Thursday

Thursday was our big day for cycling, but first we had to assemble the bikes.

Bikes in mid-assembly

We are getting faster! Mike had an extra piece for his bike, though, that he couldn’t figure out where it should go. Then he bent to pick it up and realized it was the metal door stop.

“Extra” piece

We headed down to the Mall so we could see some more of the monuments, including the Korean War Monument, a closer look at the WWII monument now that we had learned more about it, the Vietnam War Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial. All so different from each other and powerful in their own ways. Earlier we had seen an exhibit on the design of the WWII monument, particularly these relief panels.

WWII monument

WWII

Korean War Monument

Part of Vietnam War Memorial

You probably recognize this guy.

Tami with bikes

Our route next took us onto the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal trail, which is part of the National Park system. If we had stayed on it we could have gone all the way to Pennsylvania! That seemed a bit extreme for the day, but we did enjoy riding along the old canal where the tow path is now the trail.

C&O Trail

We soon diverted onto the Capital Crescent Trail trail that took us up to Bethesda and Chevy Chase, which made a good lunch stop.

Capital Crescent Trail

Mike checking route

After lunch we took another route back – the Rock Creek Trail –  that had some choppy hills that made Tami’s weenie legs grumpy, but it eventually turned into a better trail that took us back into the city.

Old mill along the Rock Creek Trail.

Friday

While Mike was off to his meetings, Tami headed back down to the Mall to continue museum hopping. It’s so great that they are all so centrally located and also free! The Natural History Museum and the American Indian Museum were on the menu for the day. Tami particularly enjoyed the sections on the Evolution of Man, with lots of skulls and lifelike recreations of what early hominids would have looked like.

Skulls!

Another fossil type area had more information of very early evolution of life and the amazing life forms discovered in places like the Burgess Shale in British Columbia, along with fossils of early sea life.

Fossils!

Weird fish fossel

Another favorite area was on plate tectonics and volcanoes. There were even some undersea lava samples donated by John Delaney, who she used to work for at the UW. Remember glass picking, Mel?

Hard to read, but donated by John Delaney

Always love Ray Troll’s art – still in the Natural History Museum

To finish the day, Tami headed to the American Indian Museum. At first it was disappointing because the first two floors had very little in them. But the top floor had an exhibit on the history of treaties, which included a large amount on the fishing treaties in the Pacific Northwest. Another good exhibit was about various belief systems of different groups in North America, and there was also an exhibit on the Inca highway.
Tired, tired feet! That was a lot of museum to cover.

Preston Singletary piece

Saturday

But wait, there’s more! Museums, that is. Mike had yet more meetings so Tami went first to the Air and Space Museum. So much to cover, so little time. We have such a great flight museum in Seattle, but the Air and Space Museum covers so many great aspects of flight and space as well. There was a great exhibit on the whole story behind the Wright Brothers and their development of the first powered flight. They started out making bicycles! The original Wright Flyer no longer exist but they have a full size replica.

Bike by Wright Brothers – they did start out as bike mechanics

Iconic

The museum also has comprehensive coverage of the whole space race and space program. Mike’s dad worked on the Apollo program and it was so cool to see the Apollo 11 command module.

Apollo 11

Tami’s dad worked on the Lunar Orbiter program, and there was also one of the test Lunar Orbiter vehicles in the museum.

Lunar Orbiter

Next stop, National Art Gallery. Wow, what a collection. There were nearly two full rooms of Rembrandts, and the Impressionism section had many pictures by Monet, Manet, Cézanne, Degas, Renoir, Pissarro and even a couple by Van Gogh. It was so great to see so many examples of each artist next to each other and really see the differences in their styles. There was also a good collection of sculptures by Rodin.

Rembrandt self portrait

Van Gogh self portrait

Monet Water Lilies

Rodin Thinker

Tami could have spent a lot more time, but the feet said NO! and we also needed to start packing, including the bikes. So back up to the hotel and a few last pictures of Washington DC on the walk under changing skies. The weather is turning a bit colder so we seem to be leaving just in time.

Didn’t have time to stop, but liked the sound of it.

Mount Vernon was next on our “must see” list so that was our destination as we headed out on Tuesday. Caught the Metro out to the end of the line, then caught a bus on to Mt Vernon. We arrived just in time for lunch, so we first dined in the Mount Vernon Inn, where we had a distinctly Southern lunch, including fried green tomatoes and shrimp and grits. The grits are actually made from corn meal ground at the Mount Vernon mill. It was all quite good.

Main house at Mount Vernon.

Our visit to Mount Vernon started with a guided tour of the house itself, which has been furnished as it was at the time that George Washington died. When Washington took over what was his family home, he expanded it with a second floor. The original house was modest in size, although large for the times. The second floor included what became George and Martha’s bedroom along with some more guest bedrooms. A third addition to the house added wings onto the main floor. The house had nine guest bedrooms, although they were all fairly modest. Apparently the Washington’s never turned away a guest, invited or not, and were too gracious to tell anyone their time was up. In 1798 (the year before GW died), they hosted over 600 guests. We have to wonder if that was what REALLY killed him.

