50 AMP VISION QUEST

We could have stayed at Gateway RV Campground in the center of Nova Scotia longer than our two days. It remains a gem of a campground that is owned and managed by an affable character who puts his heart and soul into making your stay rustic in the best sense of the word as well as comfortable.  Time is marching on, however.  We wanted to stay and luxuriate in the semi-solitude along the Medway River but we felt the clock ticking withal.  There are many miles to go before we sleep as the poet said.  If we ever come back to Nova Scotia we will definitely stay here again. 

Our next destination was Kujimkujik National Park, down the two-lane a scant 30 miles west. Kujimkujik is both National Park and National Historic Site, set aside for its abundance of natural beauty as well as one of the long-time homes of the Mi’kmaw.  You can easily see why the Mi’kmaw made camp here. Abundance would be a name you could substitute for it.  The Mi’kmaw had learned that the area was the source for many rivers and streams that flowed both east and west to the Bay of Fundy as well as the Atlantic Ocean on the eastern coast of Nova Scotia.  They could use those rivers for travel back and forth for hunting, fishing, and trading. Kujimkujik area, with several rivers and large lakes was and is a superb stop along the way.  Birch grows easily here and was converted into birch bark canoes.  Fish and game were and are abundant.  The name, Kujimkujik, means “little fairies” in the native tongue.  I would say the area is, indeed, magical. 

Kujimkujik is also a National Historic Site.  Deep within its forested and well-watered meadows and lonesome bays are hundreds, if not thousands of petroglyphs. 95% of them are protected and only the Rangers and some historians know their whereabouts.  The officials work diligently to keep them secretive for their own protection. However, you are able to reserve a tour of the one site that the Park officials allow you to witness.  That site in adjacent to the beach at Merrymakedge.  The beach itself is a serene haven for families.  Even though the water is a bit on the chilly side of the gauge, kids and their parents flock here.  Mom and dad lounge in the soft, clean sand while their kids punctuate the water with flailing arms and kicking legs adding exclamation points in the lazy afternoon sun.  Off on mid-lake kayakers paddle slowly as they inhale the evergreen and hardwood infused mix of cool, humid air offset by the unbridled warming Sun.  Perhaps there really are fairies here.  Why not? 

Diane and I booked a tour for mid-morning to see the petroglyphs with a guide.  Oft times the guide on these tours will be a Mi’kmak woman, Donna Morris, who is the foremost authority in the area on their origins.  Our tour was conducted by a Ranger named Audrey whose deep auburn hair matched her personality; energetic, quick-witted, gregarious, and eager to answer any and all questions.  She knew her stuff.  We walked a short distance along the beach past warning signs to keep out of the area without a guide to a spot along the lake front where Audrey advised us to take off our shoes.  A line of flat-topped boulders strung out into the lake some 30 yards, all seemingly connected so that they made a continuum.  Audrey told us that taking our shoes off was mandatory so as to protect the petroglyphs.  Many were fading due to decades of wear and tear from visitors’ shoes and their abrasive soles. 

Off went the shoes and out on to the rocks we went, perhaps a dozen of us on this particular tour.  The rocks are a dark mahogany color and the etchings are difficult at times to pick out.  Audrey would often dip lake water with the cupping of her hands to wet the petroglyphs, making them magically appear out of seemingly nowhere.  She told us what we were looking at just in case we couldn’t tell.  Her descriptions always included historical context which was rich and enlightening for Diane and me. 

“There’s a caribou.  They don’t inhabit this area any longer.  This is a little missionary man.  He has the ‘Sacred Heart’ insignia inscribed on his chest.  It was made in the 1700’s during the French era.  When I look at the caribou I think back to a time before the moose and caribou were cleared out of these parts.” Audrey pointed out. 

I thought about herds of caribou here roaming around and small bands of Mi’kmak taking a few down with spears and arrows. It was easy to imagine. The petroglyphs here are estimated to be between 800 and 1000 years old at their oldest.  Some definitely were more recent.  At times we could see where 19th and 20th century European-descended folks scribed their names and dates on the rocks as well. 

Now, a European sailing vessel appeared as Audrey applied the water treatment again, proof positive that Natives did indeed travel back and forth through here from the coasts.  Was this Champlain’s ship?  The sight of the ship must have amazed the artist for them to have taken the time and the care to reproduce it here for posterity.  A whale emerged a bit to the left, a well inscribed six-pointed star to the right.  The soft face of a maiden became almost three-dimensional when Audrey made it come forth from the stone with her magic water. Some of the etchings seemed to be geometrical symbols and other forms of imagery that had meaning for the artist(s).  One of the objects was a human form with a triangular dress and a long oblong hat, arms raised and seemingly embracing the sky.  Holy man?  No one is sure about it.  The difference in how the lines were drawn and the mannerisms of the art tell me that all of this art was not drawn by a single individual.  There must have been many artists and historians involved in their creation.  I wonder if these rocks are a community story book of sorts? 

Inspired by the stories of the erudite Ranger, Audrey, and the deeply historical petroglyphs, we decided to get out on the lake and kayak around ourselves that afternoon.  We gave a little half-hearted attempt at fishing as we paddled around but mainly we simply enjoyed the open air and the water and Sun.  The water of the lake was very clear, yet stained in tannin to resemble weak tea.  The rivers of the area have the same coloration. That is perhaps why mosquitoes were not a problem when we visited.  Oft times different natural chemicals in the water precludes mosquitoes from breeding we’re told.  Time disappeared, clocks vaporized, and only the movement of the Sun across the sky gave any indication of the waning afternoon.  The words of a song I wrote years ago crossed my mind. 

“I left time somewhere back in Winter 

Sleeping soundly in my bed. 

And stepping out of time 

Like a verse without its rhyme 

I let my mind wander with the wind.” ...”Promised Land” 

The next day we took advantage of another of the Park’s cultural offerings and attended a Birch bark canoe building session with a renowned Mi’kmak tribal builder.  Here the elder spent 5 days a week building Birch bark canoes and we were allowed to watch him create his art.  His wife very adroitly explained the process and gave us historical tribal perspectives while he worked.  She explained, among other things, that there is a dire shortage of Birch trees with enough girth to make the canoes much longer into the future.  The area has been logged over at least once and not enough time has passed to allow the Birch to reach full maturity, or large enough to cut strips wide enough for the canoes.  This man’s work was elegant as well as rustic and he only used the tools of his forefathers in his craft.  In a word, it was amazing.  I imagine in the not too distant future he will be unable to start new canoe projects and he will have to stop half way through his building and simply use a half-built canoe in his presentations due to the shortage.  I think you can get the full benefit of the art this way but it is a shame that more canoes won’t get built for a time.  Hopefully, he will pass along his knowledge to the next generation of Mi’kmaw. 

We took time to hike here as well.  The Park is filled with a great variety of hikes, some short, some long.  We chose an intermediate trail of about 4 or 5 miles through the deep woods.  We started out the hike by skirting a lake edge where a flock of ducks I could not identify were prepping for their long trip south for the Winter.  They would dive and bob with a lot of energy.  I imagine they were eating all they could find to fatten up some.  As we continued along we found ourselves working our way along the path through various forest environments.  By that I mean that at one time we would be walking through evergreens, fir trees of various types, mixed with Hemlocks.  Within a quarter mile the landscape would change to being dominated with Hemlocks. 

One grove of Hemlocks was virgin, uncut by the forester's saws which felled so many of the grand trees to make ships during the 1700’s.  Their canopy was the tallest we’d seen since we left the Redwood and the Sequoia groves in California.  These hemlocks were huge.  A sign was placed within the grove that stated that this very grove may soon succumb to a virus that has invaded the general east coast from the US Atlantic Seaboard to Nova Scotia.  Enjoy it while you can was the message I got from it.  I hope so much that my grandchildren and their children get an opportunity to see this North American Continent with at least some of its wonders still intact.  That is why I put so much time and energy into this travel blog.  If nothing else I can at least describe what it was like during our time here. 

Along about half way through the hike I saw something so striking that I’m compelled to write about it here.  Here was a full grown tree, well over 100 feet high, whose roots seemed to be 99% out of the soil.  This tree grew from a small serpentine crevice or crack in a boulder that was the size of a small house.  Over the years and many decades since its birth its roots grew out, over the boulder as if it were a megalithic ten-fingered hand gripping a 100 ton baseball.  Once the roots reached ground level they dug into the dirt, but not too deeply.  A more poignant picture of the true strength of life here on Earth I’ve not seen.  This was not an example of a tree evolving to learn how to grow over boulders.  No, It was a singular tree, somehow more intent than anything nature could throw at it, virtually willing itself to live and grow no matter what.  Perhaps I’m romanticizing this tree’s indomitable intent to overcome the granite obstacle, but that’s the way I saw it.  Life … undeniable.

Digby and the Digby Neck...Whales Amongst Us 

As we left the National Park after several blissful days we found ourselves coasting leisurely slightly downhill towards the town of Digby.  Digby is the our point of departure from Nova Scotia and my feelings were a bit mixed when we entered the town.  Part of me wanted to get on with our plans yet part of me wanted to linger in Nova Scotia.  Nonetheless, we still had time ahead of us in Digby Neck, that long thin line of land that extends southward towards Maine and forms a beautiful peninsula that features one of the greatest Whale feeding grounds on the planet.  We soon would be out in the Bay of Fundy amongst them.  That anticipation and excitement kept welling up in me over the course of the few days on Digby Neck before we boarded our whale watching ship. 

Our campground on the Neck was called Bay Cove.  Bay Cove is an older campground about half way down the Neck, perhaps 25 miles or so south of Digby.  It’s located high on a hill that overlooks both the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic Ocean on the other side.  A trail has been cut through the bush that leads from the campground to an overlook on the Bay of Fundy.  The views there are stunningly striking, especially at sunset.  Bay Cove is, as I say, old.  It needs some serious TLC.  The owner is trying to sell it and truth be told, it being the only campground around the area, it could turn a decent profit with an investment of money and sweat.  The campsites themselves are cool.  They are all nestled into the bush giving you a good deal of privacy and a feeling of being out in the woods.  However, some of the campsites are overgrown and run down.  One unique thing about the campsites is that they all feature the most unique fire pits ever seen.  The owner has mounted semi tractor trailer wheels on top of lawn mower bodies, complete with the handles still intact.  This is so that you can push the fire pits where you need them.  It’s semi-genius idea, but the oddest looking thing you’ve ever seen.  If a creative inventor could take the general idea, a fire pit on wheels, and make it just a little more professional grade, you’d have a big money maker, I’m sure. 

From Bay Cove we set out both North and South on different days to experience all we could on the neck. Heading south towards the last of three islands in the chain of the Neck you cross two separate channels by ferry boat.  They run on the hour and are very prompt about it.  The little hamlets that serve the ferry landings are picture perfect Nova Scotian, working, blue collar, fishing villages.  Clapboard houses line the channels, mostly in good, if not worn condition.  Folks here seem to take good pride in their lines of work and places they live.  The sea churns through the channels one way and then the other depending upon the flow of the tides at that time of day.  Small mom and pop restaurants, grills really, hang on despite Covid and all the other obstacles thrown at them this day and age.  Small cemeteries, burying grounds they’re called, lie scattered where the original inhabitants set down roots.  Often the names and dates on the stones had been eroded away in the heavy salt air.  Sometimes you would see newer construction creeping right up to the edge of these ancient resting places.  After all, it’s been a few hundred years since Europeans first began settling here.  They seemed very lonely places.  Decorations and flowers were few.  Life here is not luxurious.  It is hardscrabble.  It always has been. 

Throughout the neck, and on the islands on the southern end, hikes emerge from the road leading down to the coasts. Small semi-circular beaches and bays pop up at intervals.  One fog-shrouded morning we boarded a ferry heading south and the atmosphere could not have been more ethereal.  You could not see the far bank, a scant mile or so away for the fog.  The royal blue ferry with its mighty industrial diesel engines sat moored in the fog waiting for arrivals.  Traffic was scant.  We boarded the ferry and set off into the mist while the far shore appeared as a slowly developing black and white photograph as we drew closer to shore.  I’m not sure if it is always this quiet on the Neck or if it was because we were in September.  We enjoyed the scarcity of tourists, though. 

Our day of searching for whales arrived.  We booked seats on the whale watching company of Brier Island Whale and Seabird Cruises.  The hamlet of Westport on Brier Island was our meeting place.  We arrive early as instructed and met on an old rickety dock set off by itself just outside of the town proper.  The tide was out and all the nearby docks including ours were festooned with deep green sea plants clinging to the wooden beams jutting out of the mud.  There was just enough depth at the end of our dock for our boat to pick us up and we all boarded, perhaps 25 of us, eagerly brimming with anticipation.  At least half the guests on board spoke languages other than English though I felt that they all understood the moderator when she spoke and gave directions or offered insights.  We were a pleasant example of international brotherhood, at least for a few hours. 

It is widely said that this very place is the best possible place to see whales in North America.  The massive amount of energy contained and put in motion in the Bay of Fundy is the fuel for a fragile ecosystem that provides nutritious food supply for birds, fish, bottom-dwellers like scallops and lobsters, and whales. (This is the scallop capital of the world by the way)  By springtime Minke and Finback Whales along with Harbor Porpoises begin arriving in strong numbers.  In June the Humpback whales begin arriving and they stay throughout the Summer into October when they return south to breed.  Other, less abundant whales show up here as well such as the North Atlantic Right Whales, Pilot Whales, Sperm, and Blue Whales.  Our best shot at seeing whales this time of year would be the Humpbacks, those lovable leviathans who are often the most engaging of the cetaceans.  They certainly seem to love to show off. 

