and South America, still excited.

Q: Are you planning on being in Chicago on November 7? :)

A: It's unlikely, but we want to check out plane tickets from Mexico. If we can find a deal, we will fly back for your wedding, Jessica!

Q: What has been the most physically beautiful item/area/view that you have encountered so far?

A: Ooooh, good question. I think the most beautiful view for me so far was our first view of Newfoundland, coming into port at Port aux Basques (southwestern side of Newfoundland). The sun was shining over the quaint fishing village, which seemed to be clinging to the rock surface, with not a tree in sight. In the distance we saw the mountains rising up, with patches of snow on them. In general, Newfoundland has had the most stunning scenery, especially when driving along the coast with mountains on one side and the ocean on the other. The view from the top of Cadillac Mountain, in Acadia National Park (Maine), was also stunning. Oh, and our first glimpse of ice bergs here in Newfoundland was pretty neat.

Q: What has been one thing (or more!) that wasn't planned at all but that you are really, really glad happened in your trip?

A: Stumbling upon the Festival of Small Halls in PEI, where we enjoyed the talents of a local storyteller, fiddler, and accordion player in a cozy venue, and got a shout-out from the festival organizer during the intermission! Others include meeting the mayor of Pictou, NS and him giving us a pin with the town's crest on it, going for a hike in NS and coming out into a bay where a couple of dozen seals were lounging and playing, and nearly being blown down the mountain in Cape Breton, NS where the winds were pummeling us at 60+ mph.

Q: What event(s) so far will make for the best story 20 years from now?

A: I think the most notable story so far was when we were trying to drive up the mountain in West Virginia in the densest fog either of us had ever seen, as the last bits of daylight were quickly fading away. Then spending 18 hours in our tent because it was pouring down rain, only to find the road down the mountain nearly flooded when we attempted to leave.

The Rock

[Ike in black, Bethany in red]

There was a distinct sense of excitement and anticipation by those on the ferry as the land began to resolve from indistinct shapes in the fog. As a prairie-born individual, I too was right at the windows, but less in excitement and more just to verify that there was land we were going to. Six hours wasn't particularly long to be on a ferry [and a luxurious one at that][compared to the other one that took sixteen hours][also... it was plenty long to be sitting by a guy who was blasting Eminem's Stan from his phone], but I still wanted to verify that we hadn't ended up going through a time warp or anything crazy. [Fog is always a clear indicator that vortexes are possible]

From the crest of luxury, danger may loom?

Newfoundland isn't particularly remote nor desolate, but as the land came into focus [most of the six hour journey had been in dense fog, which suddenly cleared about a half hour from shore], I distinctly felt that the trip had begun in earnest. “Where are the trees?” I asked Bethany, “It's all moss and rock-oh my God, look up there” and I pointed to some clefts in the hills, where large patches of white could be seen. Bethany's eyes widened and her voice jumped half an octave. “Ike, we're camping here....”

First glimpse of Newfoundland, from the Port-aux-Basques harbor.

If anything, the exhilaration was greater knowing this. There is something romantic about taking your trip as far as it can go, and while Newfoundland isn't exactly apart from civilization, the way the landscape seemed to loom over us seemed to reinforce that it was different.

We descended nine stories into the bowels of the ship where our vehicle was stowed. As we roared off the ship and into the unknown, our trip was taking flight again...for about 30 seconds as we immediately pulled into a gas station to fill up the car and the reserve jerry can, as well as ask for directions to the super market. But THEN it was off! For 2 minutes until we hit the visitor's center and stocked up on information. BUT SERIOUSLY GUISE THEN IT WAS REALLY TRIP TIME.

Newfoundland has a provincial park pass you can purchase for $20 so you don't also have to pay a nightly fee. I rolled my eyes at first until I realized it's because they don't mess around with the quality of their parks: all we've been to have showers, many have laundromats, and they are piloting a wifi service at them as well! We learned all of this as we checked into the JT Cheesman provincial park not far from Port-aux-Basques. It was a light load for us that evening because we had a long day of driving ahead of us. We biked over to the beach on the other side of the campground to enjoy our first sunset on this rock we would call home for the next week or so. 

We spent somewhere in the vicinity of 7 hours on the road the next day, as we made our way towards St John's. We had the joy of staying at Dildo Run provincial park, which was a fantastic campground, as its name implies. Nestled overlooking a lake, we grabbed a campsite overlooking the water and settled in.