It was easy to understand why Washington loved it so much at Mount Vernon. The setting and grounds are absolutely beautiful, and the view from George and Martha’s back porch is stunning, and also very soothing. Mike had not realized before that Mount Vernon is on the banks of the Potomac. The view out over the river is stunning.

View of the Potomac from the back porch.

We enjoyed poking around the various out buildings that supported the large and prosperous farm. These included the stables, laundry, kitchens, other support buildings, and of course, the slave quarters. The farm could not be so prosperous without all the hard work of the slaves. It was interesting that the ownership of the slaves was divided between George and Martha.

Carriage like George Washington had.

Several broken milling wheels from the grist mill were re-used as steps.

Mike of course liked the smokehouse.

Blacksmith at Mount Vernon.

We were amused by the graduate students working on an archaeology project near the main house. While normally they would be working very carefully with brushes and trowels, when we came by they were throwing shovel fulls of dirt out of a large hole into wheel barrows! NOT good archaeology practice. The guide explained that the archaeologists had been asked to dig a hole for some water pipes while they were excavating.

Archaeology?

Our next stop was Alexandria, Virginia. We just had to take the bus back to the Metro station and get off at the Alexandria stop. So we got to the bus stop just in time to see a bus pulling up. It was not the same number as the one we took to get there, the 101, but the driver assured us that it went to the Metro station. At the next stop another fellow got on and was asking if the 101 was right behind him. The driver didn’t know, so the guy got on anyway, but sure seemed to want that 101. We soon found out why as we noticed our bus not only taking a different route back, but also making numerous turns in the route to enter side streets and essentially go in circles. We were on the ultimate milk run. Mike eventually got out his iPad with the GPS maps to follow our serpentine route. We started making bets on whether the bus would turn left or right at the next stop because it sure wasn’t going to go straight! At one point the bus actually pulled into an apartment complex parking lot and made not just one, but two stops within the parking lot. We sure got a tour of, well, somewhere!

Loved the official Kiss & Ride lots at the metro stations.

We did finally get back to the Metro station and found our way to Alexandria, which is a nice town of old historic buildings with many restaurants and numerous shops. Not as many galleries as we expected, but we enjoyed strolling the Main Street and debating the dinner choices. Local seafood won and Tami enjoyed an oyster po’ boy and lobster bisque. Mike chowed down on a simple but wonderful bowl full of blue crab chunks in a butter sauce.

Parked (hitched?) along the street in Alexandria.

Reminded us of the Majestic Bay Theater in Ballard.

Cobbled street in Alexandria – even rougher than it looks!

Stepping outside, we were treated to an east coast downpour. The weather has been very warm, in the lower 70’s, so we were certainly not prepared for rain. There was a handy ice cream shop to take immediate cover and, well, you have to buy something, don’t you?

On Wednesday, with only a half day for touristing (Mike has to finally get down to Board business), we decided to visit the National Building Museum. No, we had never heard of it before, either, but the guy at the bike shop had recommended it highly so off we went.

While waiting for it to open we spotted the GAO building across the street, so Tami went over to take some pictures. After she had taken a few, she got chased away by a guard who told her she should not be taking close up pictures of government buildings like that. It still seems odd to have restrictions on taking pictures of all those really cool buildings which are on every street around here. We thought Keenan would like these though:

Entrance to the GAO (Government Accountability Office)

Bas relief on the outside of the GAO

It used to be called the Pension Building and was built following the Civil War by a former army quartermaster by the name of Meigs to serve the needs of the Union veterans. He designed it specifically with the veterans in mind as the doorways are all extra wide to accommodate wheelchairs and the staircases have steps that are very deep and shallow so that crutches could be used easily on them. The frieze around the outside is all scenes from the civil war.

Interior of the National Building Museum

Stepping inside, one is overwhelmed by the spaciousness of the building and the massive and ornate columns that rise to the ceiling many stories above. Apparently it is frequently used to host large balls and special events, and understandably so. It is absolutely beautiful inside.

There were several interesting exhibits including one called Scaling Washington, a photo exhibition on the uses of rock climbing gear and scaffolding to repair earthquake damage to the Washington Monument and National Cathedral (much more fascinating than it sounds, particularly the close up photos of climbers hanging from ropes far above the city), House & Home, on shapes our homes take (evolution of building techniques) as well as the things we keep in them, and Cool and Collected, an exhibit of various recent acquisitions. Much of that exhibit featured models and pictures from the work of the sculptor who designed both the DC WWII Memorial as well as Portlandia, a huge sculpture on the outside of one of the public buildings in Portland (that we saw on our Segway tour last January).