As the ship was sitting at low tide we had to climb down some rather steep steps to board her, but everyone watched their step and soon we were under steam heading out to the Bay.  The day was bright, sunny, with little wind, and near glass-like ocean conditions.  Our little ship chugged along while a moderator told us how their company was also a research company cooperating with various world-wide agencies who monitor whale numbers and their health.  They showed page after page of whales and their names and markings that scientists use to identify individuals.  Our moderator was wonderfully educated on whale behaviors and often educated us on the environmental concerns of the North Atlantic ocean.  I would have paid good money just to hear her “seminar” as we left land behind us.  The good captain was very experienced as well and spotting whales was one of his many expert skills.  A half hour had barely passed before he pointed out our first encounter several hundred yards off from the port side. 

Rather than rush over to whales he ambled on closer to them easily and non-threateningly.  We drew within 100 feet or so but no closer.  It is considered very bad behavior to come any closer and hassle the whales.  This first sighting had 5 individuals, one of which was a youngster, half as long as its mother whom he hung very close to as the cruised along blowing and diving.  First one, then the others would raise up their huge bodies and dive straight downward, tail flukes straight up in the air.  They would remain under water for what I would call an average of a minute or so before rising again.  Seeing them dive like that was thrilling.  The moderator called out their various names while she penciled them in on her book.  She said they sent detailed reports out to the various agencies after every voyage.  These whales all had white stripes on their fins that you could easily see under water to about 10 feet or so. 

Soon we sighted a lone Humpback Whale off in the distance breaching the surface like a missile, then crashing back to the ocean displacing a mini tidal wave as he did so.  We left the small pod and headed in his direction. I say “he”.  How do I know it was a male?  The moderator told us he was showing off to the females.  As we drew closer the whale began to show off even more.  He dove, tail dead straight up in the air and slipped beneath the glassy sea.  Then he’d rise breaching with almost his entire body out of the water.  He was immense!  He performed this circus act time after time for a good 15 minutes.  Then, unexpectedly, he lay over on his side and started to smash his monstrous flipper against the ocean making wild splashes and loud smacking sounds.  His flipper had to be 8-10 feet long!  This would continue for at least 20 more minutes and I was able to capture most of it on the video of my camera.  The captain leaned over as I was standing nearby and said, 

“Buddy, you hit the jackpot today.” 

I recalled the 8mm movies my dad took during his Alaskan adventure in 1939-1941.  One of the movies showed my dad on a home made flotation device built from logs with a house set on it that some guys were attempting to tow to Seattle from Alaska.  Why?  I cannot tell you.  It seems crazy to me, foolhardy.  My dad called it a Wanagan. I suppose it was semi normal back in those days to haul houses around on the ocean.  Anyway, within the video you see my dad on the Wanagan, sinking, with my dad still on it trying to man the rudder just as a Killer Whale leaps within feet of him in the background.  Every time we watched that movie when we were little tykes we were filled with wonder and amazement.  Yet, here I was, witnessing the behemoths of the sea myself, up close and personal, just like my dad did 80 some odd years ago. 

My expectations for this whale watching cruise were blown away by what actually took place.  The antics of the whales and total experience of being at sea hunting these giant creatures is no fabulation.  I will always remember this to my dying day.  Choose Digby Neck or the Bay of Fundy in general if you want to see whales.  I know its a stretch to get there, but let’s just say if you are ever up in that part of the world, go whale watching. The Bay of Fundy is indescribably alive.  If you can get to Brier Island Whale and Seabird Cruises, all the better. 

Returning from our trip from Brier Island we lingered as we drove, snapping photos of the weather-worn cottages and Scallopboat docks that lined both sides of the road on this, the nethermost tip of the Digby Neck. We paid scant attention to timing the ferries that ran between the islands.  We had no timetable except the moment we had weaved ourselves into.  The orbits of the planets continued without the helping hands of time. Clocks had been drowned by the breaching whale seemingly never to rise again.  The movement of the Sun across the sky lowering now paused on the horizon and increasingly drew our attention as it produced a slow-motion fireworks display against the gathering cumulus clouds to the west.  The colors transcended the painter’s and the photographer’s skill for replication.  Only God can create such majesty as well as subtlety.  Perhaps, I thought, in the Universe there actually is no such currency as color.  Perhaps God infuses us with the spirit and inspiration when we take the time to glimpse his creation as He sees it...be it the branching veins transversing a burgundy-hued autumnal Maple leaf or a volcanic sunset slowly exploding over the Bay of Fundy.  We arrived back at our temporary home on top of the hill at Bay Cove.  We walked down a dirt road where the vantage point is offered to inhale the evening atmosphere resplendent with Sun seemingly melting into the ocean.  I thought about such things as Diane and I gazed quietly, silenced by the moment. 

Several times during our stay at Bay Cove we drove north, back towards the direction of Digby, to take in the scenery along the way.  We had no destination, we just wanted to see what there was to see and explore the peninsula.  We soon found Sandy Cove, located just down the hill from our campsite some 5 miles or so.  Sandy Cove is a very narrow spot on the peninsula where the eastern and western coasts are perhaps a only a mile separated.  The village there lies in a steep valley between twin high hills north and south.  On the eastern coast the villagers have built a fishermen’s dock, their Scallopboats tied fast when at rest.  Five or six cedar shake cottages are gathered up on the hill that overlooks the small bay there, safe from storms and the temperamental Atlantic. 

Driving or walking to the west up a steep hill the panorama of Sandy Cove unveils itself.  Sandy Cove is horseshoe shaped and not more than a half mile long when you walk it.  The tide climbs and recedes exceedingly here as it does all throughout the Bay of Fundy.  Thus, the waves can be fairly good as they reach the sandy beach.  Not surfing worthy, but decent enough to deposit lots and lots of shells and the occasional sea glass, which we spent a good deal of time walking around searching for to add to Diane’s collection.  We brought along Heidi and Dash on one trip there and they literally frolicked as they sniffed the salty detritus and ran pall mall in doggie heaven.  On the southern end of the beach there is an abandoned old boat house and the ruins of a dock with the battered uprights still standing, though tilted left and right, this way and that.  A few more years and I believe they will give in to their watery grave, their struggles to stand ended.  The tattered old boat house and the wooden skeletal dock made it easy to visualize the story of...

The Mystery Man of Sandy Cove

It was early morning of September 8, 1863. A Sandy Cove fisherman gathering rock weed along the shore noticed a dark figure along side a big rock on Bay of Fundy beach.  As the fisherman got closer he saw the huddled form of a man.  Both legs had been amputated just above the knees and beside him was a jug of water and a tin of biscuits.  His legs had been amputated by an  obviously skilled surgeon and the stumps were only partially healed and bandaged.  The man was also suffering from cold and exposure.  The fisherman recalled a ship the day before passing back and forth a half mile off shore in St. Mary’s Bay.  It was surmised the man must have been brought in from the ship after dark and left on shore. 

The castaway was carried to the home of Mr. Gidney in Mink Cove nearby where he was wrapped in warm blankets and given hot drinks.  Through the moaning and muttering only one word was understood, “Jerome”. So they called him by this name.  Jerome’s hands weren’t calloused and his clothes were cut from fine cloth. Speculation up and down the bay soon led many to believe he had attempted a mutiny and was punished by the amputation.  Others suggested he was tossed from a pirate ship.  Most thought, however, that he was heir to a fortune and had been crippled and cast away to make way for someone else seeking his inheritance.  None of the stories have ever been proven. 

Jerome seemed fond of children.  He spent most of his time with children and seemed to enjoy watching them play.  Jerome conducted himself with dignity and when offered money he would appear humiliated.  However, he would accept gifts of candy, tobacco and fruits.  He was wary of strangers but in appearance and manner was a gentleman and easy to care for.  He got so he could move nimbly on his stumps but sat most of the time.  It was soon realized that Jerome was here to stay so the Provincial Government contributed to his keep, $2.00 per week.  Sailors of many nationalities were brought to Jerome to see if he would speak their language.  He still did not speak but some believed that through his expressions he was familiar with European languages.  He also became very angry when any such visitor mentioned Trieste, a seaport city in northern Italy.  Some believed him to be from noble stature and that he once must have been an officer.  From his looks and complexion they felt he must be French or Italian. 

Jerome was taken to the home of John Nicholas in Meteghan, who spoke several European languages.  Mr. Nicholas tried to break Jerome’s silence but failed.  Jerome spent 7 years with Mr. Nicholas and the remaining 42 years of his life with Deider Comeau and family at Alphonse de Clare.  Many attempts were made to find an identity for this mystery man but none succeeded. 

Jerome died in April 19, 1912 and took with him the secret of his mutilation and of his mysterious arrival on the Bay of Fundy shore.  A large stone marker bearing the name Jerome was unveiled in the Meteghan parish cemetery where he had been buried. ...borrowed from "The Olde Village Inn of Sandy Cove". 

All the locals know the story by heart.  They all will give you their take on it, complete with missing facts that their great grandfather or 3rd double great cousin talked about... who was there at the time.  Such are the enveloping stories that surround great mysteries from the days of yore. 

On this self-same small, sandy crescent we met a man busily gathering driftwood for a fire.  He had laid in a pup tent and a small camp next to his girlfriend and his very expensive kayaks.  They were tucked away at the far southern end of the beach up against a small bluff in an alcove of sorts, safely above the high tide line.  We engaged the young man as we passed by on the beach looking for sea glass.  My guess is that he was about 32-35 years old.  They had lit out from northern Maine in their kayaks and had paddled all the way around the perimeter of the Bay of Fundy. Lord knows how many miles that is to this point in southern Nova Scotia.  When needed they would hitch rides with folks like us that they met on shore while they camped for food and necessities. Naturally, we offered to take them into town for food but they declined.  They were set for now and couldn’t carry much more in their kayaks. 

I asked if they had seen any whales as this region is known to have many.  They had seen some but only way off in the distance.  They noted their spouts of spray.  The young lady never came out of the tent but rested, asleep I suppose, after a very hard day’s paddle.  The young man explained that there was one thing I could help him with and he motioned for me to follow him over to his sleek, pearl white with yellow trim kayak.  A finer kayak you will never see.  This was one of those models that ran in the $2500-$3000 range.  I’d seen the likes before in New York State.  He had a malfunction with his seat due to a proprietary part breaking.  It was a screw-like setting piece that modulated the angle of the seat.  Broken as it was, the seat would not sit still, making it really difficult to control your sitting position.  Uncomfortable, to say the least, it would seem.  He had tried to McGuiver the setting piece but it was so proprietary to the manufacturer that nothing save the actual replacement part could work.  He asked if I could check to see if there was a kayak store nearby for him, which I did, but to no avail.  I did have some wire. Would that help? Maybe…That’s one of the problems with buying elite products sometimes. They tend to be so specialized that off the shelf parts won’t work when you need to replace them or they break. 

I admire that young man and his partner.  What a wild adventure!  He told me that he was somewhat surprised by the fact that in Canada there are few places to beach and get supplies close at hand.  Whereas in Maine there are towns on nearly every point, around the Bay of Fundy you are hard-pressed for many, many miles in between to find supplies.  You also have to contend with miles of mud flats at certain places that could mire you down at low tide.  Clearly, this challenge was stiffer than the intrepid two initially thought.  Even at this writing I wonder how they fared after we parted ways.  Did they cut their journey short or finish?  They were perhaps 50 or 60 miles from their intended take out point, but man did he look exhausted, haggard, and skinny. 

The Four Who Dared

When I come across adventurers like this couple I think back to times when, to a much lesser degree, I had my own little adventures.  One that came to mind that pales in comparison but was an adventure nonetheless was a weekend trip that Bob Breidenbach and I dubbed, “The Four Who Dared”.  Bob and I along with Bob’s brother, Donald, and Rich Worthington, who built me my guitar, decided we would take off upriver on the Cuivre River to see what lay there.  Back in those days, the early 1970’s, there was no way to know the lay of the land outside of looking at a paper map or talking to someone who had been there.  Google Earth wasn’t even a notion then. 

Bob’s family had a rough house cabin on the Cuivre between Troy and Hawk Point, MO.  We spent many a weekend there trotlining the river and fishing.  Sometimes hiking around the area and the bluffs over the river. There were few people living in the broad valley there and in many ways on many days you could imagine yourself immersed in a wilderness territory.  Wildlife was plentiful and the fishing was phenomenal.  Stringers of Blue, Guojon (Flathead catfish), and Channel Casts were common when we’d trotline the river.  Sometimes when we’d pole fish we’d catch Smallmouth Bass and even the rare Walleye.  There was never anyone else fishing around there and no one ever floated the Cuivre.  To us, it was as if we were 1000 miles away from St Louis, though we were only 50 or so miles from its western suburbs.  We would seine up our own bait out of the river or in our favorite bait creek, Turkey Creek.  Willy Chaney, the old hermit who lived across the road from Bob's cabin, showed us a Native American burial mound that was on his property.  He knew that was what it was as his dad had dug into another just like a short distance away and found the skeletal remains and some artifacts surrounding the body.  God, it was like heaven for us. 

