Velvet

East Coastlog, Stardate 082707 We barely, and I mean barely got on the ferry to Madeleine Islands, which leaves from Souris, PEI. It was waiting for the laundry to be done that did it, plus I missed a little sign taking us a bit off course, but either way we were running behind. I noted that not many people seem to exceed the speed limit here on PEI, even on the 90km/h highway, as I flew by them at absolutely outrageous speeds. We pulled up to the ferry with about eight minutes to spare and told the guy we had to get our bikes together and deal with long-term parking across the street at the B&B that supplies the only service in town, $5 a day. The guy gets on his walkie-talkie and the next thing you know we’re parked twenty feet from the ferry ramp, and for free. We race to get our shit together while they hold the boat for us and before you know it we’re on. Whew, we made it! Beers were reasonably priced on the boat so after a quick lunch in the cafeteria we hit the bar. Five hours later we dock after circling around the gorgeous Entry Island, the only non-connected island of the Madeleines that is inhabited (pop. 130). Okay, a bit about the islands. The Magdeline Islands lie between PEI and Newfoundland and belong to Quebec, hence they are usually called the Iles de la Madeleine. It’s about a dozen or so small islands, six of which are connected by sand dunes. Five of the six islands are French speaking while one is English. About 13,000 people live here and many of them make their money in either the fishing industry or salt mining. Between April and January you can get there by ferry from Souris, PEI. You wanna get here in the winter you gotta charter a plane. The ferry dropped us in Cap aux Meules on Cap aux Meules Island (all the islands have a town with the same name as the island) and after a brief stop at the info booth we headed across the island towards the campground in Fatima, as it was past 7pm when we rode off the ferry. As always when getting off a ferry the first ride is up up up and as we crested the hill overlooking the ferry we could already see the other side of the island and the ocean beyond. Fatima was about four or five kilometers away, tops, through smatterings of roads and houses. The maps here seem like they are almost actual size. We stopped for some groceries along the way and made it to the campground in time to watch the sun sink down into the Atlantic Ocean while the almost full moon rose splendidly behind us. We ended up riding only about eight and-a-half kilometers on our first outing; Heather’s first bike trip and the first time I’ve cycled with someone else. It was an easy segue in to our tour.

Duuuuudes. I missed it, but this will be a weekly thing, no? I'm a prefan.

Right next to mine buddy.

I absolutely recommend a Norman, specifically the B-20. Normans are made in Quebec by the Lasido company, which also makes Simon & Patrick and Seagull acoustics, La Patrie classicals, and Godin electrics. The Normans are very similar to the Simon & Patricks, and not dissimilar to the Seagulls, but I think the Norman is the best of the three. The B-20 has a solid spruce top (most agree that a solid spruce top is a must in any acoustic guitar) and cherry back and sides. They sound great and play great and cost around $350 new. A Yamaha on the same specs will put you back around $650 or more I suspect. Frankly I think the B-20 is the best guitar for the money available in Canada. I've been using mine as a workhorse for the ten years I've owned it. I teach with it, gig with it, and use it as the cottage/festival guitar. I've logged 15,000 hours on the thing at least and aside from getting the neck replaced free under the warranty in the first month of owning it, it's been 100% all the way. I have no intention of hanging it up anytime soon. And try lots of them! Every guitar is unique, even more noticably so with a solid topped instrument.

Only from Greco Davey Boy. Yeah, the timeline on the oysters was off but it scanned better in the next log. artistic license

Funny RnB, I woke up this morning thinking about Tony Williams.

Anyone got onsale info yet?

An aside: I dig graveyards so we stopped at a few on this trip. I noticed one tombstone at a cemetary near Summerside still had the old tagger on it, which I found amusing.