School children building a geodesic dome in the National Building Museum

The museum also has an excellent gift shop full of items of intriguing engineering design, others inspired by great architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, and a huge book collection pertaining to buildings and architecture. Apparently the gift shop has been listed by many sites as one of the best museum gift shops around. The museum is truly a hidden gem among many great museums in this city.

Today’s lunch was a dim sum restaurant called Ping Pong that was really a modern take on traditional dim sum. While they did not have Tami’s favorite rice noodle dish that she can never remember the name of (she calls it slimy noodles), we did thoroughly enjoy their modern version of dim sum and we once again ate more than we should have.
We returned to our room in time to have a quick chat with Keenan and hear more about his explorations in Gothenburg. The connection was iffy so we are even more anxious to see him in person and get the full scoop. He is clearly having a wonderful time.

Poor Mike had to go off to the Board meeting, so Tami headed out to the International Spy Museum. It is actually quite a large museum/tourist attraction that covers all aspects of covert actions from early days such as Caesar and George Washington to the more obvious Cold War days and beyond. There were extensive exhibits on tools of the trade, World War II efforts, and many other subjects. It ended with quite a large exhibit on all the evil nemeses from all the Bond movies. Did you know that Ian Fleming took the name for his hero from the author of a bird book he had on his book shelf? He thought it the most unimaginably dull name ever, though it has come to mean just the opposite.

It was strange to actually arrive in New York/New Jersey the night prior to departing the ship, but we were still awake as we pulled in under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. We could just see the skyline of Manhattan and fell asleep as the ship pirouetted in the bay and was snugged against the dock.

Pulling in at midnight

View of Manhattan in the morning

Daylight brought a hazy view of Manhattan again as we had one last breakfast on the ship in preparation for another long day of travel that would take us just a couple hundred miles south to Washington DC. After going through a very perfunctory Customs and Immigration stop, we headed to our shuttle bus for JFK. We took an interesting route up through New Jersey to Fort Lee, NJ, and across the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan. It brought back memories of our only previous visit to New Jersey. We were visiting our good friend Melanie back in the early 80’s when she lived in Manhattan and we decided to walk across the bridge just so we could say we’d been to NJ. And now we have two visits to NJ.

Note the sign on the bus mirror – Get in, Sit Down, and HANG ON

Our bus included passengers who were leaving JFK from four different terminals. As our bus driver pointed out, JFK was not well designed for making stops at multiple terminals as we could not just drive from one terminal to the next. We had to exit the airport and re-enter for each separate terminal. Our terminal was the third on the list so we went around three times. Very strange.

We arrived in Washington DC on time and the short ride to the hotel provided some fun views of the Mall and other famous sights. We also spotted a bike path that we may well take.

Our room is filled with political art which is fun:

It is interesting to note how being in the capitol affects the tone of the town in many ways. Wandering around in the evening away from the tourist areas, a suit is practically a uniform around here. And not sharp looking suits, just dull everyday suits. We also began to notice how blacks SUV’s are extremely popular. Of course the secret service and other security forces favor them, but because of that it seems like they have become some kind of status symbol, so you just see tons of them on the street driven by everyday people. And it seems that every TV in bars and public areas is tuned to political news if it’s not on sports.

The hotel is centrally located and we headed out Monday morning for a first day of sight-seeing, after a stop at a bike shop, of course, so we could pick up the local cycling map. We also admired a Faraday bike, a particularly nice looking electric assist bike, something we may need to look into in the future if our knees get to the point we need help getting up hills.

Washington Monument

It’s so fun walking around DC because so many of the buildings are huge and impressive, sometimes taking up an entire block. Some are museums and some are government buildings. One of the most impressive turned out to be the Department of Commerce, and another was the Executive Office Building, which is right next to the White House. It was interesting to note a change since our last visits to DC – you can no longer even get up to the fence in front of the White House. There is a temporary second in front of it, and the area in between is patrolled. We asked, and this is an extra measure put in place after that guy jumped over the fence and rushed the White House. The Secret Service guard we talked too bristled a bit at our question about that incident and took pains to explain that when that happened the fence was being worked on which made it easier for the guy to scale it.

Executive Office Building

White House

Our first museum stop was the National Archives which turned out to be quite interesting. We not only saw the original Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Bill of Rights, but the Magna Carta was also on display as well. There was a great exhibit on the development of rights in America. One particular section was on women’s rights. It was interesting to see that until around 1920 even a woman’s citizenship was tied to her husband’s. So for instance, if a woman born in the US married a French citizen who had moved here, she would be considered a French citizen rather than US. If her husband then died, she would have to petition the government to have her US citizenship reinstated. While Tami remembered this, Mike did not realize that up until 1974 (when we were in high school), a woman could not get a credit card on her own – she could only get a card as an extension of her husband’s credit account.