Still, we always wondered, What’s it like upriver?  Explorers always have that question that haunts them.  Bob and I, being directly descended from explorers, inherited that innate need to go upriver.  Donald and Rich caught the fever as well.  A date with destiny was set for a weekend in April.  We didn’t pack a lot.  We never did on camping trips. We did bring sleeping bags and food and some beer. Stagings and cotton line for trotlines, extra 2-ought hooks, bait buckets, fishing poles, some lures, stringers for what we caught, an eight foot long seine net to catch bait, a pot to heat water for coffee, a frying pan to cook fish, a good fillet knife, a few cans of corn and green beans and two sets of chest waders that Diane and Laura, our loving wives, had given me and Bob for Christmas.  We always waded our trotlines in shunning the lazy way of laying the lines out of a boat.  By wading the lines in you could feel the bottom of the river and determine where the best lay of the line should be to catch Catfish.  Usually we did that in our underwear so as to keep our clothes dry. Diane and Laura thought that was too Hillbilly for us to be doing so they bought us the waders.  We thought...”Well, it would be nice to stay dry. We’ll give ‘em a try.” 

The plan was to use Donald’s square-back canoe as the lead canoe going up river.  It would be outfitted with a 3 horsepower Evinrude motor that Don had.  Three guys could sit in the canoe.  We would tow a monstrosity home-made fiberglass canoe that Bob had that would hold all our gear.  The trick was, that towed canoe needed someone to man a rudder as it was towed.  Otherwise, it would sway back and forth as it was being towed and drag us down on our forward motion.  I took that job...Rudder man on the towed canoe.  Since the Cuivre is really rocky and can change depths in a matter of a few feet requiring us to get out of the boat and portage the canoes over the shallows Bob and I decided to wear our chest waders as we motored up river.  That way we could stay dry as we got in and out of the canoes to portage. 

The grand day of our departure arrived, a Friday morning in late April.  The skies were blue, the temperature was warm, in the high 70’s.  The Dogwoods were blooming.  All these signs told us a great time lay ahead.  We were a motley crew.  We looked the part of dogged explorers.  In fact, with our long and straggly hair and worn out clothes we looked as if we had already completed a 2 year trip with Lewis and Clark.  But, that’s the way we liked it.  We loaded everything up in the two canoes, hooked up the Evinrude, and stood on the little rocky bank of the river by Bob and Donald’s family cabin.  I recall we all took a stone from the river, turned our backs to the channel, said a fisherman’s good luck prayer out loud calling on the Catfish gods to smile upon us, and threw the rocks over shoulder back into the river.  We were off.  We motored up the river and soon passed under the old iron bridge that had lost its roadbed years ago leaving only the skeleton frame of easy river crossing to the past.  Ahead lay...who knew what? 

Our little two canoe armada was working out as we planned it.  We snaked upriver slowly avoiding low water rocks and when we needed to portage over shallows and riffles we all got out and pushed our canoes around the obstacles.  Soon we passed Turkey Creek where we always found baitfish.  We passed the Kelly Hole where the water was the deepest in this stretch of the river, perhaps six or seven feet deep.  We loved to trotline the Kelly Hole.  We had recently caught a 28 pound Flathead Catfish there and Bob’s oldest brother, Paul, had caught one even larger that Summer there.  We thought it to weigh in at 35 pounds. 

Before too long we were in territory none of us had ever seen before.  This is why we came upriver.  In our romanticized imaginations we were really exploring.  The river took a long straight stretch that bordered a beautiful valley with a fallow corn field that stretched off into the distance a good half mile.  It was good motoring now.  We could make four or 5 miles per hour at this rate.  Some Redbud trees, their purplish flowers being overtaken by new leaf growth, grew along the bank.  Dogwoods were abundant and they were in full bloom. Again, this is a very good sign for catching Catfish as we had always found them to be spawning and hungry when the Dogwoods bloom.  We were joking and laughing as we passed through the little valley feeling free as free can be.  The impossibly tall Sycamores seemed to wave us ahead with their leafy boughs bending in the slight breeze. 

At the end of the long, straight stretch the river turned back into its snaky character.  The channel became narrow and constricted and the current was getting swift.  Donald, at the engine guided us through a couple of turns fairly well.  I followed his lead in the towed boat and steered with the paddle rudder to stay right on his tail. All of a sudden Donald veered hard left.  The hard current caught his canoe and pushed it further to the left.  I could not react as quickly.  My canoe was loaded to the gunwales with our stuff.  Plus, being a home made fiberglass monstrosity and weighing a ton it was near impossible to make sharp turns or adjustments with it. Donald’s sideways motion pulled the bow of my canoe forward and down and she sank like a rock in a few seconds.  Everything in the canoe went spilling out and I went down like a stone as well.  The bright idea of wearing chest waders now turned into the worst idea imaginable.  The water that filled my waders so was heavy that I could not stay above water.  I sank to the bottom of the river and I couldn’t get up.  The same water in my waders created a suction and as I struggled to get out of them I found I was moribound, standing upright on the river bed in eight feet of water or so.  The muddy water made it impossible for me to see but I could hear the other guys yelling for me even though I was deeply over my head.  Damn, I was in a tough spot.  I was not going to die like this...no sir, not today. 

I started walking.  Hell, I could still walk!  I continued walking and within ten feet or so I got my head above water.  Breathe!  Whew!  Donald and Rich rushed over to pull me out of the river. I weighed so much with all the extra water in my waders that I could not pull my own self out of the river.  I looked to my left and saw Bob trying to run downstream along the bank to grab some of the items that were now quickly floating away.  Try running in clumsy chest waders some time.  It’s a hilarious sight. 

Bob was able to retrieve some of the stuff from the sinking, like the gas can and our poles and seine and a few cans of food.  The case of beer we brought was gone, drowned, except for a few single cans.  Have mercy, Hannah!  We collected ourselves and organized what items we had left and wrung the mud and water from them.  But, we were not letting this stop us.  We still had hours of daylight left.  So, off again we set out upriver semi-undaunted but without waders on. Lesson learned. 

After miles of smiles and laughter, especially at the prospect of me walking under water and Bob trying to run with waders on, we reached a point where we thought we’d set up camp for the night.  There was a hole that looked particularly inviting for fishing.  We had our backs against a small bluff and had a flat rock bar we could sleep on.  It wasn’t long before we were pulling Channel and Flatheads out of the river and stationing them on a stringer.  We had enough for dinner and then several left over for tomorrow night’s dinner.  Rich set up a lean-to shelter using a tarp we had brought along and Don set about taking care of the trusty Evinrude motor. Meanwhile, the wind was starting to pick up and a few telltale thick, dark clouds were starting to usher into view. No whimsical animals were evident in their shapes and forms.  If anything, they wore angry frowns. 

As you’ll do when you camp on the bank of a river for the night you will ultimately review the day’s adventures in detail with each other.  Special attention is given the important stuff so that you can seal it in your memory bank for retelling to those who weren’t there.  For sure the sinking of the fiberglass tug was retold and everyone’s impression of me as I walked out of the river hat still on my head and my waders gushing river water.  The great fishing we were having was reviewed in detail.  How much further upriver we might go the next day and strategies along those lines was offered up by everyone in our canoe democracy.  Now, our sleeping bags were still damp though they had dried mostly during the late afternoon’s sunny warmth.  We were tired enough to the point where it almost didn’t matter.  It grew dark, dark as a coal mine.  The night time shift of critters clocked in and the day shift went to sleep along with us.  A coyote crooned for its mate way off down the valley.  A few latent spring peepers were chirping on the far bank of the river.  A Whippoorwill began to slowly call out.  All was good.  All was as it’s supposed to be at night along the river. 

Just as we were settling in, maybe even right on the welcome cusp of blissful sleep, there came as blood curdling of a scream as ever I heard.  The sound was half woman-scream and half hellcat.  Whatever is was it was right on top of us.  We were grown men, not boys, yet all four of us simultaneously shot straight up where we lay shocked out of our slumber. 

“What the hell is that?” I fired off.

Then... silence. 

Bob whispered, 

“ Man, I don’t know.” 

No one spoke any further.  Rich shined a flashlight around the perimeter of the camp.  No eyes reflected back at us.  No sign of any crazed critter.  But, the other night shift animals had also grown quiet right after the death scream from the hell varmint was let out.  We apparently weren’t the only ones scared.  It stayed quiet after that, no further hideousness echoed around us and eventually we all started to drift off again. 

Wouldn’t you know it?  Kaboom!  A bolt of lightening and thunder right across the river blew us out of our near sleep state.  That was just the beginning.  The wind began to howl and the trees bent over in obeyence.  The words of a song Ed Cabanas and I wrote might describe it best. 

"Caught without their silver lining thunderclouds moved in. 

The sky it got so black that mothers called their children in. 

Now the lightening began raining down and the wind began to howl. 

Old men searched their memories 

For days it rained so hard". ...Flood Song 

Yeah, it wasn’t ten minutes till the tarp started flapping in the wind and our lean-to was a shambles. Hell hath no fury as the storm that late night.

Of a sudden, Rich got up from his sodden sleeping bag and bolted out into the night.  He just ran off somewheres.  The rest of us just huddled in the storm, drenched and cold.  There wasn’t much we could do.  I thought of flipping the canoes and laying under them for protection but what was the use now?  We were soaked through and through.  We sat like that for hours as the rain continued until finally, close to dawn, it stopped as quickly as it had started.  Flashes of lightening popped way off in the distance lighting up a faraway hillside.  It was over.  The rain of terror had ended. 

As the sun rose on the valley we were in we got up and surveyed the damage.  The river was rising.  Now, we all knew that the Cuivre River could rise really fast and turn into a flood within hours.  We’d seen it before when we were down there trotlining.  Bob almost got caught in a fast rising flood once before.  But, where the heck was Rich?  We were worried about him.  While we waited for Rich to come back Bob went out to get the stringer of Catfish we had caught the evening before.  Damn...They had all been eaten...eaten up to their heads.  All that remained of the two fish were their heads and a few bones along their back. 

“Snakes! Snakes got our fish!” Bob yelled back at us as he held the stringer aloft for us to see the proof. 

“Where the hell are we, anyway?”  Donald said incredulously.  “Let’s get out of here."

"Everything is soaked and all we have left are some beers.  This is too much.”  

Of course, with that I popped a top and downed one the last  Budweisers.

Just then, as Bob was tossing the remains of the Catfish back into the river for the turtles, Rich came wandering back to the campsite.  He was holding a board that he had somehow fashioned into a paddle of sorts. 

Where did you go last night, man.  We’ve been worried about you.  You just lit out without saying a word.” I asked him. 

“ I couldn’t take it.  I couldn’t just sit there in the rain.  So, I went looking for a place to get out of the rain.  I found this run down old shed and I slept there.  There was an old outhouse, looked abandoned to me, so I made this paddle from one of the loose boards so I could help paddle us.”  Rich replied. 

It was just like Rich to create something like that.  He is a renaissance man if ever there was one. 

We all decided we’d turn back that morning.  The river was indeed rising fast and we knew pretty soon we’d be in trouble if we kept trying to go further upstream.  We packed our grip for a farewell trip back down the river to Bob and Don’s cabin.  We may have been six or seven miles up river, it’s hard to tell. 

We shoved off as the river gained ground.  Where we once had to portage over low water riffles, we glided over them now.  It was almost as if we were riding waves down the river.  We came around a tight bend and there before us was a huge Sycamore that had fallen in the storm blocking the entire width of the stream.  We were coming up on it really fast.  If we didn’t do something quick we would be swept under it and Lord knows what would happen to us with that.  You always fear being swept under a root wad or tree when you’re cruising down a swollen river.  It was too late, we were going to hit it and there was no escape from it.  The current was pulling us into it.  We had decided to float back to the car separately and I was in the red behemoth fiberglass canoe. Somehow, the the grace of God, I maneuvered my boat through the thin leafy branches close to the bank so that I didn’t get swept under the tree limbs.  The other canoe carrying Rich, Bob, and Don hit the tree dead square on.  In a true feat of strength, Rich, who was in the lead seat of the boat, gripped the tree and held that canoe straight perpendicular in the crazed current.  I never saw anything like it.  The canoe had T-boned the tree and Rich was holding it fast. 

While Rich held the canoe steady first Bob and then Don crawled over Rich and on to the tree where they shimmied their way to shore.  Then, in a fitful act of defiance, Rich dove out of the canoe to a spot where I guess he figured he could shoot under the tree and come out the other side.  By God, he did it!  He came swimming through the underside of the tree in the current pretty much unscathed.  Miraculous, if you ask me.  As Rich took the dive the canoe he was in quickly flipped sideways and filled with water.  The current pushed the canoe under the tree where it should have remained to this day, but, it didn’t.  It came through the maze of limbs and the trunk of the tree and popped out on the other side, albeit, filled with water.  All of our sleeping bags and fishing gear once again floated away down river as we all tried to grab them.  Some we retrieved, some lies somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico forever lost. 

Well, that was it for the “Four Who Dared” adventure.  We gathered what we could, righted the half-sunken canoe and we all surfed the rising current the rest of the way downriver.  On the way home we stopped at the Dog and Suds in Troy, MO and retold the story of our trip and laughed while we feasted on hot dogs and fries and a tall root beer. 

That’s the story of the Four Who Dared.  Bob and I tried the trip upriver once more a couple of years later with a couple of other fellas, but that’s a story for another day.

