Cape Bretton Update

I'm having difficulty this vacation with a) keeping up with multiple cameras; b) finding the time to post at all; and c) finding sufficient blocks of time WITH wireless access to upload pictures.  Right now I'm just going to do text; once I carve out enough time to finish the New Brunswick post I'll try to work on pictures.

July 9, 2008

We had a Last Breakfast at the Rossmount Inn (sigh) and said goodbyes...

We drove a looong time to the Hopewell Rocks on the Bay of Fundy.  It is, rightfully, considered one of the natural wonders of the world, with tides swinging 20++ feet every six hours through massive stone "flowerpots" carved out of the nearby red cliffs through a combination of erosion and tide action.  You can walk out onto the seabed floor at low tide, gaze up at these massive, Bryce Park-like formations; and later go kayaking twenty feet higher up the cliffs.

The kids loved it.  Turns out the seabed floor is really muddy.

(Visual Thinking)

Mudman cometh:

After lunch we drove another looong time (Daddy was Very Pleased every time we shaved a minute off the GPS' estimate, and we did indeed shave quite a few; but it was still a loooong time) to Baddeck.  We got there just in time for a quick lobster dinner before collapsing into our little cottage with a view.

July 10, 2008

After breakfast in the cottage, we set off for  Louisbourg Fortress.  Well, actually, first we stopped in town in Baddeck; and then when that wasn't successful, in town in Louisbourg, to attempt to deal with laundry.  (I'd been counting on having facilities in our cottage; or if not in the cottage, at least in the cottage complex.  It's been a long time since I've spent time in a laundromat.  J. thought it was totally cool.  In hindsight, I regret not taking any pictures.)

The fortress was quite beautiful, and chock-full of fascinating history about cod (let me take the opportunity, here, to plug one of the most unexpectedly fascinating children's books I've ever read, which I stumbled across years ago and has vastly enriched my subsequent visits to Nantucket, Cape Cod, Portsmouth, New Bedford, and now here); about French mercantilism (more different than I appreciated from British colonialism); about British-French-Canadian history (more focused on religion and cod than you'd think, studying the same era in the US); and trade routes.

The kids enjoyed the dress up, too.

We had a quite delicious faithful-to-the-era, unelectrified lunch (mussels, cod, haddock and, for the younger kids, French Toast):

Wandered around some more: 

Attended a historically informative puppet show:

Flipped the laundry, and had what might have been our most successful Nova Scotian dinner yet, at Grubstake Restaurant in Louisbourg.