The ever-present fog on our first day's drive

Hiking is something we both enjoy doing, and the opportunities for it [obviously] abound up here in Canada. Dildo Run had a couple of hiking trails, so we decided to spend some time on a beautiful day making our way up them.

The entrance to the trail seemed to stem from an existing campsite, and I was a little nonplussed as it seemed a bit worse for wear. “Are you sure this is a trail?” I asked Bethany. She wasn't having any of it. “I looked at the map before we left; it's a trail. Do you wanna go back and verify?” Shrugging, I followed on. The trail was obviously a trail, but as we made our way in, it seemed pretty worse for wear and needed some upkeep. At first, I figured there had been trees blown over from the wintertime storms. Newfoundland gets pounded by some relentless winter weather every year and it would make sense that they needed to spend a fair amount of time keeping up their trails, and considering we'd been to some parks already that weren't even open yet, it made sense that perhaps this tiny little provincial park hadn't had a chance to update theirs yet. And then we saw the large bushes growing up in the middle of the path and it was clear this trail hadn't been maintained for years. Nevertheless, we pushed on. “I know I saw it loop around and connect to the other trail” Bethany said with some irritation in her voice. To be fair, she also apologized profusely several times for picking a path that was clearly more than we had bargained for. Eventually, we tossed in the towel and made our way back to where we stared. And there we noticed on the map that the trailed was called the “Old Hiking Trail” and the ranger told us indeed it had been abandoned several years ago.  [And, for the record, it did meet up with the other "newer" trail. We were probably 3/4 of the way there when we turned around.]

Oh yeah, totally normal hiking path....

Recouping, we made our way on the actual path, which followed the coast and gave us a view overlooking the bay that was more than we had bargained for:

As we spent many minutes here just soaking up the view, neither of us saying anything, we noticed a small boat making its way from far off to our left.  Over the intervening minutes, as it slowly made its way across our visible horizon, there was just the sound of the wind and the light hum of the motor.  You could easily follow the 'V' of the wake from the boat almost the entirety of the path it had come.

"Why wait until retirement to live the life you want?"  Randy the park ranger said to me. I nodded in agreement.  "I work four months a year to allow me to live the life I want the other 8."  I nodded again.  "Good for you for doing this now while you can!" I smiled.  Randy is living the dream, and I appreciated the positive reinforcement.
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Twilingate is another popular tourist destination in Newfoundland. We'll let you guess why:

Twilingate also houses the Auk Island Winery, famous for their wine made with iceberg water.  This is a common theme in Newfoundland: the Quidi Vidi brewery I visited also does this, and there is a distillery that makes vodka, gin, and other spirits with iceberg water.  Their wines were also pleasantly cheap, so yeah, we picked up a couple of bottles.

St John's is the place to do stuff in Newfoundland.  It's the oldest city in North America, and changing hands between the French and English several times has led to lots of history.  Nestled along a natural harbor tucked behind the mountains surrounding it and next to the Atlantic, the view of the city our first day from historic 'Signal Hill' was amazing:

We celebrated the start of the St John's Day festivities [marking the city's 126th birthday] with the firing of the noon gun:

Redcoats, BOOOOOOO.  Also, Canadian mayors seems to be involved in a ton of stuff; that's St John's there at the back.

With free tours and admission to sites abounding for the festivities, we also joined a downtown walking tour eminating from the railroad museum, allowing us to partake in a concert in a wine vault, as well as see a historic pharmacy, founded by Newfoundlander and native hero Tommy Ricketts.

Ricketts served with great distinction in WWI, the young men on duty at his memorial made sure to tell us, right before they proudly showed off their pin the reserve Newfoundland Regiment gets commemorating their participation in burning down the White House in 1812.

Reeling from this information and needing a drink and the highest touted fish & chips in the Province to help ease us from this information, we noshed:

Thanks for the recommendation, Peter!

We ended up camping at a private campground within St. Johns. When we pulled in Friday morning it was fairly empty, but we noticed that motorhomes and fifth-wheels hauled by large trucks kept roaring by our site. This continued on Saturday morning and afternoon. When we returned from Duke of Duckwell's Saturday evening, I felt like we were back in college at a frat party... well, one with packs of 8-year-olds cruising around on their bikes, playing hockey on the lanes, and screaming nonsense that only 8-year-olds could understand the meaning of. Our neighbor was blaring his radio until at least 2am... but I couldn't complain too much because at least they were good tunes. Keep on rockin' in a free world! We later found out that it was a 3-day weekend. Monday was Discovery Day, a provincial holiday celebrating Newfoundland's discovery back in the 1400s.  