Another Port, Another Fort 

The coasts of North America, in particular the eastern coast, have seen their share of fortresses, small and large, built by Europeans in the 17th and 18th centuries in the hopes of securing their possessions in the New World.  Up north here the British and the French fought it out in those bygone days and the remains of their outposts, restored for the most part, are left as lessons in history.  I love history.  So does Diane.  We make it a point to visit these restorations as we travel.  We’ve always wanted to include as many cultural visits as scenic visits along our 50 Amp Vision Quest.  So far we’ve taken in: 

• Saint Croix Island, located off the Maine coast near its border with New Brunswick. This is where the ill-fated French colony directed by Champlain was first set up, lasting one winter in 1604-05.  Half the settlers died that winter.  They moved in the Spring to a much more suitable and habitable location on the mainland of Nova Scotia. 
• Fortress Louisbourg, located just south of Sidney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.  Here, the French built a fortress and a town to supply their forays inland to trade with the indigenous peoples and establish more towns and outposts. 
• The Citadel in Halifax, Novas Scotia, where the British built a nearly impregnable military installation that guarded their principal outpost in the northern New World. 

Now we came to Port Royal/Port Annapolis just north of Digby in the protected natural harbor there.  After their dismal failure on Saint Croix Island in 1605, the French explorers abandoned the island and came here.  It was a meeting place of the Mi’kmaw, which made trading with them so much the easier.  The Mi’kmaw initially were friendly and ever so helpful to the French in these early days of exploration.  The two cultures got along well with both adopting some of the customs and skills of the other culture.  Distinctive Acadian farming patterns were established on the surrounding hillsides.  The outpost became the capitol of Acadia, but during its first century of occupation as a settlement and fort it was besieged several times by the British who eventually drove the Acadians out of the area.  Finally, in 1713, the Acadians ceded the vast land of what is now Nova Scotia to Great Britain and the town and fort were renamed Annapolis Royal. 

Annapolis Royal served until 1749 as the British capitol of Nova Scotia.  Annapolis Royal’s richly complicated history is embodied and on excellent display in today’s well-preserved townscape.  Canadians seemingly love their history and go to great expense to preserve as much as they can.  The ancient, winding road that used to link the French houses back in the day still survives as St George Street.  The restored and reconstructed homes and fort provides a showcase of 18th and 19th century European architecture. 

We made it a point to take in Annapolis Royal one day having heard so much about it from fellow travelers and locals alike.  Rich farmland surrounds the area and rolling hills are punctuated at points by very productive orchards and wineries.  The local wines, I’m told, are very good.  Diane, ever the wine critic, pronounced them so as well.  On the way north to Port Annapolis we decided to treat ourselves to a luncheon/dinner just after noon.  Clubhouse Grill was our choice as it was directly on our route.  My, oh my!  A most delicious decision we made.  The restaurant is actually part of a golf course just on the outskirts of Port Royal.  The weather was inebriatingly sunny with the temperature around 73 degrees give or take.  We asked to sit outside on the veranda to take it in.  It was a weekday and we were nearly alone in the establishment which made the hour or so we spent there all the more intimate.  Naturally, we ordered oysters to start things off.  Seafood carried us through the balance of our meal, mine being Haddock and Diane’s being Salmon.  It was a perfect start to our little cultural excursion into Canadian history. 

Port Royal is yet another example of how meticulously the Canadians are when it comes to recreating their history authentically.  We toured the old fort and peered around the various rooms loaded with authentic articles from the fort’s past.  It appeared that the fort was ready, able, and willing to spring to the defense of the port upon command.  Even the most minor details of everyday life at the fort from way back in the day were evident. Eating utensils, carpentry tools, farming implements, weapons for defense, clothes, sleeping quarters and bedding, shoes...It was all there and displayed as if a time capsule had been placed over the fort from the early 1700’s.  In school we read about North American history, but in general the lessons covered the greatest hits so to speak.  Most of the consequential sites and lives of the inhabitants where the work of inhabiting a continent played out...be it the Indigenous perspective, Slave perspective, or the European perspective are glossed over or not studied. 

Port Royal gives you a great opportunity to dive deeper into those lives.  It always fascinates me to learn the who, what, where, and why of history.  A lot of times I see the history repeating itself over and over.  Great migrations of people still stir.  The reasons are not that dissimilar.  Land to live and work on, freedom from persecution, invading armies, drought, famine, warlords...what’s different today?  Only the technology, I think. 

The Ferry to New Brunswick 

All to soon it came time to leave Nova Scotia for mainland Canada, New Brunswick specifically, and points south.  Diane and I love it up here.  There is so much beauty.  The folks are wonderfully open and friendly to each other and to visitors.  The culture is vibrant and alive.  We experienced so much and yet we feel there is so much more to experience.  We say to each other we definitely want to come back one day.  Quien Sabe?  Maybe we be forced to move here one day from the US.  The thought crossed our minds.  I am sad for my country, the USA, right now.  As we check the news from time to time we just shake our heads.  But, that’s a whole other story.  I won’t get into that here, now. 

Rather than drive the circumference of the Bay of Fundy to get back to the US we decided to take the ferry ride from Digby to St John, NB.  It’s not cheap at all.  I figured, though, that it was roughly a draw in terms of cost versus driving all the way north through Nova Scotia and back south through New Brunswick, plus the wear and tear on Nell, our motor home, would be less...plus...we love ferry rides! 

You need to reserve a spot on the ferry in advance, probably a week or so.  It is a popular ferry.  Some folks simply walk on and take it back and forth for a day trip.  It takes about 2 ½ hours each way.  We arrived early to the boarding dock with Tank, the Jeep, detached from the motor home.  It was actually cheaper to pay for two separate vehicles that one 57 foot long unit as we would be if we were towing the Jeep.  We hung out on the parking lot of the dock and walked the dogs around for a good half hour.  They were excited.  They knew something big was up.

We saw the ferry chugging towards us from a mile or so away as it approached land. It’s an immense ship. They lowered a huge platform that gave access to the belly of the beast and we drove into the ship. Thoughts of Jonah in the belly of the whale crossed my mind. Imagine a 37’ long motor home, 13’ feet wide and 13’ high in the belly of a boat, along with dozens of other cars and trucks. There were even a few commercial big rigs in there with us. The hold of the ship vibrated slightly from the reverberations of the monster diesel engines as they idled. We walked a hundred yards or so to the stairs that took us up to the main deck where comfortable chairs were set up theater fashion. TV’s hung from the ceiling at set intervals so bored passengers could watch whatever they were showing, which itself was boring. Along the outer perimeter inside the main deck you could sit by windows, though mostly they were fogged over from the salt air and you couldn’t get clear vision very well. The ship also featured a little restaurant of sorts where you could order plate meals or snacks. Actually, the food looked pretty good, too. They also had a duty free shop and you could spend your money there before heading home so you wouldn’t be weighted down with any once you got off the boat. I decided to keep mine. It’s been getting scarce lately. 

We chose to hang out outside on the stern deck where some chairs were set up. It was a bit on the chilly side that morning with a definite breeze coming off the ocean. The breeze off the ocean up here is always very cool due to the water temps. We got under steam and the great engines dug deep for power. The wake from this vessel was deep and wide and as we set to sea and the ocean was churning behind us. Seagulls dove into the wake and picked off stunned little fish critters. The Bay was beautiful that morning. There were no threatening waves or storm clouds, just the bright blue sky and the deep green sea. I kept watch for a possible whale sighting because they are definitely out here in decent numbers. We didn’t see any whales that morning but we did spot some pods of Porpoises following along side of us at a safe distance for them. It was as if we had a little escort, a little farewell troupe taking us out of the harbor and on our way. 

The ferry company provides a naturalist during the trip who, at intervals, would give lectures on various things, natural features and history of the area. It’s a pretty cool idea, I think. I peppered the man with a lot of questions about this and that and he gladly obliged me with detailed answers. He told us about a city park in St John that had an RV park within it. That turned out really well for us as we didn’t feel like driving south several more hours. Better to stay that day and the next and prep for long drives south. That’s what we did, spending the next two nights in St John, NB, a pleasant city with a busy port and nice parks to explore. I wouldn’t classify St John as a destination point for travel, per se, but we had fun there nonetheless. Call us spoiled travelers...Ha! 

Once the steel whale belched us out onto the dock at St John like a modern-day Jonah we drove the short distance over to the campground and set up shop and took a load off, caught our breath, and simply hung out for the rest of the day. We needed a day to rest and we had miles to go before us, many, many miles. 

The campground we decided to stay in for a two nights was called Rockwood Park Campground.  It’s a very large park with an RV campground set in the midst of it. The local folks like to walk around throughout the park leisurely talking as they promenade.  It seems that St John is an international city as we have seen so often here in the Maritime Provinces.  Many of those walking through the park appeared to be of foreign origin.  Once again, the folks of Canada seemed to be relatively happy and friendly to boot.  Our next door neighbor at the campground turned out to be a very amiable guy and we talked a lot during our first afternoon at the campground. Turns out he is a guitarist as I am.  I asked him if he wanted to play some music together but he begged off.  I was kind of disappointed about that as I find so few people to play music with on the road. 

Diane and I explored the town a little and drove downtown to see the sights so to speak.  Being a Sunday the city streets were by and large vacant of activity.  St John is a harbor town and it seems a lot of international ship traffic comes through there based upon all the cranes and containers lined up at the docks.  I’m fairly certain that there is a lot do see and do in St John but we rested there mostly.  We were both needing to simply catch up on some rest at the time.  We had been very busy the past weeks and we had a lot of traveling and much anticipated visiting ahead of us. 

Even as we laid up in St John we had not actually planned the next chapter of our travel yet.  We had options before us.  We could head north through New Brunswick to Quebec City along the St Lawrence Seaway. Quebec City is a place we really want to see and everyone we talk to about it who has been there says it’s a must see destination.  From there we could drop south again through Vermont and see our dear friends, Wren and Nan.  At that point we could continue on to Washington DC where an extended visit with my brother and his family awaited.  I hadn’t seen my brother, Mike, for many years now and I so looked forward to meeting up with Mike and everyone there. 

Another route would send us due south to Cape Cod, New York City, and then on to DC.  We’d never been to Cape Cod either and we wanted to visit New York City.  We considered the cost of each route, the time spent driving, and tried to weigh them against each other in some semi-scientific and mathematical comparison.  But, those comparisons failed us.  We turned to our gut feelings and relied on intuition to make our decision and decided to head due south.  Quebec City would have to wait until another trip, another day, another year. Truthfully, how could we lose with options such as these?  I have to say that the expense of driving north and then south to DC weighed heavily on my mind.  Though I had tried to carefully plan our expenses for this long summer adventure it has cost us a lot more than I had planned on.  But, here’s the thing of it...We know we may never get this opportunity again.  With things as they are in the world; War in Europe seemingly on the cusp of becoming a world war, the division within the people of the US at an all-time pressure point, the inflation the entire world is enduring and probable recession facing us in the coming months, the planet itself rebelling against man-made pollution in extreme and deadly ways...We don’t regret a moment of the last nearly five years of travel we’ve undertaken around this great continent.  We will hunker down this Winter and Spring, probably through the Summer of ‘23 as well.  We were here, now, together, and we had the wherewithal to do what we love.  Damn the Torpedoes! 

We couldn’t help but take note of a hurricane that was gathering force over Puerto Rico, however.  The news channels were emphatic about its potential for hitting somewhere in Florida.  Once again, Nature was threatening to hit back...hard. 

We left early in the morning for points south, hopefully reaching Portland Maine before dark.  Rule number 1 for us is...Never, ever try to find a campsite after dark.  Be set up before the sun sets.  Period.  We traced our past route through New Brunswick southward to Maine passing now familiar sights.  St Andrew by the Sea passed by on our left and those memories of that Botanical Garden and the delicious meal we had dockside in that quaint seaside town flooded our consciousness.  Before too long we were back at the border crossing in Calais.

I approached the point of entry and drove our caravan of 57 linear feet to the check point.  The border guards looked at me and apparently determined I could be dangerous I suppose.  Once again we were ordered out of the vehicle with our dogs, Dash and Heidi.  The guards boarded Nell, our RV Conestoga, and began searching for whatever.  Diane had left some grass from Dan, the Natural Man back in Nova Scotia in the refer.(pun intended).  It was fairly well in plain sight.  I thought for certain I’d be going to the hoosegow this time.  Diane was nonplussed about it to say the least.  Que sera, sera she expressed.  After nearly a half an hour the guards emerged from the motor home with some confiscated vegetables. 

“Sir, ma’am, you cannot bring these back into the USA at this time.  You are clear to enter the US now,” the guard stated stoically.  And, with that, we were admitted back into the USA.  Not a mention of the other botanical in the motor home, the grass.  Before they could change their minds I jumped into the driver’s seat and down the road we went. 

Rather than retrace our northern route exactly now that we were heading south we decided to take the faster route through Bangor from Calais, picking up the Interstate 95 down to Portland.  Though not as scenic as driving south along the coast we still caught the beauty of rural Maine as we wound up and around fairly good size hills and valleys.  The trees were just now starting to show the very early stages of color that would soon burst into the full-blown annual Autumnal leaf show.  Small villages came and went with weather-worn wooden sided barns and farmhouses.  The occasional stream passed beneath us as we floated down the highway. 

“Oh, that looks like a good stream to float!” Diane enthusiastically remarked more than once. 

Indeed, Maine’s state license plate reads, “Vacationland” for good reason.  There’s so much rural land in Maine. You can experience mountains in the western side of the state and of course, the rugged Yankee coastline in the east.  In between is farmland, hills, streams, and rivers.  You could surely spend all Summer there and not see it all. 

As members of the club called, Harvest Hosts, we searched their online database for places to stay along our way southward.  Harvest Hosts is a club whereby you can stay for free at member farms, wineries, distilleries, museums, and other points of interest.  You are expected to buy something, at least $20.00 worth of expenditures is highly recommended.  We’ve found it to be a great deal as the settings are usually primo places that you would want to go to anyway.  As I drove on Diane found a museum in Portland that replied to her inquiry that we could stay there for the night.  It is called the Maine Military Museum and it’s right in town convenient to downtown Portland.  We wanted to stay and explore Portland so this seemed a perfect fit for us.  It turned out to be better than expected. 