National Archives

Mike liked these pictures on the wall leading to the Boeing Learning Center inside the National Archives:

We next moved on to the Smithsonian American History museum. We could have spent much more time, but covered as much as we could before closing time. We saw the flag that flew over Fort McHenry and inspired the Star Spangled Banner. It’s huge! We also saw Lincoln’s top hat that he was wearing at Ford’s Theater. An exhibit on the Presidents was also fascinating. Tami loved the numismatics exhibit and also the display of laboratory glassware. Mike enjoyed the Presidential displays, transportation room, and the old gunboat built by Benedict Arnold.

Lincoln’s hat the night he was assasinated

Of course we also had several great meals. We stopped at a pub for lunch, where we had New Orleans style BBQ shrimp and a Reuben. For dinner we found a wonderful Cuban restaurant. The interior was decorated like a Havana street scene. We had a trio of ceviches, a shredded beef dish with black beans and rice, and a pulled pork dish cooked in orange with black bean sauce.

Since a day or two at sea is not the most exciting thing to write about, we thought we would also include a small tour of the ship, or our view of it, at least. We are also condensing the last two days into one post because two days at sea is not really twice as exciting as one day at sea.

Yesterday we slept late and found that it was sunny and reasonably calm as we steamed along, making us wonder why we couldn’t go to Bar Harbor. But then the navigator came on and told us that we were now about 250 miles offshore as they had skirted the bad weather. The seas were a bit choppy, but not bad, but there was certainly no land in sight. Later we did hear a rumor that the cruise often has to miss Bar Harbor because the shallow waters amplify the wave action where there is any kind of weather.

Buffet line

We actually skipped a meal yesterday (!!!) and started the day with lunch at the buffet line. They had deep fried prawns, which were quite good, but were also very popular. We saw one woman who had a plate with nothing on it but a huge pile of prawns. It is amusing watching what people put on their plates. You do see the occasional plate piled very high, but most people actually take fairly reasonable portions.

Coffee and pastry stand in atrium

There are several options for meals on board. There are the more formal dining rooms, where you are waited on like in a restaurant (but no charge for the food, just for drinks). There are also a couple of more upscale smaller restaurants – one a steak house and one Italian. They have a $25 per person surcharge. We have not found reason to try them, as the food in the main dining rooms is quite good.

If the restaurant experience doesn’t float your duck on a particular day (and sometimes sounds like too much bother to us), there are the buffets up on the Lido deck, the deck where the swimming pools are. These are also very popular. There is a larger choice of food, though more indifferently prepared. Most of the time there are some Asian options available too, which makes a nice change. Mike has gotten into fried rice with scrambled eggs and sausage for breakfast. Sometimes there is congee as well. Tami has hardly skipped the smoked salmon a single day.

Oops, she caught me!

If that doesn’t sound casual enough for you, there are several outdoor stands by the pools with burgers, pizza, dogs, and soft ice cream. Tami has been better than Mike at passing up the ice cream.

After lunch we went to the theater and watched “The Second Best Marigold Hotel”. It was quite an enjoyable movie and what a great cast it had. Highly recommended if you haven’t seen it. It involved a somewhat derelict hotel in India, somewhat like many of its occupants. But a feast of aging actors like Richard Gere, Maggie Smith, Judie Dench, etc. The theater is fairly large and just one floor down from our room. It is where they do anything from lectures, to movies, to the larger evening shows (musicals, comedians, etc.).

It’s not all fun and games

We next faced reality and went and did some laundry. They have a couple of self-serve laundry stations on the ship which are very nice to have, and quick to use. They will do your laundry for you, but it costs several dollars for each article of clothing. We certainly saved some money doing our own!

A cozy little reading spot

We also spent a while just reading in a nice quiet area outside the theater. You can often find areas that are quite deserted if you want to get away from others, and there is frequently some kind of live music being performed in the afternoon and evening in either the central plaza area or one of the lounges. One of the singers plays good songs from the 60’s and 70’s. The new oldies? Our equivalent now of Lawrence Welk?

Pre-dinner tiddly

She cleans up nice!

Crown in the main atrium watching a cocktail making demo

Music in the atrium

Last night was the final Formal night and we decided to dress up again, mainly because the menu looked so good. Before dinner we stopped into one of the bars for Manhattans, then headed down to the dining room. Dinner included lobster along with some wonderful appetizers. Mike had escargots and Tami had the seafood mousse with three kinds of caviar to start, and then we both went for the lobster. Truly delicious.

Promenade deck

By this time we were hitting some pretty choppy water so we took a quick spin on the promenade deck where there was a lot of spray in the air, but it was amazingly warm. Back in the cabin we were lulled to sleep by some nice rocking and rolling action from ship.

This morning was yet more windy and choppy weather, but by midday it was calming considerably. Today our biggest chore has been packing for our flights tomorrow. We are required to have any bags that we want moved by them outside our door by dinnertime, so that means packing up the bikes. We tackled that early and got it out of the way. It gets easier with practice! We got both bikes broken down and packed in less than an hour. Tami wants to time us assembling them again in DC!

Porpoises/dolphins!