We attended St John the Baptist Basillica on Sunday morning, and were amazed by the scale and beauty of the place. Throw in a friendly, outgoing priest and it wasn't half bad!

"Do you mind if we turn on the game? I'm up from the states and want to watch the US play."  A quizzical look met me.  "What game?", the bartender asked.  "Soccer."  "Are you sure it's on now?" he asked, flipping channels on the only TV in the bar.  We found it, and settled down at the Blue Finn Lounge, the only bar in Louisporte.  We weren't the only ones in the bar, but it felt like it, as the only other people inside were parked in front of the video slot machines along the far wall.  We spent the next couple hours chatting with the bartender [has a nephew in Madison!] and marveling at the amount of cash the 'regulars' kept pumping into the slots.  After the draw, we thanked him for letting a couple of yanks crash the party, and made our way back to the campsite.
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"Pop quiz:  Who are the forsaken?"
"Have we even heard of them yet?"
"Yes.  They're the Aes Sedai who joined the dark one and were sealed by the Dragon at the end of the War of Power.  Remember the writing from the inside of the dungeon mentioning Lanfear?"
"Who are they?"
"It's a person. A woman; the first forsaken, the only one who didn't have a name given to her but instead chose her own.  She used to be a lover of Lews Therin Telemon? Before he fell in love with Ileyna?  The writing suggested she's loose."
"Oh well DUH that's who's with Rand and Hurin right now; Selena or Selene or whatever."

When you have hundreds of hours on the road, it helps to have something to pass the time.  Bringing the audiobook version of a 13 volume, many thousand pages long book series is a good way to do that.  Making it a book series with about a million characters and a passenger who can sleep in the car, well, maybe that was a bad choice. Sample conversation when we have hours to pass and no more planning to do, and the conversation we had on our way out to Gros Morne National Park.
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Imagine every second is a year.  Think of all you've done in the last year [in my case: how many go-lives? Marriott nights? bottles of beer?] and compress it to a single second.  Every minute is just under an average lifetime.  Recorded human history isn't much more than an hour; agriculture is two and a half hours old.

These mountains are 31 years old.

Formed from the mantle inside the Earth, and not from the crust, the rocks are so alien that vegetation can't grow on them. [A side effect of the no vegetation thing is wickedly strong wind! It was difficult to stand up at the end of our hike, as the wind was absolutely relentless at 50+ mph.] They are estimated to be a b[with a B]illion years old.  The Tabletop mountains are the crowning achievement of the national park.

When confronted by such mind-bending numbers, we break it down in our minds like this:

Shallow Run, tucked in on the edge of the national park, is where we've called home the last few days.  Western Brook Fjord, home to the 'purest water in the world' is nearby.

Nestled at the base of these mountains, left over from the last ice age.

Bethany and I, lacking boat passes, wanted to enjoy another hike.  We didn't want to take the basic path that led down to the ferry, so we took the path out to Snug Harbor.  What they didn't tell us was that it required remembering all the skills we learned in 2nd grade playing Oregon Trail to be successful:

There's cold, and then there's mountain snowmelt cold.

The only way you can recover from numb feet and wet clothes is a beach stroll in 40 mph winds.  At this point, it's almost quaint.

We plan to spend a couple more days in Newfoundland, then catch the ferry up to Labrador. It's going to be a whole new level of "remote" for this trip. We're looking forward to it!

First AMA (Ask Me Anything) Post

Nomadizen's first AMA (Ask Me Anything) post. Have any burning questions about our trip? They can be practical (Q: How much did you spend per day in the US? A: $80, excluding the new engine), quirky (Q: How many times has Ike worn his camo shirt on this trip? A: Not enough!), or anything else that floats your boat. Mostly we just want to hear from you! Post questions in the blog comments or shoot us an email. 

The New Land of the Scots

The last post left with us disembarking from the ferry into Nova Scotia.  View from the ferry.

About to pull free from the ferry

And this was waiting for us in the Nova Scotia terminal.  I would love to know what the actress playing April O'Niel is up to now.

