(Sometimes I have trouble sending List information that inserts paragraphs.....rich vs plain text I guess. If this does not insert paragraphs the first send, I will re-send in plain text so that there are spaces between the paragraphs. It is hard to read with no spacing at all.) This is lengthy, basically a sort of diary of our trip. I don’t know of any other way to do this except share all of our wonderful trip to your province with each of you on this List. Easy to delete if necessary (smile). Many List members responded about five weeks ago to my request for help in planning a travel itinerary for Nova Scotia. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated the many, many replies I received. All of you went out of your way to give us tips on routes to take, sites to visit, places to eat, etc. I cut/pasted all of the hints on a Word document, in map travel sequence, so that we could follow along in order of our trip’s progression. It worked VERY well, and I said I’d report to you on the trip when we returned. We have traveled in an RV for over 40 years, so getting ready at a moment’s notice was really not hard. We made our request for List help on Aug 13 and left on Aug 20 and arrived home on Sep 13…….5,500+ miles estimate later (haven’t compared beginning and ending odometer readings yet). We never stayed more than one night in one campsite and avoided major highway systems whenever possible, choosing to drive the winding 2-lane roads in the backcountry as much as we could to really get a feel for an area. The time of year we chose was also perfect. In our entire travel, we had only three days with any rain, one of them was in Halifax in a downpour that I think put 4” of rain on the ground that day. Every drop was fun due to our tour guide’s expert presentation (more on that later). We initially headed for Duluth MN on the shores of Lake Superior. As we traveled across Upper Michigan, we stopped at Munising to eat and stock up the freezer with Muldoon’s pasties—the best little meat/potato pies in a tender crust you ever ate. This was not our first time there! Then we headed for Frankenmuth MI to visit the world’s largest Christmas store. And the billing seemed to fit—1.7 football fields full of Christmas decorations. A very lovely store with beautiful merchandise and the Christmas message prominently displayed respectfully in all areas. The small town of Frankenmuth was also wonderful—streets full of flowers and all decorated like a German village, complete with glockenspiel and covered bridge, as well as great shopping and food! Then we began our journey across Ontario. I had done research for my family history book in Ontario before, so that part of the Canadian trip was over familiar ground. Growing up in Montana, living once in ND and now in MN, all border states, we have traveled in Canada, west of Montreal, many times, but this was the first time I had ever noticed the growing of tobacco plants in Ontario. From a family history standpoint, this was highly interesting to me, as I have recently discovered that one branch of my family originated in the 1600’s in Maryland and were tobacco planters living just across the Potomac River from Mt. Vernon, Virginia home of George Washington in the 1700’s. I was shocked to see tobacco being grown in Canada! In its day, tobacco was the same as money in the bank. It was grown and traded as currency—shipped off to England from the US (and maybe Canada too?) where an intermediary was used to sell it. A shopping list went with the tobacco, and when the dried leaves were sold and converted to cash, the intermediary in England gathered up the goods on the shopping list and (after taking a good share of the money for himself) returned the requested supplies back to the tobacco grower at home. In those days, British America had few suppliers of goods of their own yet and depended on England for nearly everything prior to the Revolutionary War. We cut down through Ontario into NY State at Niagara Falls, intending to see the falls from the Canadian side, said to be the most scenic. This was probably the most disappointing part of the trip. It was a Saturday, and beautiful weather just before school started had brought out a huge number of sightseers—the traffic was so horrendous that we could not even find a place to park our camper, so we basically drove across the Rainbow Bridge between Canada and the US and viewed/photographed the falls from the bridge as we creeped along slowly in heavy traffic. Reminded me of Chinatown traffic in San Francisco. I was hoping not to be detained at Customs, and that worked out well as I think the guy was overwhelmed with business and didn’t want to put any crimps in the heavy traffic flow. We crossed Customs back/forth six times during our trip and were never held up more than 2-3 minutes any time on either side of the border. Old people must look benign! We traveled slowly across New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, enjoying the New England states we had never visited before. After reaching Bangor ME, we then took one List member’s suggestion and traveled a shorter route from Bangor to Calais and on into New Brunswick, where we spent three days before entering Nova Scotia. Using your suggestions, we had lobster at a picnic table on the Bay of Fundy in NB and walked on the ocean