At one point today Tami decided to take a picture out our cabin window of the choppy seas. She pointed the camera out and focused on the water only to see a porpoise leaping through the viewfinder! She also claims to have seen a whale. (I DID see a whale and spout! I did!)

Our singing waiter at the wine tasting

We also went to another wine tasting this afternoon. The wine tastings are nice, but also a bit exasperating. To make it take up some time (they try to stretch each wine tasting of 5-6 wines out over an hour), they talk a LOT about each wine while you’re just sitting there thinking “can I just taste it already?” But it’s a way to spend some time, and they do serve some nice wines.

One of the sales of leftover tat in the main dining room between meals

Reading on deck is popular

Lido deck activities by the ice cream stand

Casino

5k walkers on the promenade deck – this guy was out to WIN!

There really are a lot of things to do on the ship, particularly during a day at sea, but not necessarily things we find interesting. This afternoon for instance the options included an art auction, a Bridge players get together, a Waltzing class, a beginning German phrases class, “relaxing melodies” in the main atrium, an ice carving demonstration, a 5K Susan G. Komen walk around the deck (we figured it must take about 8 laps), bocce on the top deck, an “Effy Special Event and Raffle” (Effy seems to be a line of jewelry they are pushing very hard on this cruise), a seminar on foot pain (likely also trying to sell you something), a movie in the theater, and a poker game in the casino. And those are just the things listed at 1:00, 1:30, and 2:00.

At about 5 pm this evening we noticed that we could finally see some land in the distance and Mike realized that it is Long Island that we are sailing along, slowly. Very slowly. Since we are basically covering one day of travel distance over the space of two days, we are just putzing along.

We finished off the day with another Movie Under the Stars – Woman in Gold with Helen Mirren. Another movie we would highly recommend!

If you have read this far, we apologize – we did not realize we would have so much to say about two days of nothing.

Our room – wide angle lens makes it look bigger

Bikes hiding in the closet

A VERY small bathroom

Loonnggg hallways

Saint John was a quieter place. It was not a small town like Gaspe, nor even a large town like Charlottetown or Sydney, but not quite a small city like Halifax. The population was listed at around 70,000. Something in between. It is also a city with a lot of industry immediately surrounding the main downtown area. It certainly looks like a working town.

Rehabbing downtown

There are lots of historic buildings in the town center, but the appearance is that it is still trying to build a tourist industry. Many buildings are being rehabilitated, but there is something of a lack of interesting things in the retail level of the buildings. We saw several grand old stone buildings being completely renovated and some with new condominiums and offices for sale, indicating better times to come. Our impression is of a city coming out of tough times.

Farmer’s market – ceiling said to resemble an inverted ships hull

Among some of the interesting things we did find were a very old Farmer’s Market, kind of like Pike Place Market, but smaller. We also stumbled across a wonderful relatively new woodworking shop. We liked the way one half of the space was their furniture showroom, and the other half was the shop, with only a half wall between the two. They are doing some very nice work, and Mike might have even picked up an idea or two. They also had a very friendly shop dog, Charlie. Tami happily received many licks.

Great bike – got to get me one of those!

We also loved the bicycle hanging from the ceiling. It was put together with various odd parts. The top tube was an old long handled shovel. The seat post is a baseball bat. The handlebars are from two hockey sticks. Not sure how well it would ride, but fun to look at!

Brew pub

See the blueberries?

We next found a nice little brewery/pub for lunch. Mike had a blueberry ale with real NE blueberries floating in it. We also decided to forego the lobster and both had fish and chips instead, and they DO know how to make good fish and chips out here. These were made with haddock and it was very, very fresh.

Notice the address – 1 Princess Street

Fellow Collaborators!

While walking around we also spotted a law office practicing Collaborative Law! We stopped in to say hello, but unfortunately the attorney was out. We did get to chat a bit with the receptionist about the state of Collaboration in these parts. It sounds like there is a thriving community. She also told us that up on Prince Edward Island there is also a strong community, and hardly any cases even go to court there anymore – a goal to strive for!

Mike in a few more years

Love this trash bin – “Ricky Receptacle says thank you”

Interesting media mogul meeting taking place in front of building

In the afternoon we attempted to take a walk out to the “reversing falls”. Saint John is on the Bay of Fundy, which is known for its strong tides. Just out of downtown is an area near the mouth of the inner bay where there are some rapids, and apparently the tide is strong enough that when it is rising it overwhelms the outflow and forces a reverse flow. We talked to our waitress in the pub and she let us know that there is no actual falls to see, just a lot of swirling water. Sounds a bit like Deception Pass.

Blockhead by the blockhouse, view of downtown

Our ship with a much smaller cruise ship parked behind it. The other one is a Silver Seas ship. We talked to a woman on our ship who had sailed with Silver Seas before. Much fancier (generally goes with having smaller ships) and more expensive. She said you have to dress up for dinner every night – NOT a plus as far as we are concerned – the couple dress up nights on our ship are more than enough.