Nova Scotia's license plates proudly proclaim it as 'Canada's Ocean Playground'; they aren't lying. The coastline dominates much of your view while you're in the province, and even when it's out of view you can smell the sea salt in the air. After our arrival last week, we made the short drive over to CaribouProvincial park we were going to camp at that evening. We pulled up to a group of camp workers sitting around a table, hopped out of the car to ask for a spot, and heard, “The camp doesn't open until this weekend....” Woof. [Seriously, Canada, why doesn't your tourism season start until July? I'm used to camping in Wisconsin as soon as the snow melts!] We began inquiring about other campsites in the area, when another of the workers came jogging up to us and said, “You guys can spend the night here, free of charge. I don't want you worrying about trying to find a campsite this late in the day.” [Ed: It was 2:45] After doing the polite dance back and forth for a minute, [Are you sure we can stay? We don't want to be a problem! “of course you can! It's really not an issue!”] we wandered through an empty park and picked the best spot in the lot. We realized later that evening that the wildlife also didn't expect the park to be open, as we saw two deer walk right past our spot, and heard an owl just overhead that evening.

We meandered into town to stock up with groceries again. Sobey's is the national grocery store chain of Canada, heavily endorsed by Jamie Oliver [crème fraiche!!!!!], and the place we stocked up on groceries. Most of them have an adjunct liquor store. Canada has some wonky alcohol laws, and it appears that every alcohol shop is run by the Province [PEI Liquor! NS Liquor!] but all alcohol is sold there, not like New York where beer can be in stores but not wine and spirits. Time again to reiterate just how ridiculously expensive it is in Canada. Even the crap beers are $20+ per 12-pack. Wine is never cheaper than $10/bottle [and is usually $15+], and liquor... Sweet baby jesus the liquor. Bacardi 1.5L is almost $50. Almost double what it is in America. I said screw it and bought cheap Canadian whiskey, and I'm going to drink it neat to slow down my damn consumption of it. Can we get to Argentina for dollar bottles of Malbec already??

Next we moseyed over to the Tim Horton's to leech their free wifi. I've still yet to step foot inside of one, but have happily borrowed their internet numerous times. While we were going through our bevy of super important Facebook updates and feed reading, a car pulled up next to us, a gentlemen stepped out, and then stepped up to our window and knocked. I initially thought we were going to get a tongue-lashing for being ungrateful bums [not untrue] but instead we were asked if we were indeed from Wisconsin. Turns out none other than the Mayorof Pictou himself, Joe, had pulled up next to us and made our acquaintance. Turns out Mayor Joe had been in Appleton before, and was a cheesehead fan himself. [Good man] Joe asked where we were staying, and we told him the provincial park. A look of confusion passed over his face briefly, as he said, “But...that park isn't open until Friday.” and I clarified for him that the very nice staff over there had graciously let us spend the night anyway. Mayor Joe gave us some pins celebrating Pictou and we bid him farewell. Nova Scotia was going out of its way to make sure our first 24 hours there would be a good one.

The crest of Pictou! Thanks Mayor Joe!

We packed up early the next morning and had a long drive across much of the island. We went south west to Thomas Raddall provincial park. The park here was also almost empty, but it was open. 

Let's take another second to appreciate how kickass Nova Scotia's flag is [inverted colors from Scotland]

After setting up, we made our way down to the coast, and had the entire beach to ourselves. The water had noticeably warmed up since we were in Maine, in the sense that after about 5-7 minutes your feet numbed to the pain instead on continuing to throb in pain. Despite the temperature not being very warm, you can feel the strength of the sun, so an afternoon reading on a beach by ourselves was an afternoon well spent. Playing counterbalance to such a nice afternoon was a realization back in camp that we are still woefully unprepared for the veracity of the mosquitoes in rural Canada. We decked ourselves out in our permetherin-laced gear, put on bug spray, but still that wasn't enough for us to survive the onslaught.

Caving in, we broke out the mosquito net, and had to quickly accept that our 10'x10' wasn't quite as big as initially we thought. We huddled beneath it, watching Despicable Me [Thanks Marybeth!] while Bethany still ended up getting eaten alive. We cashed out the next morning, and fled the bug free Shubie Campground in Halifax.  [I have to give a shout out to Two Girls &A Grill, a little roadside shop selling deliciousness to famished travelers. We ordered the fish & chips and a strawberry milkshake, and they were both done to perfection.]

Halifax is the hub of Nova Scotia and made for a fun urban couple of days.  Alexander Keith's brewery, home of the first IPA beer, sits down by the wharf and has an exceptional brew tour, with actors and a couple of tastings.  Their IPA is a lot less hoppy than American ones [or more stomachable some would say], and they had a microbrew 'Galaxy' ale that was lights out. [The first beer Bethany has ever liked!] 

Not pictured: Sobriety.