We arrived late in the day, after 5:00 PM and the museum was closing.  I spoke to the owner about possibly touring the museum the next morning and he was very agreeable to that.  I gave him $20.00 for a donation and we reserved a time for the next morning.  So, once settled in on the lawn next to the museum, we drove down to the shops along the docks in Portland.  Even in September with the kids back in school it was very busy on the streets.  All kinds of restaurants featuring locally procured seafood are crammed in amongst the narrow buildings and alleys.  A few have been built right on the dock that extends out in the harbor a good 300 yards or so.  Standing on the dock parking lot I could see the various layers of the dockside itself.  They lay exposed as an earthquake might expose the layers of history in rock on some mountainside.  I could easily see the modern overlay of asphalt a foot or so thick.  Under that lay an old roadbed of red brick twice thick.  Then, under the brick lay ancient wooden beams, most probably where the dock once stood before being extended out into the harbor.  Then, a layer of rock had been lain underneath the wood.  I was fascinated by this little time capsule laying exposed.  The history of this place and the lives and concerns of those bygone people flooded my imagination.  Only during recent times has Portland been a tourist destination.  Tough and tumble immigrants have worked these docks for centuries on end.  What was their life like?  What were their thoughts, their hopes, their dreams as they went to work each day attempting to wrest a life of their own in this new world from the sea, this bountiful sea? 

Diane and I toured all over town and reveled in the distinct flavor of the city, unique and unto itself in this vast nation.  Portland is large enough to offer the advantages and culture of city-living, but not so large as to foist the crowded foibles of big-city life on you.  Traffic is, by and large, no problem, unless, of course, you happen to be on the highway over the bay when the drawbridge opens to allow a ship passage.  Then, you sit for a good while.  The culture of the city is a very cool blend of young, progressive, hip, and a more than reverential nod to the past.  Things are preserved here.  Old buildings are not torn down for some post-modern box of sing-song apartments or condos.  Seafood is still peddled in salty shacks down on the harbor as has been done for the past 200 years or more.  The supermarkets, however, are on the scale and modeled after Whole Foods.  Bulk grains, boutique soaps and pleasantries, and organic everything is featured in the hippest of ways.  Young people flourish on the streets.  We found that simply being in Portland was totally refreshing. 

After our museum tour the next day we came back again to harborside for what else?  A fresh seafood lunch/dinner.  We parked the car and walked all over the dock area from one restaurant to the next, turned away each time.  The restaurants were double busy and with their limited help (they all had “help wanted” signs up in their front windows.) they could seat no more. Waiting times were hours, not minutes. We finally found a restaurant several streets over from the dock where we could get a seat.  The food was, well...OK.  Our expectations were a little bruised.  We did get our oysters, though, and that was redeeming.  By God, they were Damariscotta Oysters from up coast, Maine.  Delightful! 

Now, back to the museum. We met the owner of the Maine Military Museum around 9:00 AM and it was raining cats and dogs.  It was a great morning to go to a museum and be indoors. The owner has a passion for his museum unmatched in my experience.  He originally started his museum in a large garage but as his assets grew he soon needed a larger space.  A local VFW was moving out of their housing and being impressed with his dedication they gave him their old space.  Now he had adequate room to display all his memorabilia.  Man, this guy has some real historical treasures. 

Once inside the building the owner personally escorted us from room to room and explained the history behind each and every piece he had in there.  Stories galore are stored in his memory.  He talked at length about the Revolutionary War items in his collection, and there were many.  Of course, he had beaucoup items and stories from the Civil War where Maine volunteers played such pivotal roles in many battles.  Chamberlain and his men at Gettysburg easily came to my mind.  The owner expounded on his knowledge of Chamberlain and his men for quite a while.  He regaled us with historical footnote after footnote.  Uniforms and flags, fighting weapons, and personal effects are there in abundance.  Every branch of the armed services, including Seabees and the Merchant Marine are included in his collection.  Every display has a story behind it, and the owner knew each one by heart. 

A lot of attention in the museum is paid to Viet Nam POW’s.  The owner has constructed exact replicas of the cells in North Viet Nam that American POW’s were held in complete with their prison outfits that some of them squirreled back to the US with them.  As the owner told the story of the prisoners he has met and their plights he visibly chokes up with emotion.  Many of the POW items and displays are accompanied by signed letters of gratitude from their original owners or generals and colonels who fought in Viet Nam.  The famous POW and US Senator, John McCain, who spent 5 ½ years in captivity, was a personal friend, as was the Medal of Honor recipient, Floyd Thompson, who spent 9 years (think about that for a moment) in the Hanoi Hilton, the worst of the worst POW prisons.  I thought of my brother, Mike, who went to Viet Nam in 1968-’69. Mike never talks about what he did, what he saw, or any of the horrors of that time there.  I’ve never asked him to retell it.  I fear it is very painful to recall for him. 

The women of the US military are given very good coverage in this museum.  The owner made remarks about the female contributions to the military in unflagging manner.  Several of the mannequin displays that involve the various uniforms of the branches are women-centric.  No gender, color, creed, or country of original heritage is given any preference over any other in this man’s museum.  All are equal heroes in his house. 

Again, the owner’s extreme passion for his museum and the military is so strong that it is highly contagious. While we were visiting two men appeared who had a large wooden box of artifacts that their father had collected from his military career.  They wanted to show the owner what they had and see if he was interested in displaying some of them.  They talked at length about the history of their father and the items and as they spoke tears began to well up in their eyes.  I have to state that seldom if ever have we been so moved and touched internally in my heart and souls as we have by this man’s passion for our military, his collection or artifacts, and the stories he so willingly shares.  All of us as people have our own stories and each and every one of them are unique and priceless.  I found the stories I heard that morning so far above and beyond the call of duty as to feel totally humbled in my meager citizenship within this awesome country. 

“My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty...of thee I sing.” 

Southward along the Atlantic Coast 

We left the Maine Military Museum and Learning Center in a driving rain early in the morning so much the better off for having stayed there the two days that we did.  I decided that with no signs of the rain letting up we would stay at a Walmart just south of Portland, not far at all and hunker down there.  The rain finally let up overnight and we traveled just down the road to Kennebunkport, Maine, that celebrated home of George HW Bush, President of the United States.  The immediate area is a destination for what appears to me to be very wealthy vacationers from the eastern seaboard.  All along the beautiful coast there you will find one coastal mansion after the next, each unique in its architecture and landscaping. The narrow little side streets that taper off to the west from the beach feature slightly smaller yet just as stately homes set like gems in their tailored yards.  It’s a fine place, Kennebunk is.  My mind kept going back to that hilarious movie, “The Wedding Crashers” starring Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Bradley Cooper, and, who could forget Christopher Walken as the Secretary of the US Treasury? 

You drive along through these exclusive neighborhoods and you begin to realize that many of the mansions are summer homes, vacant now that labor Day has come and gone.  Your imagination cannot help but turn to extrospection as you contemplate the lives of these very rich families.  Are they senators?  Are they hedge fund managers?  How do you accumulate so much wealth as to live here part time?  My mind turned to lottery tickets. Had I checked mine lately?  Ha!  No, as for me and Diane, even if we had unlimited wealth I don’t think we’d want to live here.  Oh, It’s a gorgeous piece of America for sure.  I think we’d still prefer to travel.  Really, how much material do you need in your life to be happy?  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t begrudge these folks for what they’ve managed to accumulate.  It’s just not for me...at least not at this stage of my life. 

We landed Nell, our now muddy yet trusty traveler motor home, at Sandy Pines RV Resort.  No government campgrounds were available in the area.  Sandy Pines is a fine RV Park.  As so many RV parks in the eastern US do, Sandy Pines fashions itself as summer vacation home.  A lot of visitors stay a week, two weeks, whatever the length of the annual summer vacation happens to be.  It becomes their vacation home.  There is a swimming pool here that is ample and beautifully conceived and finished.  Nightly entertainment is planned for guests.  Sometimes that may be a movie night, sometimes a talent show, or perhaps musical entertainment is provided.  Daytime will feature games for the kids, the ever-popular craft hours, S’mores and hot dog cookouts and the like.  Often times RV parks and even State Parks think of themselves as summer camps here in the eastern US.  It’s a definite thing here.  The license plates seemed to be mostly from the eastern states with Massachusetts being the most prevalent. I imagine Boston’ers outnumber the other guests judging by the prevalent Red Sox ball caps I saw around there.  I made sure to sport my St Louis Cardinals cap.  The campsites themselves at Sandy Pines are very nice with good room for privacy, and the area is fairly heavily wooded.  It’s a very nice setting and we enjoyed our three days here. 

We ventured back to the beach for a day and lounged around like the jet set out on the sand.  You are supposed to have a permit to park anywhere close to the beach but I ignored that law.  The beach was not very crowded at all and I figured maybe even the hired guards the neighborhood council of elders put in place would be a little lax in fastidiously applying tickets to windshields.  Anyway, were they going to track me down?  Good luck finding me! 

The beach is simply sublime here. It’s easy to tell why people who can afford to will land here for Summer.  The crescent shape of the beach gives you a broad perspective and the gentle waves reach the beach at intervals. To the north end of the beach the Kennebunk River enters and that compact estuary is filled with seabirds busily picking away at mud-bound critters stranded high and dry during low tides.  Even the gulls here are fat and privileged.  As you stand at the mouth of the Kennebunk and strain your eyes up river you see that the small stream comes to the sea as a snake, wriggling and curling through a verdant meadow perhaps a mile in width.  I deem it would be great fun to paddle up its course during high tide.  Though small in area the broad meadow is a dense sanctuary for birds and their prey.  The high grass was a rich green carpet and small chippee birds flitted in the breeze as they clung sideways to the strong and thick stalks.  These delighted avian hunters had found their heaven.  Diane has always said that if she were to come back in a future life she would hope to be a bird. It does seem that the Good Lord has favored the feathery. 

Out in the bay there are compact little boulder strewn islands that jut out here and there.  The waves on this day were subtle and mildly lapped at their vertical, granite shores.  Could be good fishing thereabouts, I imagine.  However, no one was fishing on this day.  Only fashionable beach lounging seemed to be the order.  There were scattered tidal pools along the beach and we lazily inspected them for stragglers, crabs, and crustaceans.  I found the water cold yet a few beachies ventured out for a quick dip.  The few youngsters out that day were impervious to the sub-comfortable water temps. I think they would be yet swimming if it were snowing.  Good for them I say.   As for me, I basked in the 70 degree sun wishing the slight breeze would extinguish itself.  Seems I get cold easily these days. 

After a good, long afternoon on the beach we went back to the car to clean up for a visit to the ocean-front town of Kennebunkport for dinner.  Ah, just as I had hoped...no ticket on my windshield.  The hired guards had indeed gotten lazy today. 

The downtown of Kennebunkport is perhaps three-fourths of a mile long and fronts a bay.  Sailboats and fishing charters set out at predictable times.  Shopping and dining, however, seem to be the principal sport here. Crowded little shops offer upscale beach town souvenirs and treasures to bring home from your Maine vacation. The more exclusive fashion shops are positioned away from the hustle and bustle at the far ends of the road that runs through town.  Smallish restaurants work diligently to find seats for the guests even during this, the beginning of the off-season.  We queried a local man at the town’s only gas station regarding good eats where the locals dine.  He told us of a Mexican restaurant of all things on the edge of town that he said was the place to eat.  What the heck.  We went for it. 

Pedro’s was the place...a playful and attractive outdoor setting.  Pedro’s has imaginative Margaritas that everyone seemed to be drinking.  The diner’s moods, being plied with hi-octane tequila, was festive.  The general mode of the town is casual and Pedro’s set the pace.  Up drove a brilliant and spotless red, 1957 Cadillac Coup De Ville.  Out jumped the driver looking every bit a Parrot-Head Jimmy Buffet type.  He sauntered into the bar as I excused myself for the moment and walked over to his automobile to admire the restoration.

Pedro’s is a winner.  The dinner was most excellent. So often Mexican restaurants seem concerned mostly with quantity instead of quality. Beans and yellow cheese must be cheap to serve, I guess.  But, Pedro’s serves authentic street tacos that you would swear came from the southwest somewhere.  We enjoyed ourselves immensely as we dined and watched the locals come and go, mostly to the bar for margaritas and appetizers. 

On another afternoon visit to the town we tried the fare at the Clam Shack.  The Clam Shack is a take-out affair with tables and chairs close at hand provided by the city.  Diane had researched reviews of the place and everyone raved about the food there.  We had to go.  They are hands down good at what they serve.  Fried Clams as you’ve never tasted, Lobster Rolls, Crab dishes, Shrimp, Haddock sandwiches, the list is so appealing and they live up to their reputation for freshness and quality.  It ain’t fancy, but it is oh, so good.  There was a line when we got there but they are so efficient as to make your wait irrelevant.  We sat there by the town dock, feasted on Clams, and watched a few boats come and go.  Commercial fishing used to be the main trade here and though you can still book a deep sea fishing trip, tourism is the proverbial horn of plenty these days. 