Anyway, we started that way, but the walking path turned out to be blocked for construction, so we veered off in another direction. We ended up at the top of a nearby hill that was crowned by an old block house. The blockhouse was closed, but there was a nice view. We continued our walk back into town and had another day of over eight miles of walking. We are working off at least a small bit of our delicious meals.

We are now in our cabin and just got the very disappointing news that tomorrow’s stop in Bar Harbor has been cancelled. Apparently they are now predicting high winds and it would be too dangerous for us to go in. Therefore today was our last port of call and we will be spending the next two days at sea. They said they are working on a new schedule of on board events for tomorrow, so hopefully we’ll be able to find some things to do. If not, at least we have lots of books.

Tomorrow was going to be a big cycling day for us, so now we might just have to make a few turns on the promenade deck. On foot, that is. We don’t think they’d take kindly to us riding our bikes around. While we are disappointed in missing the Bar Harbor stop, it only reinforces what we had already decided, which is that we need to make another trip out this way and plan more time to that we can really explore this entire area.

As the ship moored right on the boardwalk of Halifax, on the other side of the ship we looked directly across at a lighthouse on a small island. It’s a good representation of Halifax and its maritime heritage. Halifax is where many of the survivors and casualties of the Titanic disaster were brought and it has been an important seaport for Canada’s involvement in World War I & II. It is also the main port where new immigrants arrived over the last two centuries. So let’s just say there’s lots of nautical stuff here!

We had a fairly ambitious plan for the day after some good advice from the locals. Halifax is built on hills much like Seattle, so our route for the day was designed to avoid climbing the hill multiple times. We first headed to the top of the hill where the Halifax Citadel is located, stopping at a couple of galleries along the way. We passed a number of old churches and many historic buildings along the way, all interspersed with more modern buildings, and many interesting restaurants as well.

Guard house – we were told the large bed platforms tilted at a bit of an angle “so they wouldn’t be too comfortable”

The Halifax Citadel was built by the British in the 1700’s, and has been expanded upon over the centuries. Like Québec City, it changed hands between the British and the French a few times, and then during the War of 1812 those pesky Americans attacked it to try and annex this region. So the history we read at the Citadel seemed to differ somewhat from our memory and prompted us to want to find out more about what exactly happened in the War of 1812. Not exactly one of those wars that was covered extensively in history class!

There was one memorial about how they would all be American if it hadn’t been for the brave souls who defended the city. It’s always interesting and elucidating to read about historical events from a different perspective. One particularly memorable event from the War of 1812 appears to have been the capture outside Boston of the American ship Chesapeake by the British ship Shannon. There were at least three different displays around the city and Citadel where that capture was described (and perhaps even gloated about).

A man and his gun

The Citadel is a National Heritage Park and had a number of staff in period uniforms. Many of the rooms were outfitted as when the fort was in use, and there were also a number of exhibits about the different wars and life in the fort. Oh, and there were some really good views from up on that hill, too!

Our lunch stop – very good!

All that walking necessitated a replenishment of energy, so our next task was lunch. Since this is both the tourist part of Halifax and also seemed to be the downtown business area of Halifax, there were a lot of good looking restaurants and pubs around. We also saw a couple of breweries. We opted for a restaurant that mainly carried seafood and yes, Tami did have yet another lobster roll, her third in as many days. It was absolutely delicious, the best of the three so far. Mike tried out the fish and chips and was also very happy.

Large mural on side of building.

We finished our walk heading back towards the ship along the waterfront boardwalk. There were several historical ships parked at piers, lots of tourist shops, and great views of the harbor. Though it should be said that many parts of the harbor are less attractive than downtown Halifax, being rather industrial. There were many areas that looked reminiscent of the north Eastbay area near San Francisco – lots of oil tank farms. Tami worked hard at keeping them out of her shots as much as possible.

As the ship pulled away from Halifax, we headed past a rocky spit and were soon headed to open water. While it was a beautiful clear evening and the seas were quite calm, there was a bit of a swell and in the open water, we could feel it a bit on the ship. As we left dinner and walked along on the top deck we passed the swimming pool and noticed that the motion of the ship was creating quite the sloshing action in the pool. That would have been a wild ride to try and swim in it! Instead we scurried down to our cabin to settle in for the evening and start reading about Saint Johns, New Brunswick, our next stop.

Interesting building with lots of exits. Noticed parking spots with a sign saying “heads up!”

And what might be going on in there?

We had two goals today – find some good Cape Breton music and find some Glen Breton single malt whiskey. Cape Breton is an area with strong Scottish roots, so both the music and whiskey reflect that influence. Cape Breton is an island in Nova Scotia, and the town we docked in is Sydney.