There is also a large citidel that overlooks the harbor open for the public to walk around:

Cape Breton is a popular tourist destination for Canadians [and others]. It was settled by French Acadians in the 1600's, and while many were forcibly removed by the British after they seized control of French Canada [resettling in New Orleans, to become Cajuns], this section of Nova Scotia proudly retains its French roots. Because of the heritage, we noticed many of the signs made the switch to having French first, and several road signs were only in French. On top of that, it is visually stunning. We [smartly] made the decision to stay at the base of the mountain, near the area that has internet and isn't torn to shreds by wind.

We say that, but the wind was still strong enough to dry out our tent in about 5 minutes

Sunday we ventured out into the park proper, heading towards a hiking trailed called the 'Skyline' trail. We had no idea this is what we were in for:

Pausing to snap a picture, we noticed the wind was much stronger here out by the coast. Bethany was buffeted pretty strongly as she tried to take this picture:

What a sexy vehicle

and when she came back to the vehicle, she opened the door, a gust of wind hit, and there was a flash in front of my eyes as several of our receipts flew out my window and out over the sea.

The Skyline trail told us to be on the watch for bears, coyotes, and moose. We saw two bunnies and a slug. We made our way out to the last bluff, several people we passed on the way warning us that it was very windy. 

This yellow heather only grows on the bluffs in Nova Scotia and totally can take the high winds! Better than me!

We got to the boardwalk that heads down the bluff, and saw a sign that explained why the winds are so strong here [coastal winds hitting winds coming over the mountains], but what was more pertinent to us was the graphic that showed where we were, and showed a wind arrow with '130 kph' on it. Wait wut? We made our way out onto the bluff: 'hey, this isn't so bad!' I thought to myself as we made our way out along it. Then I realized it was because we still had a windbreak from some trees. The full force hit shortly thereafter, and great googly moogly. We felt like the poor saps cable news puts out in a hurricane. Leaning into the wind, trying to make our way down the rail-less boardwalk, hoping a gust doesn't pick one of us up and toss us over the side of the cliff. We made it about halfway down and called it good. Sitting there with our feet against ledges to buffer us against the gusts, you could see where the wind collided with the sea, forcibly pressing itself into it and causing great semi-circle ripples where it pushed its way out away from the cliffs. You could follow the concentric circles back into their origin points, where the column of air must just be slamming into the water, but of course we couldn't see the culprit of all this chaos.

Pictured: 70mph gusts.  Not pictured: wind

We took the long loop of the trail to head back, hoping to catch some wildlife. Instead, we got rain driven into us in 30 mph winds, on the open top of the mountain where no trees grew. The trek back, mainly in silence, allowed me to contemplate how batshit insane it would be to be responsible for building / maintaining the trails, the road, any of the parks amenities. I also can't imagine what it'd be like to be here in winter. Or, to be one of the brave families that settled and lived in 'Fisher's Cove' for over a century:

[I was fairly disappointed that we didn't see a single moose during our 6 mile hike, but Cape Breton does not disappoint. On our drive back to camp we saw a mother moose and a baby moose (or “moose-ette” as Ike called it) along the side of the rode. Massive! I thought it was a statue when I first saw it out of the corner of my eye. I would hate to see what would be left of Sweetcakes should we ever run into a moose – so here's to that never happening!]

Monday morning, we broke camp early and made our way to the ferry, and with it, onwards to Newfoundland!

Week 4: Prince Edward Island

I'm starting to get an inkling of what it was like for my ancestors as they tried to settle Nebraska, and I don't like it.

Lemme roll that back a bit.  I love watching storms roll in.  One of the few gripes I had about living in Madison was that we didn't get enough thunderstorms, and the ones we did get were hard to watch from our apartment with the trees blocking the view out the back porch.  If I wanted a good view of a storm coming in, I'd either hide under the awning to stay dry and cross my fingers that the storm was a big one so I could enjoy it overhead as I looked to the east [my only real viewpoint] or run out to the front and cross my fingers that the view was worth getting drenched.  

When I was 10, a tornado missed our farmhouse by a quarter mile.  Our old farmhouse, supported by railroad jacks, didn't seem a likely candidate for survival, so we outran it, also not a good option. When we got back, the farm still miraculously standing, we found out that our 80+ year old neighbor had stood on his front step the entire time, watching the tornado pass. Since that day, I've made storm chasing a bucket list item for myself.

When I was a kid, my family would tell me stories of great grandma having to find her way back to the farm by holding onto the barb wire fence when she was caught out in a dust storm during the dust bowl. Or the story of how the first family homesteaders arrived in Nebraska late in the year and didn't have time to build a home before winter arrived, instead having to dig a hole into the side of a hill and fortify it, making that their home for the first winter. [And I'm not even sure how true that one is at this point.]

