Sunday, July 18, 2010- Farewell to Nova Scotia

OK- You just know that Scott’s been waiting to use that headline for a post.

We got up at a decent hour this morning, and drove the short distance to the ferry and ended up being one of the first few cars in line. The trip across Fundy’s Bay was about 3 hours long (Yes, Gilligan, another 3 hour tour). We ate a quick breakfast in the café on board, but when the boat started to pull out, Scott had to run out on deck to take video and listen to mp3s. He came back in to the lounge where the three girls were sitting and called for Julie to come outside. Anna just rolled her eyes and said, “He just wants to play ‘Farewell to Nova Scotia’ for you.” It was true. He lost count of the number of times he listened to it, including the version by Father, Son, and Friends, and Rush the Growler’s own. He listened to it until the site of land had all but disappeared into the fog. Then he started to listen to Stan Rogers, of course.

The trip on the ferry went fine. At one point, we were invited to listen to a girl from the Museum of New Brunswick give a talk about the whales and sea life in Fundy’s Bay. Whales are sometimes seen from the ferry, but we didn’t see any today. Scott is sure he saw some porpoises in the distance (or maybe one several times), and there were some harbor seals on the rocks as we approached New Brunswick. Emma thought it was too cold to be out on deck, and the girls usually kept indoors. There were large comfy chairs in there, though, and they watched a Jackie Chan movie.

Once on dry land again, we started driving to New England. We passed several things that were interesting looking but that we didn’t stop to get pictures of. For example, there were several small bays that we passed while we were in New Brunswick that were pretty clearly at the low end of the Bay of Fundy’s famous tides. When we passed through Bangor, Maine, there was a dramatic monument to the Civil War hero, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. It was built into a rocky slope on the side of a hill that was obviously chosen because the boulders looked like those on Little Round Top in Gettysburg. The statue was obviously Chamberlain looking down at the advancing Confederates, and the smaller stone monument was a mimic the 20th Maine’s monument at Gettysburg. Meanwhile, Anna and Emma rode more or less contentedly, watching movies on their DVD players in the backseat. Emma added two more states to her "life list" today: Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

We got a little sidetracked when the traffic for the bridge from Kittery, Maine, to New Hampshire was wicked heavy and our gas was running low. We took some of the side roads into New Hampshire, but got to see some of the pretty houses in the area and we didn’t get more than 10 or 12 miles off track.

We got in touch with Scott’s Uncle Duane and Aunt Sandie. Duane is Scott’s father’s second oldest brother. He just celebrated his 75th birthday last week. We got directions to visit them at their home in New Hampshire. Aunt Sandie has kept up with our family on Facebook, so we thought we’d like to see them again in person. Uncle Duane is looking well, considering his recent surgeries. Aunt Sandie made us hamburgers and hot dogs and some good sweet corn. We watched America’s Funniest Home Videos as we ate desert, and Uncle Duane told us how he knew Tom Bergeron from his days in radio broadcasting. He was also proud to show us some of the recent honors he has gotten from his days of broadcasting high school sports.

After about a two-hour visit, we went on to our hotel room in Lexington, Mass. It’s been a long day of driving. Anna and Emma were asleep before we got our room, and Julie plopped down on the bed soon after we arrived.