Day 5 - Halifax, Nova Scotia

Today I traveled from Prince Edward Island to the province of Nova Scotia. There really isn't a whole lot to say about the drive ... there was nothing particularly interesting or remarkable about it.

My original plan was to spend some time in the city of Halifax walking around and exploring. I had heard about a place called Peggy's Cove, a seaside village about 20-30 miles outside of the city. It was supposed to have some art galleries and that sort of thing ... it sounded like a “tourist trap”, but I figured why not ... I had plenty of time. When I arrived at Peggy's Cove, unfortunately, the whole area was shrouded in fog, so there wasn't a whole lot to see. The village was exactly what you'd expect from a small seaside fishing village, complete with lighthouse, small shops, and little houses scattered about the rocks. I spent a little time walking around, and then decided to head back to Halifax.

The only thing I knew about Halifax before I arrived was that there was an old citadel overlooking the bay. When I arrived, I found a place to park and started exploring. The first thing to note about Halifax is that it's VERY hilly. I walked around the citadel but I didn't bother to go in. Then I walked down the hill to the bay. There was a “harbor walk” along the bay with shops and vendors. There really isn't much else to say about the city, at least from what I saw of it. After a while, it was starting to get a little late, and I decided to head back to my car to drive to my campground for the night, which was about 30 minutes outside the city.

Unfortunately, traffic in Halifax is really brutal, and it took my close to an hour to get to the campground. When I arrived, it was time to do some laundry. After that, I followed the usual process of setting up my tent, eating dinner, and then I did some reading.

I planned to get on the road early tomorrow morning for the long drive to Cape Breton National Park.

Day 4 - Prince Edward Island National Park

Today's plan was to drive from Fundy National Park to Prince Edward Island National Park.

As I was driving through New Brunswick, I saw a sign for Hopewell Rocks. When I had arrived in New Brunswick on day 2 of my trip, I had stopped in a tourist information center just before I arrived in St. John. I had told the gentleman a little about my plans and he had made a comment that I would be near Hopewell Rocks. I didn't think much of it at the time, but since I was now here, and I was in no particular hurry, I decided to go check it out. Ultimately, this is a short walkway along the Bay of Funding, with some interesting rock formations. Based on the tides, you can walk out to the rocks, but I had arrived after low tide, so I wasn't able to walk out to the rocks. It was still a nice little diversion from the drive to Prince Edward Island.

I arrived at the Confederation Bridge, which led from New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island. I hadn't really paid any attention to this prior to my trip, but now that I saw the bridge in front of me, I was amazed. The Confederation Bridge is about 8 miles long, and it's really impressive. The toll, which you pay only in the Prince Edward Island to New Brunswick direction is $47.75 Canadian!!!

Once I crossed the bridge, I had to drive across the island to the North shore, which is where the national park is located. Prince Edward Island (PEI) is a very agricultural province, along with fishing. Have you ever been to the store and walked past the fish counter to see mussels labeled PEI mussels ... well, apparently, PEI has a very large mussel industry!

Once I got to the park, I checked in at the registration desk and parked my car at my camp site. There was a walking/biking trail that essentially followed the road along this section of the North coast. The trail was mostly flat, and it was a beautiful day for a ride. I stopped briefly at Cavendish Beach, and even spent a few minutes in the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. I then continued the ride to the end of the trail. It was about 10 km each way.

After the ride and a shower, I made dinner, did some reading, and then went to sleep. Tomorrow, I'll be leaving Prince Edward Island and heading to Nova Scotia.

Day 3 - Fundy National Park

The plan for today was to spend the day hiking and biking in Fundy National Park. Based on the information I had been given at the visitors center yesterday afternoon, I decided to ride the Goose River Trail first. According to the park guidebook, this was an 11.85 km trail that followed the coast line South of the park. It was rated as a “difficult” trail.

As it turned out, the rating was a little understated! The trail had a lot of very steep sections and hairpin switchback turns. The good news, was that it was VERY smooth, with an almost gravel like based for most of the way. I had to walk the bike up a lot of the steeper sections, but at the end of it all, it was good ride, an excellent workout, and I was glad I did it.

After that, I needed a little time to recover so I ate lunch and planned the next part of my day. I decided to do the very short, and beginner rated Ship Haven Trail, which led to a covered bridge. I figured this would be a good way to get myself going again.