So it strikes me as kind of odd that over the last few days, I found myself looking to the horizon not with eager anticipation, but with a bit of anxiety. On one hand, I realize that severe weather isn't really a thing in this part of Canada, but on the other, I'm sleeping in a tent. There was a storm forming in the afternoon and you could see the high streaks of clouds that rush out ahead of a strong storm as the heaps of warm air it sucks up crystallizes as it rapidly cools as it peaks between 30-45 thousand feet. I kept looking at it, hoping it would swing wide to the south and miss us. Thankfully, it did and all it did was increase the hues of the sunset.

This won't be the last time I find myself surprised at a change in view as we continue this trip, but this was one that surprised me. :)

Our arrival at Prince Edward Island national park [after a ride on a 14 km bridge, the world's longest over water that freezes] was cut short when we found out that it's still closed until next week. [This just begs the question of how the morons on Trip Adviser were leaving glowing reviews of staying at the park in May and how fantastic it was. Orfl orfl. ] We meandered our way to the provincial park of Cabot Beach after putting the phone to good early use and calling around to see if any of them were open.  It was nestled next to a 'town' of maybe 50 called Malpeque. The one we found was nearly empty and had sites right up on the ocean. We had our sunshade up to keep out of the rain, but as the wind came in, we quickly had to try and get it down as the wind was blowing it sideways and bending the metal arms holding it up. Wind right off of the ocean is not to be trifled with. That night, we relearned that lesson as we woke up to our tent collapsing in on us. While not the first time it has happened, it's worth reiterating that waking up to howling wind, with your shelter repeatedly falling in on you, is a bit nerve-wracking. I pulled the vehicle around in the rain and wind and placed it between the wind and the tent. This helped a bit, but couldn't account for the gusts that would pull the rain guard out, and then compress it back in, almost like an accordion, blasting fresh cold air into the tent and preventing us from retaining any heat inside the tent [and from sleeping].

The Harbor at Malpeque

A gray dawn came that morning, and we reluctantly pulled ourselves out of bed and quickly decided that we were not going to have a repeat of the last night [our tent surely would not last another night if we attempted it]. We struck camp and began moving ourselves behind the treeline to get out of the wind. The trees provided a stark testament to what the wind was capable of: their south-western sides with stubby 'branches' that were more nubs than anything; lacking leaves / needles and bare, while their other sides were full and long. This was particularly pronounced along the coast, where they seemed to form a nesting doll of trees, each one closer to the coast a bit smaller and able to fit inside the one immediately behind it and further inland.

This is how I woke up last Friday:  apparently my shoes are delicious to slugs!

Rainy days like that were meant to be spent indoors, so we did just that. We fled to the capital of PEI, Charlottetown, and plopped down in their visitor center with its free wifi for a couple of hours. Reheating and re-interneting. We walked around the downtown area, trying to only soak in the sites. One of those stops was at their quite beautiful cathedral:

We finally caved to homesickness and ran towards a little slice of Americana: a movie at the mall. Dinner was at a great local place called Papa Joe's [bacon wrapped meatloaf, completing the Americana trifecta]. The day ended on the coast at the campsite, watching the sunset.

We woke up Sunday to a blue sky and 70-degree weather and were giddy. Finally!

Warm weather means we can hang cloths!  

We practically skipped our way down to the national park we initially tried to camp at when we had arrived on PEI to go biking. The 9km trail was lots of fun: varied terrain [grass, gravel, sand [woof], dirt] and views [woods, fields, coastline, sand dunes] Warmed up and worn out from our first honest ride since Fort Wayne, we wandered down to the beach and happily spent the afternoon reading and soaking in the sun.

In case you forgot.


Cavendish Beach

Enjoying the beautiful sunset on the coast

A second day of great weather brought us to the north cape of PEI, enjoying a scenic drive along the coast and seeing the cluster of wind turbines [Vesta has a test site located here]. 

It's big, all right?

That evening, we went to the first show in the Festival of Small Halls. PEI takes two weeks every June to put on numerous shows for entertainers who've “made it”, and they return to perform in little community centers around the island, each holding at most 100 people. Bethany and I tracked down their little office headquarters to buy tickets, and ended up talking with both the coordinator of the event and one of the performers: about our trip, about the event, about PEI. We were excited to see the performance, and spent a couple of hours in heaven listening to a story-teller, a fiddler, and an accordionist [accordianer? Player of the accordion?] We even rolled with it as we received a shout-out from the event coordinator after we had shared a bit more about our trip with her; “We even have a young couple here from Wisconsin! In the United States! [laughter] Who quit their jobs to become hippies and travel across Canada this summer! [applause] And are now turning beet red for me saying this out loud.”