floor at low tide at the Hopewell Rocks and enjoyed the visitor center there which did a great job explaining why the Bay has some of the highest tides in the world (mostly due to its size and shape). Although sunny and bright, the wind was horrific on the day we arrived at Cape Enrage, but the view was spectacular and worth the battering we got. We spent several days in New Brunswick before entering Nova Scotia, the primary focus of our travel. I believe we truly got to know Nova Scotia and appreciate its absolutely majestic beauty and the warmness of its people and their generous hospitality. If you draw a line from Grand Pre to Halifax and go above that line—that was where we spent our time. Unfortunately, we did not have additional time to explore below the line in the Digby (sorry Carol) and Yarmouth areas. A wedding date in Minnesota was looming ahead, and we needed to be home prior to Sep 15. We stopped at the Amherst Visitor Center, as suggested by nearly all of you, and found a treasure trove of informational materials and maps, including the ‘Do’ers and Dreamers’ booklet. Both NS and NB have their tourist brochures divided into colored regions/trails; each region’s attractions, hotels, campgrounds, etc. all listed with address/phone and other specific detail in order of your travel along the highway. This was a superb way to organize and more states in the US should do it that way. Since we had made a last-minute decision to head to NS, we did not have time to order the information by mail prior to leaving, but the many visitor centers all had super competent and helpful and friendly people who would even call ahead and make a reservation the same day if one needed it, as well as answer any and all questions. I was very impressed with how tourism is handled so efficiently! I would make the suggestion to anyone traveling to stop not only at the border visitor centers but to stop at ALL centers as you travel. I found that each area had some specific information known only by the locals manning the centers—and that information was extremely helpful. After Amherst, we headed to New Glasgow and Antigonish, then began our Cape Breton trip clockwise from the Judique coastline and upward, back down to Sydney and on to Louisbourg, down to Iona and the Highland Village and the Bras d’Or area (can finally pronounce it correctly), took the long, long Elizabethtown ferry (at least 400 entertaining feet), did our whale-watching boat ride at Angitonish and saw finback whales, visited Halifax and later to Windsor to visit the Halliburton House and the Birthplace of Hockey Museum located in that historical home and, finally, ended our visit to NS at Grand Pre. Along the miles and miles of NS coastline we stopped to view many beautiful scenic overlooks. The sights were grand! Good thing my husband is an expert driver, as lots of shifting and use of an overdrive button (or whatever it was) to keep from smoking brakes was applied. We did notice that most of NS drives responsibly and in a much more relaxed manner than in the US. Here where we live, in the states of MT, ND, e.g., the population is sparse, the states large in size and the distances great—so people drive 70-80 mph regularly (I drove 75 miles to have two babies, e.g.). It was much more pleasant and conducive to enjoying our visit to drive 35-55 mph, depending on the type of road in NS. We made no reservations ahead of time and always found a campground easily each night. Never stayed more than one night in one place; kept moving to see as much as we could. We noted the seemingly clear/clean brooks and steams (we call them creeks and rivers here) with no frothy bubbles around the edges. Of course, as you might expect, we were blown away by the beauty of Cape Breton and its winding Cabot Trail, reminiscent of our home state of Montana with its winding Beartooth Highway traveling over 10,000-foot mountain peaks. Just a bit less altitude in Nova Scotia, but those breathtaking views dropping off into the Atlantic ocean were so beautiful. We wondered if the people living there ever stopped to truly look at and admire the views or did they take it all for granted? That was answered one Sunday afternoon as we stopped at an area and found a man and his wife sitting eating Doritos and staring dreamily over the sight below them. We talked, and the man just repeated over and over how beautiful it all was—he an Acadian native from just down the road. This was a breath of life for him, it was so obvious. Louisbourg was absolutely fantastic, and the day we visited was just before the pouring rain in Halifax. I particularly loved the presentation by the blacksmith, a young man who was passionate about his chosen profession and after ten years is just now starting to call himself a blacksmith—altho’ still an apprentice, not a master. The friar who explained all the herbs and kitchen utensils was also a favorite. Of course, we brought bread there, as many of you also suggested. Imagine a huge fortress (we thought maybe 40 acres?) controlled at various times in history by first the French (1713) then the English, then blown up by the British to discourage further French incursions, then being rebuilt nearly three centuries later with nail-by-nail accuracy because old French building plans still existed. I love old documents of any kind!! Our