We found the local cognisante dine out away from the main town’s beehive in select small boutique restaurants settled in among the pines and the leafy areas along the country two-lane roads, their dining rooms dimly lit with parking out back hidden from street view.  Small by design, they afford the mostly affluent clientèle an intimate dining experience.  This area just south of Portland, Maine and nestled against the few natural beaches in the state, where the mixed hardwoods and pines reach skyward, is a place of abundance both in nature as well as coined accumulation. 

It is not a long drive south to reach Boston and Cape Cod.  There happens to be several state parks near Boston and both near and on Cape Cod.  Despite it being September and school now in session for the kids we couldn’t book space into any of the state parks.  They were that packed. Weekend, week day, it didn’t matter...no vacancy.  As I always point out, government lands are our preferred place to camp.  Here, in Massachusetts, the fees for state park camping are as high as you might find in an RV park.  I hope that does not become a national trend.  Most of the private campgrounds were full as well and I suppose that the Cape, being so very close to the major population centers as it is, is a much sought after destination.  I would estimate that 95% of the license plates we saw while there were from New England. 

As you cross over the canal that separates Cape Cod from the mainland there is a very nice campground called Bay View Campgrounds.  Bay View is a very large enterprise but it is very well organized.  Typical of many of the campgrounds, both private and government owned, activities for the guests are part and parcel to the camping experience.  Dances and various get-togethers are mixed in nightly while the kids have craft sessions during the daytime.  Bay View also features a large swimming pool and a little restaurant attached that serves small meals and ice cream.  It is all very organized and catered to families who want to spend their summer vacation on Cape Cod.  There are also a good deal of full time residents who park their RV’s there semi-permanently and attach accoutrement of a more fully domestic life style.  Porches are added and doodads and geegaws fill the small yards of their campsites.  At night many of them gather at each other’s place and party. Bay View is a pleasant place.  I’d recommend it if you cannot get into one of the local state parks, though as I mentioned earlier, the government campgrounds are just as expensive here. 

Our first day on the Cape was a bleak rainy one.  It seemed just too nasty to venture out to the beaches and such so we decided to visit the John F Kennedy Library and Museum back north just south of Boston.  Of course, this is Kennedy country and their family stamp is felt even unto today.  Their family compound is on Cape Cod in Hyannis Port.  It is still there.  The Kennedy Library turned out to be a wonderful cultural experience for us.  We love to add those types of excursions into our travels whenever we can.  We are almost equally interested in the culture and history of the places we visit as much as the natural scenery and such. Visiting the multiple floors of the Kennedy Library brought back so many memories of those early ‘60’s times and events.  You don’t have to mine deeply to bring out the events of the day in our memories. 

As is always the case when visiting a president’s library or former home, there is so much to come to learn about the personage and personality of the president and those in his family and his close friends. (I say his, and so far that is the only gender of the presidents. I personally hope that is close to changing. I wouldn’t want a female president simply for the sake of feminism, but I sure feel that there are ample candidates available who could do a great if not better job that most of the male presidents we’ve had in this country.) Kennedy’s library is no exception to that rule.  All of the well known events of his presidency are captured in detail not usually available to the public.  However, it is the more private lives of the family, especially predating his presidential time, that intrigued us so much.  As an aside, John F’s personal sailboat sits in the spacious lawn there, facing the bay and ready it seems to set sail whenever John F. returns.  I found that very moving. 

The next day it quit raining and so we planned to drive the entirety of the Cape to its very end to at least do it and to further get some ideas for more day trips.  The Cape is made of up of many small hamlets and towns and driving through them is fairly delightful. Some towns, for instance, Hyannisport, are very crowded with the hustle and bustle of daily life and less idyllic.  I found Cape Cod to be a fairly crowded space all in all, much more so than I anticipated.  Thing is, though, it is easy to find spots on beaches and in the woods to be more isolated.  Off the main roads the atmosphere is relaxed and down-shifted from the energy of Boston and New England proper.  Folks are kicked back.  I wouldn’t say it is a socially active place.  Folks are not generally falling over each other to talk, meet and greet.  They’re here to charge their batteries and get away from stress.  Folks are friendly, but they don’t go out of their way to make pleasantries. 

At the tip of the Cape lies the town of Provincetown.  The main town is along the bay surrounded by the curl of sand that lays like a hook of land on the map.  The smallish downtown is perhaps eight square blocks of very, very narrow streets, sometimes sandblown, and full of pedestrians casually bopping in and out of the shops and small restaurants there.  I would not advise trying to drive there.  Go ahead and pay the parking toll and join the walkers.  We are not shoppers and so spending time gawking and spending did not appeal to us.  We chose instead to drive the short distance over the the Atlantic side of the spit of land and walk the beautiful sandy beach there.  The wind was stiff that day having blown in on the tail of the storm from the previous day.  A mild cold front was moving in with endless blue skies.  The waves were crashing on shore and seemed angry.  It was bracing and energizing to walk along that beach and feel the ocean’s massive effects.  We noticed a few seals very close to the shore, almost surfing in the waves.  One of the old salts we met there informed us that as the ocean is warming more and more seals are moving into the area.  With the seals come Great White Sharks, their principal and most fearsome enemy. 

“When the seals are close like this don’t go in the water.  They’re up close to the beach because the Whites are after them.  There’s more of them Whites out there than you might think.” He warned us. 

The sand on the beach was soft and fluffy, the kind your feet sink deeply into when you walk across. 
That makes for easy shifting, too, and serves as evidence for how this marvelous Cape was and is still forming. We walked up and down its length and noticed the seals seemed to follow us.  We waved at them and tried to lock their focus on us. They dipped back down beneath the curling waves and would reappear down the beach 25 or 30 yards away.  They never came closer nor further away from us, but seemed to stay the same distance all the while we walked back and forth along the long spit of loose sand.  Today, no one was swimming in the ocean. 

Along the way back to Bay View Campground we stopped at Hyannisport for dinner.  Diane, in her never-ending quest for the perfect oyster and freshest seafood, found a wonderful little eatery on the dock.  We sat outside and relished in yet another dozen oysters, these being local as we were told, and followed that up with a delicate seafood pasta...mussels, shrimp, clams, mushrooms, and a mildly spicy sausage in a seafood stock smothering the al dente boiled thick linguine.  Home made bread was on hand for dipping into the sauce so as not to let a drop of it go to waste, which I must say we did not allow to happen. 

Cape Cod has its share of compounds where the aristocracy of the east coast spend Summer.  Far outnumbering them are the modest homes of those who live here year round and work in service or construction jobs for a living.  Neat and tidy, they fill neighborhoods scattered around.   At times as you drive the two-lane roads here you might think for second you are in Anywhere, USA.  Here’s a Chevy dealership, there’s a school, and so on.  But, when you get off the main roads, of which I think there are but two or three, you more often than not find yourself out in the countryside of New England where marshes intrude and narrow lanes of still water lead back out to the ocean.  Small fishing boats might be tied up off shore in a small lake waiting for their owners and high tide to resume the hunt. 

One afternoon we found ourselves wandering down such a neighborhood and found a hiking trail.  We traipsed down the well-worn path through a thick, but narrow forest.  The air was moderately cool and the Sun was high and bright in the cloudless sky.  Now and again the path would emerge from the wood to a splendid view of a small lake connected to other small lakes by marshes and tidal creeks.  Birds were aplenty and we stopped often trying to identify them.  There were few other visitors to the trail that day and it was as if we had the sanctuary to ourselves.  Diane referred to a book she had read that this little hike of ours reminded her of. “Where the Crawdads Sing” was the novel and Diane said though the story was set in coastal North Carolina she felt this place we found ourselves in came right out of the author’s mind.  A Great Blue Heron kept just ahead of us as we walked and talked.  As soon as we would draw close MS Blue would spread her large wings and glide away another hundred yards or so until we reached that same proximity, again and again gliding ahead.  Was she leading us on, I wondered?  We’ll never know as we eventually retraced our steps back to the Jeep. 

I don’t believe you should come as far as we have, landed on Cape Cod, and not go to Martha’s Vineyard. Ferries run back and forth to the island all day long and it’s not difficult to gain passage.  So, with that we found ourselves on the ferry, but without our car this time.  We thought, aw, what the heck, let’s rent a car once we get over there.  The cost of a rental car would probably come out the same as the cost to ferry our Jeep. 

Now, on this long Summer road trip chapter of the 50 Amp Vision Quest we’re on we have spent money, a lot of money for us.  Ever since we lit out in 2018 I have kept a very accurate accounting of our expenses.  After the first year I began to create an annual budget for us to follow with the intent of trying to limit our spending without cramping our travels too much.  Suffice to say, without camp hosting periodically as we do, we would most probably spend ourselves back into the general workforce sooner or later.  We are not sitting on a vast accumulation of money in our retirement.  Our Social Security Income is vital to us.  Some months we do just fine on our expense budget, but some months, particularly lately, we do not.  This summer’s long road trip is a big deal for us and we embraced that fully aware going into it.  We plan on camp hosting for the next year pretty much full time to help gain back some of our expenditures this year. 

That being said, off we drove into Martha’s Vineyard in our rental Toyota Camry.  As soon as we left the busy little village where the Ferry docks we found ourselves tooling down twisty, turny two-lane roads.  Avenues more than roads, they are tunnels of trees whose arching branches bend and fracture the Sun’s rays so as to create pools of light and shade that you drive into and out of.  Pea gravel driveways lead away from the road to modest homes tucked away here and there. 

Perhaps 15,000 residents inhabit the island but it is mostly a Summer retreat, I believe.  Rental homes, B&B’s, and AirB&B’s are prevalent, especially amidst the coastal hamlets where groceries and restaurants are set up. It’s ever so obvious why folks who are able flock here.  Though we arrived in the Autumn I can easily visualize the place teeming with daytrippers during the warmer summer months.  The ferries must be jam-packed then. During our time here we found the island had many visitors but not uncomfortably so. 

Our first stop that day was on the far southern side of the isle where great bluffs dominate the seaside.  A lighthouse stands atop the highest bluff and a small village of shops, perhaps eight in total offer truly unique mementos, not your usual import crap with a place name stamped or printed on it.  The views are inspirational here.  To the east a long beach draws away from your perspective into the distance as equally long waves repeatedly wash ashore, the mist from their lapping hanging in midair.  Directly down below those same waves are crashing against the rocks and sides of the bluffs.  Sailboats offshore complete the picture.  It’s easy to imagine this spot to be an artist’s dream location.  In fact, a few plien aire (sp) painters were fast at work off to the side of the bluff.  You could easy spend an entire day or afternoon here and recharge your internal batteries. But, we had more to see and only a day to do it in. 

We then headed northward toward that beautiful beach we had seen from the high bluffs.  It stretches on for a good distance but it was tricky for us to find access to it.  Finally, we found a stretch of parking on a very sandy parking lot with just a few cars parked there and we walked between large dunes of sand punctuated by tufts of Sea Oats.  On the cusp of the beach entrance a very large sign had been placed with a picture of an open-mouthed and menacing, very large, Great White Shark.  This was a dire warning sign of the possible danger out in the water.  It had directions as per what to do if you witness someone getting bit by a White, how to save a life.  It also explained how sharks had become more prevalent in recent years.  Hammerheads and Bull Sharks were also becoming more prevalent.  The sign was large, large enough to contain all this dialogue as well as the huge shark picture.  It was as if they wanted to make sure you didn’t go out in the water.  The sign was, indeed, very effective.  We took pictures of each other in front of the sign with mock terrified looks.  I noticed new arrivals to the beach after us did the same exact thing.  No one was in the water that afternoon. 

While we were at the beach we saw several planes coming and going from an airport very close by.  By my guess I’d say a quarter to half a mile away.  One of them was a canary yellow bi-plane, the kind with double wings.  The person in the bi-plane was buzzing up and down the beach at pretty low altitude, then banking inland sharply, climbing high and diving, almost acrobatic at times.  Eventually, he flew off to the north and we didn’t see the yellow acrobat again that afternoon.  Later, we found out at exactly the time we were at the beach by the airport a plane load of immigrants sent from Texas had landed there.  It was a political stunt, one of a series of such political stunts foisted by the governors of Florida, Texas, and Arizona.  They are sending bus loads of refugees to what they call Asylum Cities, so named because they are by and large predominantly cities that tend to vote for Democratic party candidates.  New York, Washington, DC, Chicago, all have received these buses and the confused refugees, children among them, who are packed into them.  We were told later that the refugees on the plane at Martha’s Vineyard were basically lied to so as to get them on board.  Jobs, money, the good life awaited them when they would get to their destination.  They weren’t even told where they were going. 

The good people of Martha’s Vineyard turned out for the plane and its human cargo and pitched in to help them in every conceivable way they could.  Rather than turn them away and send them packing, they welcomed them with open arms willing to help.  It seems a fitting way to book end the political stunt that these heartless governors pulled.  Everyone knows that our country has an immigrant problem right now.  It needs to be solved as soon as possible.  The root of the problem, however, lies within the countries that these refugees are fleeing. Gang violence and death threats force them to leave their homes.  I hear most of them don’t want to have to come to the US, they’d rather continue living in their homelands, but they face almost no other choice.  It seems to me that the early European migrations that landed in America were faced with similar plights back home as well.  Religious persecution, starvation, Indentured servitude, slavery...aren’t those the self-same reasons Europeans came here in the first place? 