Nils, Cynthia, and Mike 

[In a lot of ways PEI feels like the rural Midwest. Only two towns on the island have populations in excess of 10,000. You can imagine how closely knit the people are on the island, which itself feels like a small community. During the show, we found out that bloodlines are extremely important here. Are you from the island, or are you “from away”? And, apparently only those that are born on PEI can truly claim they are from the island. I felt blessed to participate in such an intimate display of island culture.]

We struck camp this morning and made our way to the ferry, which as I'm writing this is about to dock in Nova Scotia, and the next stage of the trip is about to begin.

Red soil, green grass, bright blue sky.  Typical PEI. :)

New Brunswick: The land of high tides and baby squirrels

Wednesday morning we awoke to a gentle rain, broke camp, and headed out of the park to some coin-operated showers nearby.[two dollars for 4 minutes; note to self, open coin operated shower in my own home] We had read online that for those that intend to bum around Canada for awhile, it is best to arrive at the border looking clean and fresh, lest the border agents think you intent to become a permanent bum[number one rule of being a bum; don't look like a bum]. After we showered another couple pulled in. We exchanged pleasantries and then they headed into the shower house. I had a hunch that they were midwesterners, judging by their mannerisms. I took a peek at their license plate, and sure enough they were from Iowa! Woo! Ike wrote them a short note and tucked it under their windshield wiper, then we were on our way: Canada bound.

We passed through a few small towns, then before we knew it we were on a long stretch of highway, with nothing but evergreen trees on both sides. It turns out there is not much going on between Acadia and the Canadian border. [times I'm happy we went ahead with a new engine...Also, with only the Maine radio to keep us company, we quickly learned that rural Maine must just be a nightmare of evils; every other commercial was a PSA: teen drinking, brushing your teeth, depression; basically every teen Mainer is a drunk, depressed, toothless wreck]We soon arrived at the border crossing, bypassing the new commercial crossing, and opting instead to go through one of the smaller crossings. [in downtown of the small town of Calais, pronounced, “Cal-is”] The border agent asked us a few questions about the intentions for our trip and the goods we were bringing across the border, then asked us to pull forward and take our passports to an agent inside the office. Once inside, we found out we had been selected for an “interview,” which really consisted of this agent asking us the same questions as the first guy. He then told us he needed to run our passports through their system and that it would take a “few minutes.” Twenty minutes later he assured us we were all clear, but he wanted to see our bear mace. Apparently using mace on humans is illegal, so any mace brought into the country must be clearly labeled as intended for use on animals. We gladly complied with his request, then were on our merry way. Hello to St. Stephen, Canada! [We ended up lucking out at the border crossing, as the killer in Moncton that Bethany mentions later no doubt led to much more stringent searches at the border. We didn't have anything improper in our vehicle, i'm just glad we didn't have to deal with the rigamorale.]

We quickly passed through St. Stephen [well, we stopped and tried to sign up my cell phone with the canadian cell service but couldn't get the SIM card to work on my phone, despite Verizon giving me the A-OK several months earlier that it would be fine] and then were on the interstate, headed across New Brunswick towards our destination. Shockingly were were one of the only cars on the two- or three-lane interstate. We couldn't help but notice the wire fences that seemed to be 8ish feet tall that lined the ditches and continued for miles (or, kilometers, I should say). The had a sort of one way gate in them that would let things (we are guessing moose?) pass beyond the gate (away from the highway), but not into it.

The next thing we noticed was that everything was bilingual. All traffic signs were both in English and in French. New Brunswick is the only Canadian province that is officially bilingual. It was a good way for me to brush up on my rudimentary French from high school. [and for me to pronounce everything in an obnoxious fake french accent, oui oui!]

After driving for a few hours we arrived in St. John, where we attempted to hook Ike's phone up to the Canadian cell network. We had called Verizon several months ago to request that they unlock Ike's phone, and were told that the phone was already unlocked, and yes, it is compatible with the Canadian cell network. So we pull into a cell phone store, explain that we're looking for a prepaid cell plan, and try out one of their sim cards. Doesn't work. Ok.... we headed off to another store and tried their sim card. Same problem. By now we realize this is probably an issue with Ike's phone, not with the sim cards. We found a pay phone in the mall and called Verizon. After jumping through a few hoops, Ike found out that his cell phone was compatible from a hardware standpoint, but that it did not have the proper software. Thanks, Verizon. The woman in the cell phone store gave us contact information for a few local cell phone stores that could unlock Ike's phone. We decided to deal with that later, and continued on our way towards Fundy National Park.