East Coastlog, Stardate 082507 In the morning we carried on with the scenic drive. Got down to the Potato Museum and parked in their lot. They didn’t open for a couple more hours, being Sunday, so we made lunch, unhooked the bikes and tried out the Confederation Trail. PEI was quick to belly up and finish their part of the still incomplete Trans Canada Trail, and I was eager to try it out. Built on the old railway line, it’s a smooth crushed stone path that travels from one end of the island to the other, with several optional detours along the way. We went about eight kilometres through pretty scenery and over bridges with nice rest stops along the way before we turned around. Man, I loved it. Doing the whole trail is definitely in my future. Passed on the museum itself but we visited the gift shop and took some pictures of Rocky the Lobster in front of the giant potato they have out front before heading off. We stopped for a snack at an oyster place. They were having shucking contests on the patio and giving away the final product. Heather imbibed, again I abstained. Our final tourist stop of the island was the bottle houses. Some guy with an apparent drinking problem built two small houses and a church out of bottles. Each structure is made from over 10,000 (mainly liquor) bottles imbedded in cement. It made it into Ripley’s column but if you go to PEI you can certainly skip this one given the $5 it cost, though it is certainly curious. Surprisingly paying the same rate as a car ($40) we crossed the impressive 12.9km Confederation Bridge (longest bridge over iced waters in the world doncha know) and headed back to my folks’ place where we slept one more night in the mighty Sunseeker and with some sadness handed over the keys. It was a good ride.

Thanks for noticing AD, I appreciate it.

The music is vacuous, the rest seems pretty irrelevant.

That's too bad.

East Coastlog, Stardate 082507 In the morning the four of us went for breakfast and Chris showed us around his home village, and I must say North Rustico is a beautiful little spot, and is certainly not without its charms. Back at the house it was hugs all around then we revved up the rig for a ride. Drove up to Cavendish and visited Anne of Green Gables’ house. She’s fictional, yet this is her actual farm (though moved from its original location), and that alone was enough to interest me. Heather is a fan so we went all around the grounds and through the house and smooched on lover’s lane and everything, all the time trying to stay ahead of any number of Asian tourists. Come to think of it, I’ve seen no Asian tourists anywhere else on this journey. They must come here to see Anne and then leave. Heather tells me Miss of Green Gables is very big in Japan. Went to the gift shop and bought a shot glass, cracked a joke about whether or not Anne was a wizard or a muggle, and hi-tailed it down the road. We took the scenic route again, taking in just a lovely island, and ended up at North Cape. There’s a lighthouse up there and about 30 huge windmills making good time. We got the okay from the staff at the info centre to camp behind them, which just happened to be at the exact peak of Prince Edward Island and a gorgeous spot. The lighthouse flashed and the windmills whirred as we watched seals playing in the water the whole time the sun set. When it got dark I noticed they had another one of those mournful buoys here too, and it occurred to me without a doubt that this was the best campsite we’d had so far. I think it might be what confirmed me on the whole RV thing too. I knew it would be pretty sweet, but I didn’t really expect to be all that crazy about traveling in a big RV. But I tell you, there are places you can be where this seems to be the only way to be here. You couldn’t tent in most of the places we’ve been sleeping, it’s quite likely the authorities would hassle a tent pitched at the side of a road, or perhaps out behind an info centre. Certainly here a tent would be tricky given the constant strong winds. And the freedom to pull over and go out on a bike ride, come back and shower and get cleaned up is great. I’ve always wanted to visit the Yukon and I think this would be the way to go. I ain’t gonna go out and buy one, but I like these RV’s.

Looks like somebody has a suspension with pay coming up!

It only takes one lawnchair incident to become a believer!

A fun thing about being elderly, I remember buying Funkytown on 45 when it was #1, and I remember when My Sharona and I Love Rock and Roll were the big radio tunes, I bought both of those albums too. Of course nobody alive at the time could forget We Are The World.