I once hired a woman from El Salvador, a refugee herself from her village back home.  She carried her little child with her to get to St Louis after her husband was shot and killed by gang members.  She was bi-lingual and was a great employee for the company as she handled Spanish language customer service calls for my team.  She cried every now and again privately while she ate her meal off in a corner of the lunch room we had.  I would sit by her sometimes and just listen as she would talk about El Salvador and how much she missed both her husband and her home.  She wanted to go back, but she couldn’t.  Showing up there in her village in the mountains would most certainly be the end of her life she exclaimed.  And what would become of her child she would ask as she looked up at me?  I can tell you this, I do not know what became of this woman, but she was and probably still is absolutely determined to make it here in the US.  She had her child and she had a shot at a new life here. 

While these refugees were being tended to such a short distance from us on Martha’s Vineyard, Diane and I had made our way to a little dock side restaurant in the village nearby, Edgartown.  Just a short distance away folks were deplaning, literally not much to show but the shirts on their backs.  Scared, not knowing where on earth they were, they were homeless, jobless, totally at the mercy of the people who greeted them at the airport.  The thought does not escape me that while we were living it up in our own little privileged traveler’s world eating choice seafood, these unfortunate human beings, fellow travelers of sorts, were facing an entirely different world.  We didn’t hear about this exploitation of the refugees until the next day as we drank our morning coffee and watched the news on the TV.  I can imagine as I type this that as they approached that airport in their crowded plane they looked down on all of us on that beach.  What thoughts were going through their minds? They were so close to us on that beach, yet so far away.  I think about them often.  I ponder the words of Jesus Christ, 

“ What you do for the least of mine you do for me.” (paraphrase) 

I think about the problems of immigration and refugees coming to our country.  Who on this earth has the answer?  We’ve yet to see it... from anyone. 

Witches and Ghosts

Salem, Massachusetts lies just north of Boston and close at hand to us so we drove up there to see the famed place of witches and such.  Salem is a cool city unto itself with its own history, attitude, and culture.  We walked around the downtown area hobnobbing about, ducking into little shops and boutiques but buying naught.  Just window shopping and hanging out.  With just a day to spend here, really just an afternoon and early evening, we signed up for a walking tour of the highlights of the city and the historic area.  This turned out to be a great idea as we would never had discovered half the places had we visited on our own.  Ghostly haunts were one of the features of this tour, though not the only drawing card.  Turns out the area has a lot of important history lying just below the surface of the busy streets.  Very early civil rights and anti slavery sites can be found here where folks fought, sometimes underground, for the rights of everyone to be truly free.  Revolutionary and Civil War significance lies everywhere you look.  Old, old, beautiful architecture is abundant, some lovingly restored, some falling into disrepair awaiting someone’s money and passion to restore it to its former glory. 

The ghostly and witchery locations were very fun, though the tour leader took them very seriously.  In some cases he showed us photos taken of the haunted homes we walked by with wispy, ghostly images emerging in the pictures. One of them distinctly showed a pale vaporous woman’s face peering from a window in a second story room where a woman had been held hostage for years and years until her death, presumably from loneliness. 

After five days on Cape Cod and a truly marvelous time there we shoved off southward again with our sites set on New York.  We wanted to see the city again, specifically the Memorial to 9/11, and we wanted to see a little more of the state.  We jumped on I-95 and found our way through Providence, RI and skirted the Atlantic as we drove.  This area though Rhode Island and Connecticut deserves time and discovery, but time and priorities directed us through the area without stopping on this trip.  Maybe we’ll return one day to experience the seaboard here.  We stopped for the night at a Cracker Barrel parking lot and had a dinner there of Americana comfort food.  Cracker Barrels are a good place to stop for a night.  They let you stay for free and the food is, well, comfort food.  What more need be said? 

The next morning we hit the road fairly early and continued southward.  I gotta say, I-95, being the main artery between Boston and New York City is one lousy highway.  It’s packed with trucks, zillions of commuters dodging in and out of lanes to gain a few seconds on their way to wherever, and the road bed is the worst I’ve encountered since we left Michigan and our pot hole laden nightmare there where we blew out tires and lost our canopy due to the road.  There actually is an RV park right outside New York City in New Jersey and I thought about possibly navigating the City to get there and spend a few days.  It surely would be convenient to what we wanted to do in New York.  However, I found that there is a low bridge on the only way into the park that we would not be able to drive Nell under without losing our air conditioners mounted on the roof. 

“Hey, why not stay up the Hudson River?” I said to Diane.  Fred Gumaer, my friend and band mate, told me often how pretty it is up there.  That’s where he’s from, Poughkeepsie, NY.  We found a county park right on the river there called, Croton Point Park, and they had availability.  We could even take a train from there into the city.  Perfect! 

As we drove up the road from I-95 that led to Croton Point Park we found ourselves on a two-laner that paralleled the Hudson the entire way.  It’s a pretty drive that winds through woodlands and small sleeper communities where commuters go back and forth from home to work in the canyons of Manhattan.  The problem for RV’s on that road, NY9A, is that there are many arched bridges that you must go under.  They are just 12 feet and a few inches high in the center.  Our motor home is 12 feet 6 inches high.  At times the two-laner turns into a three laner and if you happen to go under an arched bridge on this road in the right lane, the height drops to 10 feet.  No Bueno!  I was fairly petrified as I drove north on this road. It was more than close to disaster several times as I negotiated myself as close to the center of the road as I could while we approached these RV scrapers.  More than a few hands were thrust out car windows in my direction with one, the middle finger, raised. 

We got to the park unscathed by the Grace of God and set up our little camp for a few days on the banks of the Hudson River in such an historic spot of America.  We all know the story of Hudson, the explorer, sailing up the river that now bears his name.  But, there’s so much other history here as well.  My friend, Fred Gumaer, being from this area, most assuredly knows most of what there is to know of the history of the place.  I’ll tell you what I found… 

Croton Point Park sits in a town called, Croton, on Hudson.  It’s but one in a series of towns and hamlets along the river north of the City.  It is a peninsula that juts out into the Hudson River where Native Americans lived permanently for millennia, at least back as far as 7,000 years ago.  The park itself has had several archaeological digs performed with bountiful discoveries unearthed.  Some of the artifacts go on display at the park from time to time.  The Algonquin people, a confederation really of several local tribes, were the last Native Americans in the area and they signed a peace treaty with the Dutch at Croton Point, right where our campground was, in 1645. 

The area’s first European settlers were Dutch and English Quakers who farmed the area and constructed mills. The Revolutionary War brought several consequential battles to this area.  The British occupied New York City for a good deal of time during the war.  By the mid 1800’s a dam was built on the Hudson there and an aqueduct to supply New York City with water was constructed.  This brought an influx of Irish and German immigrants to do the labor and the population soared from then on.  In the early 1900’s artists and writers from Greenwich Village, New York city began arriving here and founded an artists’ community.  To this day the area in an eclectic mix of folks.  Walking the streets, which feature all kinds of little shops and eateries, is interesting as a diverse mix of folks now live and work both here and in the City. 

We decided to first explore the surrounding towns and the culture of the area.  After all, the famed town of Sleepy Hollow, is just 10 minutes away.  Who hasn’t heard the story of the Headless Horseman?  We drove down to Sleepy Hollow, a very small town now in a series of small towns that blend into each other on the main road along the River.  Even with the 21st century modernization of life here, Sleepy Hollow manages to hold its charm as an historic landmark.  There are several mansions here dating back to halcyon days when shipping magnates constructed period mansions rivaling those found in Europe at the time.  Kykuit, the Rockefeller family’s opulent hilltop estate is among them.  Some of these you can tour at certain times of the year on certain days.  You can really step back in time on these tours and get a taste of bygone days here in the Hudson Valley. 

We gave ourselves a self-guided tour of the Sleepy Hollow Cemetary and the Old Dutch Reformed Church that sits along the edge of the graveyard.  Now, all long the eastern US one of the first things we noticed was how many cemeteries there are. It makes sense if you consider how long Europeans have been living here.  While it may seem kind of morbid to consider walking among the tombstones we find it fascinating.  While totally respecting the resting places of the deceased we find ourselves reading aloud the writing on the grave stones, which sometimes reveal bits of information and history from the past.  In Sleepy Hollow so many of the tombstones are so old that the original writing on them is now illegible due to centuries of weathering.  At times the scripting of the now ancient writing is foreign itself, not at all commonly used any longer.  The words themselves seem archaic.  A thick metal sign stands at the head of the graveyard that reads, 

“Headless horseman tethers his horse nightly among the graves in this churchyard according to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, author Washington Irving.” 

Indeed, Washington Irving himself lies buried not far from this sign. His native Tarrytown, NY adjoins Sleepy Hollow on the road below.  Tarrytown is, of course, the home town of Rip Van Winkle.

One of the headstones which bears out my comment above reads thusly: 

“Here lies the Body of Christina Arfer. The Daughter of William and Barbara Arfer who Departed This Life February th 15 Anno Do 1705 Aged 17 Years 11 Months 1 Days In Lives Full Joys And Virtuous Fareeft Blome Untimely Chackt And Horreed to the Tomb Life How Short Eternity How Long.” This is exactly as it is written on the stone. An indiscriminate face with angel wings attached adorns the top of the stone, meaning that it is believed Christina went to Heaven.  Not all the faces on the old stones have the angel wings.  I assume those souls are believed to have gone to the other place. 

Another stone read, 

“Here Lies Body of (unreadable) the Son of William And Barbara (unreadable) Who Departed This Life January 1 ANNO DO 1701 Aged 6 Years 1 Month 10 Days Hark From the Tomb A Doulful Voice My Ears Arends the Cry You Liven Men Com View the Ground Were You Muft Shortly Lie.” 

This is exactly how it is written. Fortunately, wings adorn the face at the top of the reddish tombstone. 

Yet another stone tells the story, 

“Here Lies the Body of James Bernard Who Departed This Life the 4 of March 1768 in the 48 Year of His Age The Boisterous Winds and Neptuns Waves have Tost me Too and Fro By Gods Decree You Plainly See I am Harbored here Below.” 

Many Revolutionary Soldiers, some who died in battles, some who lived on till later years, are buried here.  Their graves are marked with special insignias and flags.  Veterans of other times and wars are also buried with honor here and their resting places are adorned with metal insignias and flags depending upon which time and war they served.  The cemetery is still receiving newly deceased folks.  While the members of its society are silent and have passed on, the churchyard and cemetery is itself alive. 

Since the military academy of West Point lies just north of where we were camped, we simply had to tour the place.  Crossing an expansive bridge just upriver from our campground we got a bird’s eye view of the Hudson River Valley beneath us.  The attraction of this place fills all senses and its abundance has been a natural draw for tribes of peoples for time immemorial, be they Archaic hunter/gatherers, Algonquin, Dutch, German, Irish, or lately East Indian.  Speaking of lately, it would be nice if they would fix their roads so folks can enjoy the Valley without cussing at the potholes.  But, I digress… 

West Point is nestled along natural bluffs over the valley.  Originally a fortress, it’s location was formidable. During the Revolutionary War a massive chain was laid across the entirety of the river to block British ships from sailing past the fort.  Part of that chain is on display on the campus of West Point.  During that war it was Benedict Arnold who conspired to turn over the fort to the British.  His co-conspirator was caught and hung very near our campground downriver a short distance. 

It was Thomas Jefferson who envisioned a military academy here and shortly after his inauguration in 1801 he set the plan in motion.  The story of the Academy and prior fort is long and storied as are the lists of its graduates and their contributions to the country.  When the Academy is mentioned I’m certain folks have images of its station in American history that come to mind.  For us, the museum that is located there which we toured that afternoon puts a sharp focus on its contributions to our nation’s military and political history.  I have to say the museum is superbly curated and presented.  We found ourselves transfixed on many of its exhibits learning history now new to us. 

New York Neighborhoods

The next day found us ready to see the City, the Big Apple.  We decided to take the train in instead of driving and trying to pay ridiculous fees to park in Manhattan.  Besides, on this trip we wanted to see the Boroughs of New York.  Diane and I have been to New York before and taken in the major tourist sites.  The last time we came to New York, back in 2008, we took in the play, The Color Purple, on Broadway.  It was in its first week of production.  I remember we were seated directly in front of Pee Wee Herman, the children’s TV show star. Funny, the things you remember.  I do remember the play being terrific.  We went over to Strawberry Fields in Central Park opposite the Dakota building that trip and contemplated what John Lennon might have further contributed to our culture had he not been gunned down from behind that dark night in 1980.  Diane and I cried openly when we heard the news of his death out in LA where I was working for MCA Records at the time. 

Diane had the foresight to book a tour through Viator that promised to tour the neighborhoods of New York and put into clearer perspective the people who make up the City.  It takes a bit of getting used to the idea of being with a group of folks on a big bus gawking out the windows.  It doesn’t seem like the cool thing to do.  How immersive can it possibly be?  But I gotta tell you, when you have limited time to experience a wide ranging place like New York City and you don’t know your way around, it’s the best bet. 

The stated essence of the tour was to experience the culture of the Borroughs, the neighborhoods and the people.  Our tour leader was a former immigrant from Uruguay.  His perspectives were mostly centered on the immigration into the neighborhoods, the uniqueness of their character, and the personality of the Boroughs.  I found Jorge, our guide, to be most excellent in his insights and highly approachable, eager to educate and answer all questions.  The guy is genuine. 

Jorge and his driver took us first to Harlem and I must admit, the opening notes of “A Train” were cascading through my mind.  We stopped near the famous Apollo Theater and though it was 10:00 AM in the morning the theater was open.  Diane and I went inside and looked around and talked with a couple of affable ladies who were working there.  One of the ladies gave us a stemwinder of a walk down her personal memory lane recounting having seen Michael Jackson and so many R&B/Soul artists perform there.  As we gazed around the hall it was truly overwhelming to consider the genius that has performed on that stage over the many decades. 