visit to the Scottish Highland Village at Iona was at the end of the day, and we had to hurry a bit, but managed to get it all in as its last visitors that day. My own heritage on one side is Scot-Irish, so this interested me a lot. The people who man each of the dwellings in the village are so knowledgeable and inviting—just another wonderful Heritage Site experience on a beautiful hill in Nova Scotia. Missed the Cedar House Restaurant experience sadly—we passed by the building at 3PM, shortly after we had already eaten. I think that must have been a very bad miss!! Rita’s, too, was on the other side of the lake from where we were headed to the Highland Village in Iona. On to Halifax. I want to tell you about one of the very special List members, Darlene in the Halifax area. She wrote numerous times before we left with suggestions and gave us her phone number to call should we be in the Halifax area. By the time we finished at the Highland Village, we really had it in mind to head for home; however, Darlene had other plans for us. It was raining the day I called to tell her we would not be coming that way—not just raining—POURING. Part of the hurricane from Florida and Louisiana carrying back up north, I guess. Bob was fighting driving the rainy weather when she called on the phone to invite us to her home in Halifax since it was too awful to drive that day. If we hurried, she would see that we got a tour of Halifax’s historic harbor, etc. Considering the poor driving conditions, her offer was welcome, and we adjusted our route a bit and backed into their driveway in early afternoon. After a warm welcome and a cup of tea, we put on our raingear (such as it was, a real understatement) and headed out the door to the ferry to Halifax. Darlene set a pace around the harbor area and took us up to the Citadel talking history all the way. Truly, the city of Halifax should hire her to do tours. She was so knowledgeable and upbeat. She walks like a fury, and us older folks had to keep up, esp. uphill to the Citadel. The rain, of course, kept right on pouring down, not especially mindful of our welfare. After the first half hour of side-stepping puddles and jumping wide into the street from curbs, we gave up and sloshed shoes and all through ankle-deep pools. Bob’s leather shoes were not quite dry when we returned home 11 days later! But every step was filled with the sights of a beautiful and historic city and our heads and ears were filled with non-stop history about Darlene’s favorite place. Not since I was a kid, and maybe never before, had I been so wet from head to toe. I was concerned about my camera esp., which I had under two layers of raingear which was so soaked that I had to hold my hand over it to keep it from getting wet beyond the clothing. It was just the most fun and entertaining tour we’ve ever had. Included on the tour was a great visit to St. Paul’s Church, Canada’s oldest place of worship (1750) located in the harbor area. Inside the church was a piece of metal embedded in the wall that was a reminder of the horrific Halifax harbor explosion around 1917 during WWI—the biggest man-made explosion in the world until Hiroshima during WWII. I believe she said that pieces of the ships in the harbor explosion were found even two miles from the site. Many people who rushed to the windows to see what was happening were disfigured for life from glass shattering from ensuing secondary explosions. In the evening, we met her husband, and we all went to dinner and had another short tour of other some other areas of Halifax—particularly loved the icebreaker that was at one pier, all lit up at night. That and laundry, too!! These two people surely exhibited the best of Nova Scotia hospitality to us, and we are ever so grateful to them for taking us in and treating us so royally. She even gave us a tourist bag when we left their home with little items in it—including a CD of some wonderful Nova Scotia music which we can enjoy forever. Leaving Halifax we headed for Grand Pre but got sidelined when we saw a sign at Windsor for the ‘birthplace of hockey’. For us, this was a must-see. My husband’s father, who died recently at the age of 92, was an ardent hockey player in Bismarck ND—captain of his team around 1936 or so and a state championship was had under his leadership. He played hockey into his 70’s and traveled to Canada as part of a senior league. My husband and his brother also played a little—as do our two grandsons now (they live on the ice). Lots of fun to see the old photographs, equipment from the early days—especially the early protective gear and the history of how hockey sticks were built by the Mi'kmaq natives. I remember my father-in-law telling about wrapping newspapers and magazines around his chins when they played in the 20’s and 30’s. All housed in the beautifully-preserved Halliburton House in Windsor. I had always thought Windsor ONT before; did not realize that NS had the distinction. Our last Nova Scotia experience was at Grand Pre Historic Site. My mother seemed to be with me as I stood at the foot of the Evangeline statue near the church. It was because of the sound of her very expressive voice reading Longfellow’s ‘Evangeline’ to me as a child that Nova Scotia became a goal of mine to visit one day. I was especially taken with the six beautifully-executed paintings