East Coastlog, Stardate 082407 A rainy morning prevented us from riding our bikes to Cavendish like we had planned so we opted for plan B. I waited for a drizzle and rode up to North Rustico, a lovely 2.5 kilometre trek, to Chris’ work. He had agreed to lend us his van for the day so we could boot around Charlottetown without having to maneuver the ‘seeker through the streets. “Just meet me back here after work around 5pm, the van is in the parking lot. It’s open, and the keys are in it.†I go out and the guy has all his gear in the van: bass head, speaker cabs, all ready for the stealin’. Gotta love PEI. “Oh, I lock it when I go to Charlottetown.†Okay, we’ll watch our asses when we hit the big city. And hit it we did. Still in tourist mode we went to the info centre where I became enamored with a ceramic potato piggy bank. What an absurd item. It looked like a kid from a school for the ungifted tried to make a brown Easter egg and failed miserably. We walked up Great George Street, which is itself a National Historic Site and made our way to the first donair shop we could find, ‘cuz we were starving. It wasn’t serving donairs for another hour, only pizza for the lunch rush. Damn. Walked outside and scanned the horizon when I heard my named called. Always a weird sensation when you’re on vacation. Well, if it wasn’t Dmayne, whom I’d met for the first time not two blocks from this very spot back on nero tour! “Hey man, how’s it going?†“Great, do you know where can I get a donair around here?†“Good to see you! What brings…†“Uh man, a donair shop?†“Well, right behind you, but they only have pizza right now. There’s a place around the corner, but it closed down. There’s another place around that corner over there, but it closed down too.†Wow. We chatted for a bit and he invited us to a party that night that sounded like a great time, then we left in search of food. To keep it fast and cheap we hit a Tim Horton’s, which was a disappointment. Did the tourist romp of Charlottetown, including the Confederation Centre and their excellent free art gallery, the big church, and Province House, home of the birth of Canada. Nice city they got there I tell ya. It’s a bustling little minitropolis with some damn nice architecture, a heck of a lot of history, and nothing but good people. We topped off our tour at a brew pub and headed back Rustico way. That night we all decided to have dinner and go to the party. Good plan, but what to eat? What the hell, we’re all pretty hungry, let’s go to renowned Fisherman’s Wharf, home of the 60’ buffet. I ate about three fishermen myself, and stuffed to the gills we all wedged ourselves into chairs back at Margot and Chris’ place and were absolutely unable to move for anything. Except pouring drinks I suppose, but even that took all the effort we could muster. And oh, did we muster. Another great night and off to the driveway for sleep.

East Coastlog, Stardate 082307 Spent our last night in Nova Scotia camped on Bras D’or Lake after following another scenic route down from Sydney. Got up and did the tank emptying stuff and utilized the wi-fi available to notify our PEI friends of our pending arrival. We continued on our scenic adventure with our little red lobster in the window pointing us the way to Pictou where we caught the ferry. It’s been a long time since I’ve taken a ferry to PEI, and never from Nova Scotia, but I sure remember the times when there was no getting on the first or even the second ferries that came in for all the cars waiting. I guess that big bridge they built took care of that problem because before you knew it we were asail across the Northumberland Strait. Landed and headed straight to Rusticoville. And arrived just in time for dinner! Our gracious hosts were exactly that. We ate Margot’s soup and drank Chris’ rum and parked our house at their house, both overlooking the sea. We debated going to Baba’s to see Grand Theft Bus and proceeded to drink our way away from the option. Chris introduced us to The Conchords via his enormovision and we just had a great old time. Soon enough Heather and I went out to the driveway and went to sleep.

East Coastlog, Stardate 082207 Woke up bright and early and walked down to the dock to see if I could spot any whales while Heather kept on sleeping. No whales, but the sea alone is a pretty awesome sight for a sleepy landlubber first thing in the morning. Back at the ranch Heather got up and took a shower, which along with everything else pretty much depleted our in-house resources. After two nights of dry camping we needed a serviced site to fill and empty our compartments that were becoming dry or overflowing. Be that as it may, it’s not like we were on a mission to camp or anything. Again we took it slow and easy, re-entering the park and thus the Caboto Trail. We stopped for a few more little hikes and did another bike trail (sure am glad we were able to bring the bicycles along). About 500 metres from where we would leave the Trail behind we found a restaurant with a nice view. Heather was hankerin’ for some sea bug so we pulled in. She ordered the lobster dinner while I had the club sandwich. If my sandwich was any indication the lobster must have been outasite. She bibbid up and chowed down while we gazed over the water in St. Anns. On the way out I bought Heather a cute little stuffed lobster I dubbed ‘Rocky’. Rock has become our co-pilot and companion. He will lead the way to Prince Edward Island in the morning, as we leave one isthmus for another.

UK: Beethoven's 7th Symphony US: Star Spangled Banner AU: Dance of the Didge Seriously though: UK & US: Hello Goodbye - The Beatles AU: Sadie (The Cleaning Lady) - Johnny Farnham

Cool Cyber, let us know if anything happens.

phorbesie here....mike i use an olympus C-770. thanks!

The pictures are almost entirely by Heather. I don't know what her camera is called but it's just a normal little digital I think. There will be more logs.

