Monday, April 10, 2006

Maritime Vacation Reflections

Today I’ll change gears. I won’t display and discuss abstract photos, nor will I display and discuss photos of the Washington DC/northern Virginia area. Instead, I’ll dig back into my files and share a bit from our maritime vacation of 2004.

The first photo is a composite of scenes from Prince Edward Island. Dave and I spent several days here, along with Stephen and Gayle (Dave’s brother and sister-in-law) and their gang of four. Unfortunately, I broke a toe walking along the rocky beach early in the trip, so for the rest of the trip my walking/hiking was curtailed dramatically.

The long bridge that runs across most of the photo is the Confederation Bridge. This bridge isn't very old (maybe 15 years or so) and it is the only such link between PEI and the Canadian mainland. You take either this bridge or a ferry to travel between the island and the mainland. Elizabeth (my niece) knows everything there is to know about this bridge and she enjoyed enlightening the rest of us! The beach along the bottom is the area where I broke the toe.















The second photo is a composite of photos from The Ovens, Nova Scotia. This is a rugged, picturesque area on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. As it turned out, Dave and I visited and left this location just before Stephen and Gayle and their family visited. Notice how the trees are bent by the fierce winds that blow from east to west. Also, the view at the bottom, looking across the fence to the ocean was taken from our campsite. We literally overlooked the ocean from our front window. The fence marked the steep cliff that tumbled 50 feet or so to the rocky shore of the ocean.













The third photo was taken at the harbor at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, just before we boarded the ferry for a day-long sail to Portland, Maine. It was a foggy day. I wanted to do some whale-watching, but we were fogged in all the way to Maine and couldn’t see more than 20-30 feet in front of the ship. I'm glad they showed good movies. Some acquaintances of ours spent most of their day in the casino. Dave and I looked around in there a bit, but we were too cheap (or too poor) to gamble.












The final photo, the famous Portland Head Lighthouse, was taken as we arrived in Portland, at sunset, during a thunderstorm. When we got off the ferry we drove all the way to Boston, in a fierce, driving rainstorm, before stopping. We didn’t want to set up camp in the rain, so we just kept driving. The good thing was that we got to stay in one of our favorite campgrounds, Minuteman. From there we went to southern New Jersey before heading home.














All in all, our maritime trip was very enjoyable. I’d love to go back, but it’s a long way from Virginia, so I think it will be awhile before we do a trip like this again.

1 comment:

Barbara said...

Gorgeous photos. We did a similar trip about four years ago. We went through New Brunswick, PEI, and Nova Scotia. In Nova Scotia we only made it as far as Cape Breton Island. It was a fantastic trip. Hopefully we'll get back there soon. Such a beautiful part of the country.