We stopped next in the Bronx and listened to Jorge talk at length about the history of the neighborhoods.  This is the home congressional district of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  No, we didn’t go by her house or anything like that.  I thought about it, though.  We drifted around the neighborhood for a while and we stopped into a bodega for some refreshment.  Jorge told us that something like 35% of the inhabitants here were first generation immigrants. 

Brooklyn was our next destination and we stopped in a neighborhood that was plastered with street art.  All of the buildings’ walls were living theater of art.  Technically, I suppose you would call the paintings graffiti, but I have to say it was wonderfully rendered street art.  Color exploded off the walls.  The neighborhood allows the paintings to stand for two months, 60 days.  Then, another artist is invited to paint over the prior painting.  You must be invited to put up your art by the neighborhood.  I’m unsure as to whether they have some kind of commission or what that determines the order of things there but I imagine it is tightly ruled and watched over. Now, this is a working class neighborhood, full of small factories and small apartments and small restaurants. The folks who work here live here, unlike Manhattan where the white collar folks commute in.  If an artist from outside Brooklyn is chosen to paint a building wall, the local artists, the neighborhood artists, will deface the painting in the smallest possible way by initializing it.  They want everyone to know this is THEIR neighborhood and it was THEIR art that started the whole ongoing process.  They don’t destroy the painting or reduce it in any way.  They just, in their won artistic miniaturized way, let everyone know what’s going on. 

It was lunchtime and Diane and I dodged into a pizza place.  There was a line out the door.  There was one fella there working.  He was taking orders, making the pizzas, the whole shabang.  Somehow, he had his liturgy figured out down to a science as the wait for a couple pieces of pizza was not long at all.  The family ahead of us spoke to him in Italian as they gave him their order and chatted.  They were from Italy.  He conversed with them easily . Knock me down, the pizza was killer!  This was better than any pizza I have had in St Louis, save perhaps Joe Baccardi’s pizza on Watson Road.  Hand-tossed, thin crust and toasty, with tomato sauce to beat all, pepperonis, Italian sausage, mushrooms, black olives, and the most delicious mozzarella and provolone cheeses mixed with the provolone being just a bit more heavily used.  As I type this I can still taste it.  Yes sir, yes sir! 

Part of Brooklyn is called Williamsburg.  Williamsburg is the city unto itself where the strict Jewish sect lives.  The streets are filled with men in their black hats and beards, side curls hanging down before their ears.  The women wear expensive human hair wigs after having their own hair shaved off.  In a way, it reminded me of being in Amish country in Lancaster or Intercourse, PA. ( I always got a kick out of that city name) The same strict obedience to long-standing customs and religious practice seems very similar to me.  Near Williamsburg is a cemetery.  This particular cemetery, Jorge told us, has approximately 3,000,000 souls interred in it.  If that is true, then the population of the cemetery is larger than the current population of Brooklyn at some 2,000,000 + give or take.  Think about that!  I’ll tell you this, as you drive by along the highway, it goes on, and on, and on, and on.  If cemeteries could talk, and maybe they do, this one would be as loud as a football stadium.  Diane and I wondered together about the lives of those who now lay there.  Jorge told us of some of the more prominent people buried there, but to consider the lives of these people, the things they witnessed, the loves they had...all here together in one huge place stretching over hills and fields.  3 million lives, each a story unto itself, boggles my mind. 

Our last stop was ‘neath the Brooklyn Bridge in a little park called Dumbo Park that had been newly dedicated and preserved.  The views of the three bridges that span the East River are all in view there just waiting for their pictures to be taken, which we gladly obliged.  The Brooklyn, the Manhattan, and the Williamsburg Bridges are all busy all day and night long with traffic.  This park is the most visited place in Brooklyn.  Dumbo stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.  That’s it.  This place was once a mess of empty warehouses but it has been reimagined with all kinds of upscale shops and restaurants and apartments.  The cobblestones are still here, though, from long gone days.  It is a shame that Laclede’s Landing in St Louis could not have been maintained like this similar neighborhood.  What a waste of resources it has become.  I sadly find that to be the case often in my hometown.  I hate to admit it.  There is no lack of vision in St Louis, no creativity void at all. Simply no will or enough investment money to see things through.  No one wants to live in the city.  Everyone just moves further and further out into places that resemble Anywhere Avenue, Franchise City, USA.   A few folks and a few neighborhoods and a few landmarks are being preserved, reimagined, made alive again, but the old money won’t invest in the efforts by and large.  I love my hometown.  I feel sad when I see opportunities for it drain away.

Dumbo is alive. Young schools children were being let out of class while we were here.  They all had on their school’s uniform, plaid dresses of green and blue for the girls and the boys wore black pants and white shirts.  It reminded me of my school days at Holy Redeemer in Webster Groves, MO.  The girls wore the plaid uniforms there.  I like the idea.  It takes away a lot of class distinction, I think. 

After being let off the bus back in Manhattan we walked over to the 9/11 Memorial.  I would guess it was about a two mile walk or so through super busy streets and we enjoyed the people watching part of the hike as well as the immense buildings and scale of the places we were walking through.  We found our way to the Memorial and in a reverential way walked around the area taking in the newly constructed ambiance of the place.  We found that most visitors here were as we were, quiet, reflective, almost reverent.  Everyone who was alive and cognizant of the day’s events cannot help but recall where they were on that god-awful day.  I recall listening to KDHX radio as I was working from my desk at home when the DJ came on the air between songs and said, 

“We just got word of some kind of plane crash in New York City.” 

I immediately turned on the TV just in time to see the second plane hit the south Tower.  I found myself at Clayton Community Church that afternoon, which I had been attending at that time, praying with the others who had gathered there in the sanctuary.  No one knew the extent of what was to come.  We could watch the extent of damage via television, but we all wondered and dreaded what was to happen next?  More jets crashing into buildings? Bombs going off at power plants?  What the heck was happening in our country?  Who was doing this? 

So, all of those memories flood your mind as you gaze into the waterfalls at the memorial.  The thousands of bodies have been removed and laid to rest.  The massive dust clouds have settled and the rubble has all been taken away.  The cries and screams and wailing of sirens have been muted.  The Memorial remains and it is fitting and proper that is a reflective place amidst the money-changing madness that permeates Wall Street nearby.  We duly paid our respects to the innocents in the Towers and the First Responders who gave their all as well as those who have perished since from the poisonous mix of dust they inhaled on that fateful day in September these 21 years ago.  Seems like yesterday, and it will always seem that way until we, who were witnessing the massacre and desolation, pass along ourselves.  The memorial, hopefully, will remain. 

Soon enough we found we had to get back to Croton on Hudson and the doggies who were patiently waiting for us to return.  We jumped aboard a crowded, stuffed subway to Grand Central Station, packed together like so many beans in a can.  If we were ever going to get Covid, this would be the time and place. (we didn’t) We boarded the train at Grand Central and rode the half hour express train back to the station in Croton with the rest of the daily commuters and reflected back on our little tour of the City.  What a place...New York...unique in all the world.  One can go there many times and never experience all there is to discover. 

New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland...hectic as well as heavenly 

In contemplating discovery and culture, the entire eastern seaboard is so immersed in history and the cultures that created it that it seemed a loss that we didn’t create more time for ourselves to dive more deeply into it.  But, of course, that leaves the future for us to return and uncover more.  For now, we passed through the region on I-95 driving through the New Jersey and Delaware as if there were no distinction between them save the signs that declared and bid us Welcome to whatever state we were in.  On I-95 in this region the roadside appears as one long industrialized cityscape.  Traffic is one long overstuffed snake trying to maneuver through the maze of buildings having eaten an entire rabbit for breakfast.  You start.  You stop.  You start again and get up to running speed and then you stop yet again.  You are squeezed by roadside construction into mini lanes that cause Diane to panic. 

“Watch out for the concrete barriers over here on the right side!” 

“You’re too close to this truck over here!” 

It can be scary riding in a 57’ motor home/Jeep caravan that is nearly precisely the width of the shrunken lanes. Mistakes on these roads can be costly if not deadly.  Then, there are the potholes.  Potholes are the constant on the east coast.  We found them in Michigan to be monstrous, but these are even more plentiful.  The constant banging of the tires and the motor home hitting these land mines is nerve-racking to me.  Driving I-95 as we are takes every ounce of my concentration continually.  God bless the Big Rig truck drivers who do this daily.  Hats off to them. 

At last, in southern Delaware we ducked off the interstate and headed southeastward to another of the Harvest Host locations we enjoy so much.  We stopped for the late afternoon and night at a winery called, Chateau du Be along an inlet off the Chesapeake Bay in Delaware.  We had a plumb of a parking spot up on a hill overlooking the inlet on the grass next to the ample vineyard.  Autumn colors were just starting to dress the leaves in the trees.  A flash of red among the maples, a tinge of mustard among the scant hickories, the nights were cooling off and the onset of the next season was upon the land. 

Chateau du Be is a very charming winery and when we were there it was uncrowded.  I imagine it is busy during the weekends.  They serve appetizers along with their various wines and so we sat outside at a table set up on the lawn as the evening settled in.  Warm laughter permeated the cooling air as the Sun dipped below the tree line on the far bank of the inlet.  The wine was good I am told and I can testify as to its ambrosial effect on the late evening patrons, few that there were.  My confrere pronounced the wine most agreeable and I pronounced our time together at Chateau du Be romantic and just what was needed after a day of crazed driving through New Jersey and Delaware on I-95. 

I planned for the next night to stay at yet another Harvest Host location, this time on the opposite bank of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.  We could easily make our Washington DC location for the next 10 days from Chateau du Be but our reservation did not begin until the 24th of September and we could not check in early. That was just fine by us as the farm we stayed at in rural Maryland was as sublime a spot as you could want. 

The little farmstead, slightly more than a hobby farm, featured sheep, horses, chickens, and a few ducks thrown in for good measure.  The farm was part of a larger small farm co op and they sold all sorts of frozen meats.  We found ourselves virtually stocking up on meats of one sort or another.  Diane picked out a leg of lamb, some grass fed beef steaks, some free-range chicken, and a goodly supply of organ meats from the sheep and neighboring farm’s cattle stock.  The reason for the organ meats was Dash, our little male doggie buddy.  Now, if you are reading this and you have a pet dog, you might find what I’m about to tell you very interesting. 

Dash had been very down on his health during the past few months.  We believe him to be about 14 years old at this point and he was showing every bit of his age.  All during the day and evenings Dash would break into these coughing jags that seemed deep and hurtful to him.  He had fluid on his lungs for sure and he was swollen throughout his gut.  His eyes were clouded at times and he was fairly lethargic.  He seemed to be so miserable that we were very sadly considering having to put him to sleep.  We didn’t want to do that, we love the little guy a lot.  He’s been a great little companion. 

Diane read something on line about feeding dogs people food, albeit selectively.  The article spoke about organ meat as being great for dogs. ( I can’t speak for felines in this regard ) The results of this diet were described as being life-changing for pet dogs.  Of course, the article featured a product you could buy that had all the right ingredients.  Well, Diane, as she is wont to do often, decided she would just go ahead and replicate the diet herself in her own way.  Besides, the mail and delivery systems cannot keep up with our wayward travels.  Diane bought organ meat at the supermarkets we went to.  Beef livers and kidney, chicken gizzards, and the like. No pork, though, was added to the mix.  Then, Diane added brown rice, vegetables such as broccoli, green beans, carrots, and a variety of fruit.  Blueberries were a go-to fruit for her concoction.  Apples were also a mainstay.  Pumpkin from cans and sweet potatoes rounded out the various ingredients.  Diane painstakingly would cut up and mix the stuff together each morning and night and heat it up to cook it, particularly if there were sweet potatoes in the mix.  Then she would let it cool to keep the dogs from burning their mouths. 

The dogs literally inhaled her creations.  I couldn’t believe my eyes at how Heidi, the pickiest eater God ever placed on the planet, devoured her meals.  She still ate carefully, as she always does, but she ate with purpose and dedication.  I know it sounds weird to talk about a dog’s diet and their eating habits, but I gotta tell ya, the results of all this were/are astounding. 

Within a few days Dash’s coughing began to die down.  Soon enough his hacking was limited to once or twice a day at most.  Dash’s coat, which had become dull and was falling out and speckled with dander, began to shine. The flaking of his skin and his fur falling out stopped.  He had a new pep in his step not seen for at least 2 or 3 years.  Heidi, too, had more energy to burn and her coat became silken.  To this day I am amazed at what Diane has been able to accomplish with her doggie recipes.  Now, they are never exactly the same.  They vary by what we have on hand at the time.  We don’t feed them from the table, only Diane’s special organ meat diet.  Kibble has been more or less banned from their diets except in emergencies when we might run out of organ meat for a meal.  The time it takes for Diane to cook up these meals is not inconsequential.  Her care and devotion to it are exceptional.  I can tell you the difference in the dogs, particularly Dash, has been near miraculous. 

As evening fell on the little farm off the beaten track I sat outside and played my guitar until it grew too cold on my hands to enjoy it any longer.  The evening shift of critters were checking in as the day crew of squirrels and rabbits and birds went to sleep in their hidden cribs.  The remnants of the Summer’s tree frogs and crickets took over all singing duties and there was a lone Katy Did calling out for a lost mate.  Life on the farm, even for just an evening, was about as delightful as could be.  My brother, Mike, his family, and the national treasures of Washington DC’s museums and monuments awaited us on our next sojourn southward, a scant 50 miles from the peace of the Maryland countryside this blessed evening.