We were treated to a stunning view of the Bay of Fundy on our way into the park: a rainbow over the bay on a sunny day. The Bay of Fundy has the world's largest tides, with the record tide reaching ~46 feet (equivalent to a 4-story building). The registration office was closed when we entered the campground, so we drove around to pick our site. There were no tent campers around, so we naturally took the best site: the one with a bench that overlooks the bay from a hill. Bonus: the park has free wi-fi! We set up camp, made dinner, and took advantage of the wifi by skyping with our parents. We watched the sunset over the bay. Since we're on the west side of the bay we could see the setting sun reflected off the cliffs of Nova Scotia across the bay. All in all, a pleasant night. [minus the gargantuan june bugs that kept dive bombing us as we skyped. THEY CAST SHADOWS!]

Overlooking the Bay of Fundy. If you look closely you can see the rainbow in the center.

View of the Bay from our campsite.

Thursday we woke to a light rain and lots of fog over the bay. We made breakfast, then headed out to see the tides in action. Our first stop was Cape Enrage, with a lighthouse set out on the cape with dramatic cliffs on either side. Unfortunately the fog prohibited us from getting much of a view, but we still enjoyed seeing the coast, the dramatic distance between the current water level (nearly low tide) and the high tide mark, and the thick, rolling fog. The coast was covered in lots of medium sized rocks, and all of them were as smooth as if they had been polished. Sadly we didn't see any sea creatures, but for some reason there were a ton of moderately sized black spiders running around. Eep. [They didn't seem interested in the delicious morsels that were bethany's toes...]

Cape Enrage, surrounded in fog.

We hopped in the car and headed towards Hopewell Cape, to see the New Brunswick's most popular attraction: the Hopewell Rocks. Here the tides have eroded the steep cliffs, leaving columns of rock that are narrow at the base (up to the high tide mark), and then widen at the top. These formations take hundreds of years to form, then crash down once the base becomes too narrow. [guidebook: the flowerpot rocks have many interesting formations! Some look like clouds, others flowerpots, some just look alien! Bethany: they all look like penises]

The flowerpot rocks at Hopewell Cape.

It was now early afternoon and my tank was running on empty, so we stopped at a local restaurant and enjoyed some fried (but very fresh!) seafood and a piece of coconut cream pie that was out of this world! It was here that we learned about the big news story of the last day or so. In Moncton, a town about an hour away, a gunman was on the run for thirty hours after he shot 5 police officers, killing 3 of them. This is a huge story and the locals in the restaurant were all quite frightened. The restaurant owner was considering shutting down the restaurant for the rest of the day. We figured there was not much we could do at that point besides listen to the local news on the radio to keep abreast of the situation. Next, we followed signs to a winery along the coast and bought a bottle of blueberry wine. I mean, it's high in anti-oxidants, so we couldn't pass it up! [There were also two couples from North Carolina there, and one of the gentlemen had an eye patch on, so that was awesome]

On a side note, we noticed that nearly all of the homes in New Brunswick have wooden chests/boxes sitting near the end of their driveways. Each home has a different version, but they were all similar in size. After awhile my curiosity got the best of me, so I hopped out of the car and peaked in one. They hold their garbage bags. I'm impressed that the garbage truck collects garbage in such rural areas, but it must be the case. We also passed a home with a sign posted that read something along the lines of: “Canadian Post: I support door to door delivery.” This then prompted me to notice that there seem to be clusters of mail boxes along the road, similar to a large apartment complex. So I can only infer that garbage collection is door to door, but mail is not. Interesting...

Friday, we stopped in Moncton [following the apprehension of the shooter], purchased groceries and alcohol [$23 for a 12 pack of beer. Canada, we need to have a talk], finally got a Canadian cell phone (we ended up purchasing a new phone) and made our way out to Prince Edward Island.

PS – The baby squirrels are out and about right now. They are almost too cute to handle. The squeak at you when you walk by, then when you are a safe distance away, they start start firing their laser guns at you. No seriously, that's the noise they make. :) I caught one of them stealing the pineapple rind out of our garbage bag.

Adorable baby squirrels. They wait until you turn around to fire their laser gun at you.