After that, it was time for another hike, this time on an “intermediate” rated trail. The trail was a 4.5 km loop that led to a point overlooking the bay called Matthews Head (of course there was no way I could pass this up). The hike turned out to be a little more difficult than I expected, but that was probably because I was already pretty tired from the bike ride. After that, I debated heading back to the campground for a shower, but there was really one more bike ride that I had really wanted to do on the intermediate rated Black Horse Trail. It was only 4.5 km long, and with an intermediate rating, I figured it might not be too difficult, even though I was really tired from the earlier part of the day. As it turned out, the trail was perfect ... exactly what I had been hoping for. It was a nice, easy and fun ride, and it only took me about 25 minutes.

I headed back to the campground and grabbed a much needed shower. After that, I got in the car and headed into the small nearby town of Alma, New Brunswick. There was a local brewery, so I stopped into for a beer. Then, it was back to the campground for dinner.

Tomorrow, I'll be leaving New Brunswick and traveling to Prince Edward Island National Park.

Day 2 - Acadia National Park to Fundy National Park

Day 2 of my journey had me traveling from my campground outside of Acadia National Park to Fundy National Park in New Brunswick, Canada. Along the way, I'd be passing by St. John, New Brunswick, so the plan was to stop there and do a little sight-seeing.

I woke up, made some breakfast, and broke down my tent. The drive through Maine to the Canadian border was all on a single lane highway that wound its way through the Maine wilderness. It really reminded me of driving through the Adirondacks, only with smaller mountains!

I reached the Canadian border and went right through the Canadian immigration and customs check-point. I arrived in St. John about an hour or so later. There's not really a whole lot to see and do in St. John, at least as far as I could find out. One of the biggest tourist attractions is the “reversing falls”. The tides here are very extreme, and there's a river that ends at the bay. When the tide is at low tide, a waterfall is created where the river meets the bay. As the tide comes back in, it appears as though the waterfall is flowing in reverse. I had arrived during a low tide cycle, so I didn't get to see the water flowing in reverse. There was a nice walkway from the reversing falls along the harbor into the downtown area, so I decided to take that walk. As mentioned, there really wasn't very much to see.

Before leaving St. John to head for Fundy National Park, there was one important thing I had to do. St. John is the home of Moosehead breweries, so of course I had to pay a visit for a beer. Unfortunately, since it was Sunday, they didn't offer tours, so I had a beer and then hit the road.

I arrived in Fundy National Park at around 5:00. The visitors center was still open, so I went inside to get some recommendations for some bike rides and/or hikes for the next day.

After that, I went to the campground, got all set up, made some dinner and went to bed. Tomorrow's going to be a busy day of hiking and biking!

Day 1 - Acadia National Park

I left New City a few minutes past 4:00 am headed towards Acadia National Park. I arrived at a little past 12:00, exactly as planned.

My plans for the day were to do some bike riding on the carriage roads in the park, drive to the top of Cadillac Mountain, and if time permitted, go into the village of Bar Harbor.

I had no problem finding a parking spot at the Eagle Lake entrance to the carriage roads. After getting into my biking gear, making a lunch and some drinks to take along, I headed out on the bike. It was a great ride. I rode the big loop around Eagle Lake, Jordan Pond and Bubble Pond. It was about 11 miles in total, and it took about an hour and a half, including time for a lunch stop. Since it was still pretty early, I decided to stay on the bike and ride the carriage road towards Witch Hole Pond. From there, I was able to take a very short ride on the "regular" roads into Bar Harbor.

As luck would have it, I arrived at low tide, which meant that the sand bar to Bar Island was passable, so across I went on the bike. I got across to Bar Island and considered taking the trail to the top of the "mountain", but the tide chart that was posted made me decide not to take any chances ... The idea of having to call for a water taxi to get me back across wasn't very appealing. So, back across I went and then I rode down the main street of Bar Harbor. I found a likely spot to grab a beer and took a little break.

After that, I wanted to drive to the top of Cadillac Mountain. I was debating between riding my bike back to Eagle Lake or taking one of the free shuttle buses. It was only about a 3 mile ride on the road, so I decided to ride it. It wasn't a bad ride, though there were a few big hills ... on my road bike, they wouldn't have been any problem at all ... on the mountain bike, they were moderately difficult. I got back to the car, put the bike gear away and headed to the top of the mountain.

It was a beautiful day, and the views were awesome (will upload pictures some other time). I spent a little time at the top, and then decided to get on the road to my campground for the night. I arrived at the campground at around 6:00 and set up the cot tent. After that, I grabbed a shower and made dinner. After dinner, I relaxed and did some reading, and then it was time to get to sleep.

Tomorrow, I head to Fundy National Park in Canada, via St. John, New Brunswick.

Canadian Maritimes Adventure

In about 32 hours, I'll be heading out on my next great adventure. This one will be a solo mission, as Josh is working, though I don't think he was really all that interested in this trip anyway.