East Coastlog, Stardate 082107 It was a short jaunt from Margaree Harbour to Cheticamp where we stopped for a few more groceries. While parked we took an hour to walk through town. They had a little boardwalk and we checked into whale watching but decided not to drop the $40 each. We dropped into some gift shops and bought nothing save a rose. At one there was a stack of brochures that was a map to all the gift shops in Nova Scotia. I was gonna offer the girl behind the counter $10 to put the pamphlets away for ten minutes but wasn’t quick enough. Heather has somehow managed over 30 years as a Canadian without ever seeing a real live moose. In past trips through areas with moose potential we’ve kept our eyes peeled but never caught sight of any. She’s taken to claiming that they are fictional, or perhaps extinct. While she was skeptical, I was hopeful that we’d get her a moose on this drive and sure enough we came along a bunch of tourists parked along the road. We stopped and there he was, sitting off about 100 metres away at the edge of the forest holding up that enormous rack of his. We stuck around for quite a while; Heather was hoping he’d stand but all we got was a few head turns and a lot of ear wiggles. Eventually we left and not five kilometers down the road we hit paydirt. A momma moose and her two young’uns in a field. We pulled in and hung with them for quite some time. It looks like the fate of the recently unendangered moose is looking brighter. Soon we came to the entrance of Cape Breton Highlands National Park. We stopped in and paid our fee, disconnected our bikes from the rack for the first time and headed off on a ride in the woods on one of only four cyclable paths in the whole park, which makes up the top third of the Cabot Trail. After a really great ride we mounted the bikes back on the RV and hit the road. We took it slow which is fairly inevitable given the mountains the Sunseeker struggled to ascend and descend, and we stopped for a few nature walks along the way ta boot with a lunch thrown in. Leaving the park temporarily we headed north and stopped at Cabot Landing Park, where a memorial stands (ironically not on the Cabot Trail itself) dedicated to Giovanni Caboto, who landed somewhere very close by (no one is sure precisely where) and thus ‘discovered’ America. Our trek north was intended to take us to Meat Cove, which would involve about fourteen kilometers of dirt road winding along the sea cliffs. As we were navigating the turnoff towards Meat Cove a local stopped his car and essentially told us we were crazy if we tried to get this RV to Meat Cove. That was all we needed. So we ended up in the village of Bay St. Lawrence, a small, and I’m talking small fishing village at the end of the road at the top of Cape Breton. We parked about 250m from the dock at the end of the road. We were in the old unused boat ramp area, across from what appeared to be the only merchant in town, which was a snack shack. We did a walkabout and looked in vain for whales. There was a buoy in the distance that sounded off regularly with the most mournful drone you could imagine. We hung with the wharf birds and watched one swallow down a fish that was almost half his size. Inspired, we ordered dinner from the snack shack. Heather had the fish ‘n chips while I had the double burger and frings. We watched the sunset and listened to the accents of the bored kids hanging out while our chef prepared our meals as the buoy moaned in the distance. We took the Styrofoam across the road to our camper and ate ‘er all up before turning in really early.

East Coastlog, Stardate 082007 Woke up early and figured out how to do the dumping and such. Stuff came out, I know that, but the black water (sewage) meter read like there was no change. Mom said that the gauges weren’t always accurate so we plowed out of there without concern. We stopped in Pictou for future ferry information and carried on the scenic route that brought us up the coast to the Cape George lighthouse and along the St. Georges bay to Antigonish where we met up with the TCH. After our first fillup ($124) we got stopped just before crossing into Cape Breton by the moving bridge that ends the Canso Causeway. The bridge spun on its axis to allow a boat through before returning to its highway position and allowing us to officially arrive on Cape Breton Island. Before hitting the Cabot Trail we pulled off into a picnic area and Heather made us a great soup and sandwich lunch. As we turned left leaving highway 105 the beauty of Cape Breton gave way to the stunning Cabot Trail. We drove through the gorgeous hills and as soon as the road met the ocean we pulled into the first rest area we saw and decided to stay. The camper is well equipped to ‘dry’ camp, that is stand-alone camping without any hookups. The view outside our door was uninhibited ocean, and we lay in bed together and watched the sun sink into the sea through the open window. When it got dark we made dinner and got drunk (or was that just me?) and slept with the sound of the ocean crashing into the side of Cape Breton right outside our window. When we woke up I had a hankerin’ for an omelette. As tourist after tourist pulled in to our little turnoff for their pictures of the view I made a fabulous breakfast for the two of us and we ate it in our underwear with the dining table window open for the view of the sea.