inside the church there. The artist truly caught the entire history and culture and its emotional toll on the Acadian residents at the time of their expulsion in 1755. A fitting end to our stay in Nova Scotia. Our experiences with “Jack” the voice on our Garmin GPS were numerous. Although we had purchased a brand new Garmin just before leaving, and the maps were supposedly up to date, Jack tried to dump us from the highway into the Bay of Fundy at one point—sometimes good old-fashioned people-driven map skills are best! But, to give him credit, he got us through Buffalo NY at rush hour with no problems at all—giving new meaning to the phrase, “Shuffle off to Buffalo”…….believe me we were not shuffling along slowly that day! We found him to be most accurate in big cities, but not so great in the countryside—especially in NS and NB. Although we did use our GPS a lot, we also depended on the trip’s co-pilot—me. I spread out the maps (feeling like Eisenhower as Supreme Allied Commander during WWII) every day and plotted a route. By the end of the trip, I even had a dream about a map! Usually no less than three maps resided on my lap. Of course, it was fun to give directions that someone actually followed for a change (smile). He couldn’t do anything else but drive. On our way home we took a slightly different and more southerly route through the US this time…..back across southern Maine, NH and VT, PA, OH, IL and Iowa. In New Hampshire I looked at our route and saw we were traveling quite close to Stoddard NH, a town that plays a very early role in my husband’s family history. Just for fun, we decided to go a bit off course to Stoddard and see if we could find any family graves there. After talking to a local man, who pointed us up a little winding road from the side of the church, we found a beautifully maintained and picturesque cemetery from the 1700’s in a clearing with a quaint stone fence around it. As we began to walk the area, within 10 minutes we had found 8-10 members of his family, including the tombstone of his 6x great-grandmother, born in 1754 in NH. Just blind dumb luck. That was absolutely thrilling to find this old old cemetery with family graves of people I had researched and whose names were in my database (I did have my computer with me, so could check this out for sure). While there, we decided to take photos of other graves to put on findagrave.com. Amazingly, these old stones were in nearly pristine shape, considering their old age. Must be the granite they used in those days was a very durable material, as all of them are only about an inch thick but are still standing and quite legible for the most part. If any of you have never visited FINDAGRAVE.COM to look for US (and a few other countries) tombstones, try it. It is a phenomenal site. Search by state/county/town/surname/cemetery name, etc. This particular cemetery was the Dow Hill Cemetery. Search for that cemetery by name, it’s the only one in the US so no need to use any other search information. List the internments, and you will see the ones I added—my own (which I’ve not finished yet) and those of others we were not related to. The tombstone photographs I added are shown as ‘Jeanne S’. Of course, not every grave in the US is on the website, but there are a lot, making it an important US genealogy tool. I usually try to research unknown names to give some sense of the person’s place in the historic community and find out who their parents/children, etc., were and add that information to the tombstone photos. I manage about 28 memorials I think. Many of them my own family in Montana. Anyone can start their own site for someone—even you! It is my goal to visit a cemetery no matter where we travel and photograph some tombstones and put them on findagrave.com for others who are researching and don’t know where their ancestor eventually died and was buried. We found food prices quite high in comparison to Minnesota, especially milk, which we both drink a lot of. Diesel prices were very high in both the US and in Canada, to be expected in these times, I guess. We ate enough blueberries every day to turn blue ourselves. They were very reasonably priced compared to the highway robbery ones here at home. We were also surprised to find that in National Parks in Nova Scotia, those with tidal-influenced steams/rivers (and there are MANY), fishing is free, no license required—one campground even offered fishing poles to use at no cost. We far preferred the provincial parks to private campgrounds. All of those moose warning signs must have worked—the moose stayed out of our sight for the entire trip. We have moose here in Minnesota, but apparently they present an even bigger danger in NS. Our signs are small and infrequent, or non-existent. We did not drive after around 6-7PM any night, as suggested by many of you and also by locals, and we encountered no fog—most days were sunny and bright in the late August and early September timeframe. Thank you Nova Scotia! All of you on this List helped make it a trip of a lifetime for us. If you ever want advice about traveling in Montana, ND, SD or MN, let us know. We will surely return the favor and the hospitality. I would also be happy to help anyone out with any genealogy problems if I can. It’s the only way to repay all of you for your help. XXOO Bob/Jeanne Minnesota