I'll be exploring the Canadian maritime provinces, and from there, I'll continue into Labrador, through Quebec and then back home.

This is a two week journey. Along the way, I'll be visiting some of the larger cities in these provinces, as well as several Canadian National Parks.

The "highlight" of this adventure is the Trans Labrador Highway, which has been called the "Loneliest Road In The World".

Here's the itinerary:

Day 1 - New City, New York to Bangor, Maine
Day 2 - Bangor, Maine to Fundy National Park, New Brunswick, Canada
Day 3 - National Park, New Brunswick, Canada
Day 4 - Funding National Park to Prince Edward Island National Park, PEI, Canada
Day 5 - Prince Edward Island National Park to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Day 6 - Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada to Cape Breton Highlands National Park, NS, Canada
Day 7/8 - Cape Breton Highlands National Park, NS to St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada
Day 9 - St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada to Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland, Canada
Day 10 - Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland, Canada to St. Barbe, Newfoundland, Canada
Day 11 - St. Barbe, Newfoundland, Canada to Port Hope Simpson, Labrador, Canada
Day 12 - Port Hope Simpson, Labrador, Canada to Happy Valley Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada
Day 13 - Happy Valley Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada to Labrador City, Labrador, Canada
Day 14 - Labrador City, Labrador, Canada to Baie Comeau, Quebec, Canada
Day 15 - Baie Comeau, Quebec, Canada to Lake Placid, New York
Day 16 - Lake Placid, New York to New City, New York

This one is "about the journey".

I'm not sure what my access to the internet will be ... certainly for most of the time in Newfoundland and Labrador I'm not expecting any, but I plan to log each day and will upload to the blog when I can.

That's about it ... Hopefully, I'll have a Bon Voyage!!!

2017 BSA National Jamboree - Day 12 - July 28, 2017

We woke up at 4:00 am in order to finish packing all of our gear and be ready to board our buses at our scheduled pick up time of 6:00 am.

The boys worked fairly effectively at getting all of their personal gear packed up, the tents taken down and folded and all of the gear packed back in the storage bins that it was originally stored in when we arrived.

We got to the bus staging area with all of our gear at 6:06 am … not too bad. Unfortunately, there weren't any buses there yet! We waited for quite a while, watching for our buses to come down the road. Finally, at around 7:30, two of the three buses showed up. Fortunately, one of the two buses was ours, so we loaded our gear on board and got on the bus. Just before we were about to leave, the Scoutmaster from the other bus, which was supposed to pick up the Venture Crew at the Foxtrot base camp, came on our bus and told us that the bus they had was too small to fit the Venture Crew. We would have to take the Venture Crew with us!

It took us about 45 minutes to get to the Foxtrot base camp to meet the Venture Crew. We got them loaded on the bus and started the trip towards home.

The original plans called for the three buses to stop for lunch together in Harrisburg, PA. Given our late departure, and the fact that our buses were all about 30-60 minutes apart from each other, the decision was made for each bus to stop independently, and then head for home. We found a place in Harrisonburg, VA where there were several restaurant choices for everyone to get lunch. We made it a short stop, only 35 minutes, and then we continued on the road home. Our GPS devices were indicating an arrival time around 7:15.

We pulled into the parking lot right around 7:15, as expected, and the boys all got off the bus to meet their families. Everyone was glad to be home!!!

Some final thoughts ...

My experience at the 2017 Boy Scouts of America National Jamboree had its ups and downs. There were some great moments and, unfortunately, there were also some terrible moments. In retrospect, I'm not sure that I would go to another Jamboree as a contingent leader, but at the end of the day, I'm glad I went. I had the opportunity to do this with two really great gentlemen as my Scoutmaster partners, and we did our best to make it a great experience for the boys.

During my time at the Jamboree, unfortunately, I witnessed a good deal of un-Scout-like behavior. It didn't seem to be limited to one Troop, or one region of the country, but rather a systemic problem. There was extensive use of foul language and vulgarity. During the exit from the Saturday evening show, I saw groups of scouts locking arms and “plowing” through crowds of people trying to get back to their camps. I heard stories of scouts “ripping off” other scouts in patch trades, and I also saw a lot of “unhelpful” scouts. For anyone reading this, whether you're a scout, a parent or a Scoutmaster, please remember that one of the requirements for each scout rank is to demonstrate that you live the Scout Oath & Law in your everyday life. You live the Scout Oath & Law through actions, not words.

I really hope that everyone who attended the Jamboree had a great time. For most of us, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Despite what I just said above, there was also a whole lot of awesome at the Jamboree, and I will remember this experience forever.

Peace Out Boy Scout!