Typical local dress

Tami and her new friend

Fairly early on we stopped in a shoe store to look at some boots. The proprietor was very friendly and we got to chatting with him, and Tami got to meet Jack, the shop’s friendly yellow lab. The proprietor had actually spent some time in BC, living in Masset on Haida Gwaii for several years, so we compared notes on last night’s Seahawks game (how’d they pull THAT out?). He also told us about a small shop off the main drag that he thought might have some local cd’s. We checked out the shop, and not only did they have a good music selection, but the clerk was a music fan herself and steered us to several cd’s she thought were particularly good. Tami is coming home with quite the stack of new music, none of which we have heard a note of yet.

Glen Grant and friend

Fiddling feet moving to the beat.

Not only that, but she told us about a pub down the street that should be playing music for the lunch crowd. Of course we headed over there next. In addition to some good local beers and lobster rolls (again), there was a local fiddler playing, accompanied by a guitarist from the Outer Hebrides in Scotland (about as remote a place as Cape Breton). Put all that together and we had a VERY good lunch.

Mike also found his whiskey. Glen Breton produces a single malt very much in the style of a good Scotch, as opposed to most whiskey distilled in Canada which is rye whiskey (usually just called “Canadian” whiskey). Until just the last few years when a couple of new places sprang up, Glen Breton was the only distillery in Canada producing a Scotch style single malt. We were able to pick up several bottles from different bottlings. One is even aged in icewine barrels to give it a slightly different character. Can’t wait to get home and try them!

Tami’s flag collection.

Tami also expanded her flag collection. So far she has picked up four different regional flags, and hopes to find a few more before we are done. Next summer we might be sporting an all Canadian flag display on the back porch.

We also managed to connect with Keenan today. He is on the move across the country now. It sounds like he is doing well, though due to his single speed bike and the fact it is fully loaded for travel, he is having to get off and push when he gets to hills. It’s a good thing he picked a relatively flat country!

We once again had beautiful weather, unseasonably warm for this area. The only downside is that the changing leaves are delayed so we are only seeing hints of the autumn colors. It’s a fair trade-off, though, for such beautiful weather.

Promenade

Pilot boat pulling away.

Last night we had to set our watches forward another hour. We are now far enough east that we are into another time zone, one that does not occur in the US.

As we steamed into Charlottetown (pronounced “charlatan”) on PEI and tied up to the dock, we were a bit dismayed to look out our window and see fog so thick that we couldn’t see the dock itself. Two minutes later it was noticeably brighter, and by the time we were ready to go up for breakfast it was a bright sunny day with clear blue skies. Perfect for a spin on the Bike Fridays!

Prince Edward Island has an amazing system of bicycle trails called the Confederation Trail. They are converted railroad beds and extend over the entire length of the island and then some – maybe 280 miles of rail trail all together, and just the main trail is about 180 miles end to end. We accessed the beginning of the trail just blocks from the ship terminal and followed it for nearly 8 miles out of town and into some countryside before returning back to town. The trail is very well maintained and we definitely want to return some day to cover the whole system. We could have continued much farther, but Charlottetown itself is a charming town and we wanted some time in town.

Anne of Green Gables – The Musical!

Charlottetown is the capitol of all things “Anne of Green Gables”. Neither of us ever read the books, but the area that inspired them is near here so it’s a huge tourist draw. Tami was on the hunt for some good chocolates (big surprise) and found some in the Anne of Green Gables chocolate shop. Not sure what that has to do with the books, but then, we never read them, did we!

Downtown Charlottetown

Some local characters

The town itself has a lot of older architecture that adds a lot of charm, and also a lot of restaurants. And lots of LOBSTER! So we had our first lobster rolls for lunch. Yum! We also had some delicious lobster chowder to start. Followed by some wonderful local ice cream for a complete lunch. Immediately followed by tasting of rum, whiskey and rye produced by the island’s distillery.

Lobster roll!

As the ship pulled out of Charlottetown we were treated to a fantastic sunset that had even crew members out taking pictures.

Must be from the show cast – catching a fast shot in front of the sunset.

For the second night in a row we also had the chocolate man come around. We are not quite sure what the deal is with him, he has a Princess badge, but doesn’t look like a crew member. In the evening he comes around giving out candy from a shopping bag or two full of chocolates and other sweets – kind of like Halloween in reverse. We watched the sunset progress through its glory over about an hour, then had to make sure we got dinner in time to catch the Seahawks game in the room since it’s a little chilly to watch up on the deck. Go Seahawks!

Leaving Charlottetown

Gasp! It’s Gaspe

We were not sure what to expect of Gaspé, it appearing to be the smallest port we would stop in, but we were pleasantly surprised. Because they did not have a dock large enough for our ship, we had to anchor offshore and tender in. That means they use the large lifeboats to ferry us back and forth from ship to shore to ship.

Tendering

At the tender dock

The first thing we did after walking into town from the tender dock was head over to the local history museum along a pleasant boardwalk that followed the water. We were once again treated to beautiful sunny weather and by the time we got to the museum we had both shed our jackets.

