Home and Time to Dry Out

We arrived home on July 9th, a few day ahead of schedule. Of the 25 days on the road we encountered rain on about 20 of them. Perhaps this was payback for a trip to Yellowstone several years ago where we encountered no rain at all during a month on the road.
From this experience we have learned several important lessons. Namely: that rain in not so bad as long as you have good rain gear; it doesn't rain so hard that you can not see the road; and, that it is not raining when you pack up in the morning. Also on this trip we decided that we are getting too old to camp so we abandoned our camping gear in favour of motels.
One thing we noted was that in recent trips we we have met fewer interesting people. Upon further reflection, we realized that have met the most interesting folk in local bars. So in future, after a long day on the road, we resolved to hang out in bars rather than restaurants.

The Day of the Ferry's

As we near the end of this trip we decided to ride a few ferrys - always fun on a bike trip. From Watertown New York we travelled a few miles to Cape Vincent and caught a small ferry to Wolfe Island Ontario. The always officious Canadian Customs officials let us back into Canada without too much hassle and we then drove across Wolfe Island to catch the ferry over to Kingston.

Wolfe Island must be the windmill capital of Ontario. The whole island seems to be covered with them. Unlike the Cape Vincent ferry, the ferry to Kingston had a long line up of cars. We drove to the end of the line and were waiting patiently when the fellow directing traffic told us to skip the line and park down on the dock ahead of all the cars. It seems bikes get loaded first (finally some preferential treatment!) which was great with us.

While in Kingston we toured the Correctional Service of Canada Museum and got to see just how small a Jail cell really is.

From Kingston we took the Bath Road ( Hwy 33) down to the Glenora Ferry and had a short crossing of the Bay of Quinte. Highway 33 from Kingston to Picton, along the coast of the Bay of Quinte is one of Ontario's most picturesque roads.

Green Mountains & Adirondacks

We continued to cross northern New England. From Bethel we crossed into New Hampshire and went to the base of the road up Mt Washington. Dave has wanted to do this road on several other occasions but the weather was always bad. This trip was no different. It was raining at the base and close to freezing at the summit. We passed on Mt Washington and drove on to Conway and made our way slowly through 4th of July traffic to the turn off for the Kanamungus Highway (Route 112).

We had sunshine all the way up the east side of the mountains. When we looked west at the summet we were met with black clouds of a nasty thunder storm coming up the valley. We quickly doned rain gear and had a rather scary trip down to Lincoln in a very heavy rain. In Lincoln we stopped for lunch and their 4th of July parade that closed the only road out of town.

We let the GPS take us over two more sets of mountains ranges on some great back roads to Killington Vermont. In Killington Bev wanted to show her bike to Susie who manages the Timeshares where we have our ski vacations. Susie and her husband have a bike. We stopped off to see what our timeshare (Swiss) Chalet looks like in summer.

From Killington we went on to Lake George New York where the long weekend traffic was really heavy. We headed north on route 9N to get away from the crowds and ended up stopping in Ticonderoga. On July 6th we finished crossing the mountains and stopped in Watertown NY.

Twisty rainy White Mountain roads

We crossed into the US at St Stephen with the intent of following the Maine coast down to Bar Harbor but with the persistent coastal rain and fog we headed inland. We drove through Bangor and ended up stopping for the night in Bethel Maine (in winter the home of Sunday River ski resort).

On July 4th we drove through great twist roads in the White Mountains. The weather was a real mixed bag; bright sunshine one minute and a down pour the next. We let the GPS guide us from Conway New Hampshire to Killington Vermont. We do not know exactly where we went but we crossed three sets of mountains on great twisty back roads.

Confederation Bridge

On July 2nd the rains returned and we left PEI via the Confederation Bridge. Fortunately the winds on the bridge were not too high and since a bike rider is higher than a car driver we had a excellent view of the straight as we crossed.

Because of the rain we took a pass on the Bay of Fundy coast and other tourist attractions and drove past St John stopping at a motel outside of St George with a magnificent view of the coast and the fishermen working in the bay. While eating dinner on an outside balcony by the bay we witnessed the drama of a bold eagle swooping down over a mother duck and her brood of chicks. Right on queue, just before the eagle struck all the chicks dove and avoided the outstretched tallons. After three passes the eagle moved on to find other prey, while Bev lamented, "but the eagle needs to eat too!!" making her quite unpopular with the other diners at the restaurant.

Canada Day

We decided that Charlottetown would be a great place to spend Canada Day so we stayed on for an extra day. The rains held off and they had a concert during the afternoon and evening. We caught some of the acts and then took side trips to some more local pubs and restaurants. In all , it was a very relaxing day. At 10:00 after the last group played they had a spectacular fireworks display - the biggest east of Ottawa they claimed.

Charlottetown, PEI

Heavy rain getting here....what else is new?.... we learned how to navigate loaded bikes up a mud hill during construction.

While in Charlottetown, the birth of Canada's Confederation, we visited Beaconsfield Historic House, Province House (where the famouse 1864 conference where Canada was created in principle) and generally toured around the old part of town. One evening we went on a pub crawl that consisted of beer and munchies at about four bars. We took a double decker tour bus to see other sites as well.

Cavendish & Anne of Green Gables

From Souris we travelled around the eastern tip of PEI and along the north coast to Cavendish. PEI is a very peaceful place with lush green rolling hills, smooth roads with gentle winding curves and little traffic. En route to Cavendish we stopped at a railway museum and an intrepertative centre near St Peter that explained the ecology of the sand dunes and north coast beaches. Unfortunately it was cool and cloudy so we did not get to do any beach time - oh well at least it wasn't raining.

In Cavendish the rains returned and with umbrellass in hand we walked from our motel, through the "Haunted Woods" of Lucy Maud Montgomery's imagination and in to visit Avonlea the setting for her most famous novel "Anne of Green Gables". While there we learned a lot about this famous author, her incredible imagination and her life.