August 2008 Family Vacation Part 10

August 12 and 13

Our last day on Nova Scotia dawned….with rain. Nothing new there, but we were able to pack up the car without getting too wet and then headed into Yarmouth to do some more laundry. This time we paid extra for the people who ran the laundry to actually move it from the washer to the dryer, and fold it, giving us most of the day to explore. We headed into the “downtown” area. Dan had seen some brightly painted lobster buoys when we were in Maine approaching Mt. Desert Island and noticed that they all said “Made in Canada”. We had figured that we could find one to buy in Nova Scotia. Charlie explained that the lobstermen had transitioned to Styrofoam buoys several years ago and some man had come and bought up all his old wooden ones, first offering $1.50 each but reducing it to one dollar each when he saw they looked “worn”! When we told Charlie that they had been selling fake buoys for $14 in Maine, he just shrugged. Seems that he is not one to waste any energy on something long gone. Another lesson we saw in action from Charlie. Anyway, we were on a search still for Dan’s buoy, and sure enough, found one in an antique shop, surprising him with it…although he did not notice it for a couple of days!

Because it was raining we did not take advantage of the walking tour, but instead, drove out towards the lighthouse. We decided to stop at the Lobster Pound first and we never got to the lighthouse! As we’ve told you already, Nova Scotia limits fishing for lobsters to a 2-month season. The seasons vary geographically, but as in other areas of the world where banding together for a better price for production works (i.e., grain and corn silos in the MidWest, moshavs in Israel, ect) the lobstermen sell their catch to the local pound. The pound may be a natural saltwater pond, or a manmade pool where the lobsters are kept for months with careful water monitoring and feeding. The pound we visited was manmade, inside a large building kept very cool, so the lobsters would be sluggish. We saw a 14-pound lobster which was over 2 feet long. The man explained that he was getting a shipment ready to go by truck to Toronto that day. The lobsters would be transported without water; they can live 72 hours. Then the distributor would ship them off to restaurants and grocery stores where artificial seawater would keep them alive in large aquariums…you know, you’ve seen them.

He gave us one piece of information for selection of a lobster at a store or restaurant; since the lobsters have exoskeletons, their shells are actually molted when they grow. If you want a lobster as large as the shell appears, select one that has a lot of black mottling on the shell…it has been around a while. If the shell is completely red, it is new and the meat will not fill all the shell space.

We had lunch, of course, boiled fresh for us and served with melted butter at the picnic table which, thank goodness had a cover to keep out the rain. Sam is no longer a novice lobster eater!! The lobster pound guys were very friendly even though we knew we had interrupted them getting their shipment ready. I think they enjoyed the questions we asked and they would have spent mroe time with us, but it was time for us to go pick up the laundry and get back to the Cat for our trip back to Maine. Because of the rain the crossing was foggy but when we got into Bar Harbor the weather cleared and you know what? We had sun the rest of the trip!!

Both ferry crossings we were among the first to drive on board, whcih meant we were also among the first to disembark the ferry when we reached the port. Each time we arrived to get on the ferry, we had to hand over proof of citizanship. We used passports most of the time, but they also accepted a birth certificate and driver's license. We also had to claim certain items when we crossed into Canada, but believe it or not, the paperwork for the US was less restictive and we claimed nothing.

On line at US customs. They asked me who I had in the car. “My family.” What else do you have in the car? “Dirty laundry” I reported. Everyone in the car laughed. “Oops," I said, "that is not true. We have CLEAN laundry.” By then the customs guy was smirking. I gave him our passports, he asked if we had any weapons, and then we were free to move on.

We drove about an hour north to Bangor and stayed the night in a TravelLodge, definitely not a good choice. No one needs to stay there based on our experience!

We headed on the next morning, all on back roads to enjoy the beautiful scenary of Maine and then we crossed into New Hampshire, passing just north of Mt Washington.

On into Vermont, where Sam picked up another State Capital when we passed through Montpelier. And then we stopped at a Vermont winery, Grand View, where we were surprised at the way they were able to produce dry fruit wines.

We then headed to the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe. Sam had seen the Sound of Music while I was planning our trip in the spring and requested that destination. It is a pretty expensive place, but we very much enjoyed the dinner, breakfast and the rooms. It is a destination in itself and they have lots of activities, such as a sports center with an indoor pool and a climbing wall, gardens with guided walks, lots of hiking trails, and a class with the pastry chef.

August 2008 Family Vacation Part 6

It’s time for a map to get you oriented. Yarmouth is to the left. That’s where the Cat, the high speed catamaran ferry from Maine comes in. Lunenburg is along the lower coast, just to the left of Peggy’s Cove. Shubenacadie is a bit up and to the right of Halifax, right by the 102 road sign. (The Bay of Fundy is the body of water at the top, between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

The place where we went sea kayaking is so small it is not on the map, but it is just to the right of the place called Oyster Pond. In fact, I forgot to show you that! When we drove to the sea kayak place we passed that and needed an explanation (thanks, again to Charlie) telling us what we saw.

So all this seemed to be was a raft with a motor, puttering constantly. It moved very slowly and we watched the man pull in what appeared to be a net. There was another person on the back of the raft who would rake in the oysters.

Well, I am just going to preview a bit about where else we went so you can look at the map before going on to other things. From the kayak place we headed on to Cape Breton Island to the town of Louisbourg. That is as far as we could get before heading back to Truro (look up from Shubenacadie) and then, stopping at Digby for lunch back on the Bay of Fundy, into Yarmouth.

I thought, instead of going on to the next place I would show you some other things we saw. Like, we couldn’t believe this! So even though we normally have a “NO McDonalds Rule” when we travel, we had to check the McLobster out. So for lunch on the way to Louisbourg, we stopped at McDonalds and for $6 we each ordered one. There is no way to compare that lobster roll with the wonderful dish we had at Red Eats. We couldn’t even be sure it was lobster meat! Perhaps it is really some white fish, flavored with lobster. So you are NOT missing anything at all by never having this. LOL

We saw such beautiful scenery, despite every day being cloudy or rainy. The weather never slowed us down at all. Okay, maybe we had a few moments of sun, eh?

One last note for this missive on language. The regional accent was not strong. In fact, the only main difference was the pronunciation of the vowel combination “ou”. Where we would usually pronounce it “ow” as in “cow”, they would say an “oo” as in “moo”. For example, the word for highway was route, pronounced “root”.

Of course, being in Canada we did notice the use of the “eh” at the end of sentences. Easy to pick up, as you’ve probably noticed, eh?

Asking for the bathroom was not the right question. They are called “washrooms”. Well, really, we don’t bathe there most of the time, right?

The only other thing I noticed was when I was in phone contact with the places we reserved and was giving them credit card info, they asked for the “expirary” date. Just different enough to enjoy recognizing that we were visiting another culture.

We never did confirm that the @ sign indicated a place to get internet access, but that was our guess.