Walkway from town to the museum

Museum is out on this point

Just below the museum

It appears that somewhat like the mouth of the Columbia, this area is known for its tricky waters and subsequent shipwrecks. One room of the museum was dedicated to local shipwrecks, and the other to the general history of the area. A good part of that involved the European sort-of discovery of the area by the French explorer Jacques Cartier. “Sort-of” because he noted in his journals that there were already French fishermen there catching cod. The fishermen had not announced their discovery as yet because, of course like all fishermen, they were secretive about their new great fishing spot.

Lunch stop

Bowl of mussel shells as big as Tami’s head! (the bowl, not the shells)

After the museum we walked around town, all two blocks of it. There wasn’t much, which did not stop Tami from finding a cute little light weight jacket. We also stopped for lunch in a place Tami recognized from some earlier research. Mike had a local sausage (what else would Mike have?), while Tami lit into the largest bowl of mussels she had attempted since Honfleur in Normandy. Mussels seem to be a local specialty, which made us feel at home. Here, however, they were served straight – no cream, wine, etc. with accompanying bread to sop it all up- just a huge bowl of mussels. But they were still amazingly good and obviously very fresh.

Just couldn’t pass up this shot of Canadiana.

Back aboard ship we’re watching Sunday night football, but wishing we could be watching the Sounders instead. Which reminds me that we saw another passenger wearing a Sounders T-shirt today in town! (Of course Tami had hers on.) Tomorrow night they are going to have the Seahawks at Movies Under the Stars. Guess where we will be? Well you are wrong – it looks like they will also have it on the in-room TV’s – MUCH warmer.

Saguenay is a “town” that is actually a collection of several small towns with a significant amount of countryside between them. Our ship docked in the part called La Baie. La Baie was a charming little community of maybe 1500. The welcome to La Baie was overwhelming. Our suspicions were raised that they don’t get cruise ships very often. That is one of the advantages of taking a 10 day cruise over a route most ships do in 7 days.

Some of the greeters at La Baie.

On the dock were a number of small groups dressed in traditional trapper, Native American, etc. costumes, running several different displays, including one antique car, several traditional shelters, and some local food samples. One served samples of blueberry pie (blueberries are a major product of the area) and another, our favorite, served iced maple syrup on a stick. Apparently a tradition in the area is to cool maple syrup down in snow to the point that it makes a soft candy. Everyone was very friendly and clearly proud of their community and heritage.

Iced maple syrup – delish!

While La Baie was scenic, it did not take long to walk it, so we decided to take the 20 minute shuttle bus ride (the $20 special hop on/hop off was the only real option even if you just wanted transportation between the two communities). The bus dropped us off in the old downtown area of the larger community of Saguenay called Chicoutimi (population 5000). Unfortunately the downtown was nearly moribund. As happens in so many places, we later learned that downtown has been largely replaced by larger modern stores and malls on the edge of town serving the whole region.

Locals seeing us off (check out all the people on the area above the beach).

More of the people come to see us off.

Since today was a short day on shore – we had to be back on the ship by 1:30 – we got back to La Baie with just enough time to use the free wifi ashore to check email. What was really amazing was the huge crowd there to see the cruise ship off. There were people lining the entire length of the seawall and many standing on the beach. It looked like the entire town had turned out. They stayed there for over 30 minutes waiting for the ship to leave. As the ship finally pulled out, we also heard many car horns honking. We have never seen anything like it!

The highlight of our day was back on the ship – connecting with Keenan for an audio-only Facetime session. It sounds like his trip is going great! He has purchased a bike for his ride across Sweden, and today made it as far as Uppsala, a town he had wanted to see for its ancient historical sites (this IS a kid who majored in Medieval Northern European History with a minor in Swedish). Dad was very excited to see pictures of the bike (who would guess that?). The bike looks great, but is a single speed, so we are hoping he has a very flat route the whole way! The bike is so cool that the question has been raised whether he can find a way to bring it back home to Seattle. It was so great to hear how well his trip is going.

Keenan’s bike – made in Finland.

After returning to the ship we had make our way to the wine tasting event which we have done before and enjoyed. They always have some very good quality wines and they are paired with wonderful appetizers to bring out the best in the wine. We were not disappointed and followed up with a relaxing turn in deck chairs on the promenade as we steamed down the fjord to reenter the Saint Lawrence Seaway.

Tami at one of her favorite activities.

A little relaxing on the promenade.

The scenery was gorgeous and reminds us a bit of Puget Sound, but the rocks and geological formations are clearly much more ancient. Saguenay is at the end of a long fjord. It is billed as the only fjord in North America, which raised questions for us about all those long skinny reaches of inland ocean in BC and Alaska (which we have often heard characterized as fjords).

Looking down the fjord.

Sailing down the fjord.

We had a beautiful sunny day today and it was hard to pull ourselves away from the scenery, but dinner and the champagne reception were waiting. Tonight was formal night on the ship. Mike was NOT excited to be dressing up in coat and tie, but at least the dinner was elevated to match the dress code.