Hello Aunt Ellie and Aunt Jeanne,

Just an update so you'll know where I have been.

Once in New Brunswick, I traveled down much of the East coast, kayaked in a beautiful sound in Kouchibougbac Nat'l Park. Then, continued down the east coast  and across the great Confederation Bridge onto Prince Edward Island. In PEI I followed most of the coast all around the NW arm of PEI then across to the the SE side. Much of this coastal travel is uneventful. My goal is to see the coastal views, homes, farms and villages, the occasional lighthouse and whatever else that attracts my attention. In the late afternoon I try to find a campsite over looking or right on the shoreline. So far I have been quite successful at that often giving me an early evening and early morning walk along the beach which I very much enjoy as well as the sound -- often pounding -- of the wind and waves at night.

By ferry I crossed from PEI to Nova Scotia and traveled  around Cape Breton Island including a steep hike down to a secluded falls, and a couple of hikes in Cape Breton Highlands National Park. I also chose my 1st lobster victim and then added insult to gross injury by eating it sloppily in spite of competent instructions from the small seaside diner's owner. Slept that night overlooking the vast sea and its crashing waves. Bill Gates would pay mightily for my free evening and morning views.

From NS's North Sydney I caught the 6 hr ferry ride to Newfoundland and camped that evening in continuous roaring winds that rocked my van; would not be that last time. Next several days I drove up the West coast of NFL except for one day and 2 nights I spent cowering in a gravel pit as powerful storm winds and rains pummeled my van; I still got a quick hike in during a brief letup. I finally reached L'Ainse aux Meadows the Viking base camp built 1000 years ago. The original foundations are still visible and the government has built an excellent facsimile of their large multi room habitation huts complete with Viking impersonators. Fascinating 'charisma of place' when I visit a site I have read about throughout my life. My travels often include a significant amount of that historical reverie.

Next I backtracked down to the ferry across to Labrador and crossed over. My goal was just to make a quick visit to see what it was like and then return to NFL. BUT, high winds shut down the ferry for 2 days. After many hours of sitting around I was able to return to NFL. While in Labrador I traveled up their East coast until I reached Red Bay and the beginning of the relatively new dirt road to Goose Bay and the northern interior of Labrador. The road is heavily pot holed and a real tire and windshield killer according to locals. I visited a lighthouse, and several of the tiny seaside hamlets that were once the original cod fish seal and whale hunting camps including the 17th capitol of N American whale hunting -- Red Bay. A lady in the Visitor Center traded me a wonderful book on the early history of this region. It was really a very important remote bas of European fishing/whaling interests. Incredibly hardy people were these locals ancestors.

The weather for most of the trip including the drive across Manitoba and Ontario north of the Great Lakes as well as the Maritime Provinces has been dominated by rain, fog &/or high winds. Fortunately, when I had something specific to do or see the sun broke thru and lit the stage.

Once back in NFL I immediately drove south again to Gros Morne Nat'l , hiked to  one of the purest large lakes on Earth and camped in an out-of-season fishing camp next to the Park's unique archaeological/geological stratigraphy site - most remarkable display of Earth's accumulated "layers upon layers of time in stone".

Tomorrow I make a run to the ferry back to Nova Scotia assuming the winds are calm enough.

The next morning I began my direct "run to the ferry back to Nova Scotia" stopping briefly en route to reserve my next day's passage. But arriving later that afternoon at dock side, I asked if I could take the next ferry -- I was welcomed to wait in the 'non- reserved' line for any opening. I was first, so I decided to secure that position and wait the next 6 hours at the head of that line. The ship loaded, and loaded and loaded until only I was left at the head of a long line of unreserved vehicles. Finally, they checked my pass and gave me the OK to load. I was the last vehicle on the ferry -- there was no more room. These are the serendipitous things that can thrill me. After 6 sleepless hours of another traveler's snoring that only Steven King or Disney Animal Kingdom could re-create we landed at N Sydney, NS as day dawned. 

I drove S down a scenic inland roadway to the S NS coast and its relatively undeveloped endless chain of small inlet communities many of which have shrunk to mere rusting, rotting reminders of a once vigorous fishing world. In particular, one tiny village's near-abandonned pier displayed a huge colorful bunch of modern plastic inflated net floats that suggested a giant's birthday party, but was contrasted with the huge iron fishing vessel lying askew on the shore. Its rust and rigging dripping slowly toward the water, itself surrounded by much smaller wooden fishing vessels with their paint and wooded sides peeling away from their inner skeletons. The setting was sadly, nostalgically picturesque, seemingly trying hard to belie the blind, head-in-the-sand, unsustainable, over-fishing that destroyed their once dangerously storied fishing life.

I drove quickly on thru Halifax and Dartmouth, NS  to the obligatory Peggy's Cove -- a tiny fishing village clinging to a stark out cropping of glacier scrapped-granite.  It tries to stay authentic and quaint yet economically viable as tour bus hordes and the rest of us swarm like scavenging ants filling its single large parking lot and B&B converted homes.

I left quickly further south relishing the countless small cove communities. Curiously, unlike the coast line communities N of Halifax, these southern coves are a mix of the apparently old, authentic & restored and the "mine-is-bigger-than-yours trophy homes that in my cynical view seem to mock the very reason these coves were originally so attractively quaint. Jackson Hole all over again. 

Immediately I moved on to Luneburg -- a beautiful town of well maintained large old homes reflecting very real neighborhoods that make you believe that at any moment an early 1900's dressed man with cane swinging jauntily and a parasol-shaded woman will exit a front door and stroll downtown. Downtown is beautifully preserved with only a few crass architectural conversions and anomalies. I first drove down the main street and then back along a 2nd street. I then decided I would stop and fully explore this beautiful; architectural set piece. I spent the next several hours methodically, walking the main street, then back along the next street closer to the sea , then the street above the main street and, finally, the wharf street, eating lunch in a small cafe that reeked of its roots. Throughly enjoyable to one who relishes the authenticity of old architecture's insight into the past.

Unfortunately, the incessant rain returned, diminished my spirits. I abandoned my southern route thru Falmouth and summarily drove directly north across NS to Digby where my father's family once lived. I roamed the streets hoping that the "thin invisible history tracks" that I imagine we all leave across the landscape during our lives would coincidentally intersect and perhaps overlay the similar "thin invisible history tracks" my father might have laid down as a young man in this small town so many decades ago. Ironically, I once visited Digby as a child (Yes, I was not always a curmudgeon.) with my parents and thought that perhaps I was crossing my youthful self's "thin invisible history tracks." The next day a 2 hr ferry ride to Saint John's Nova Scotia. 

With a few hours left before dusk I cruised the old maritime city. Large old brick factory or warehouse buildings partnered with old neighborhoods of decrepit, but authentic wood apartment buildings. I had wished I had felt like lingering to wander those neighborhoods more deeply. The next morning I visited the Reversing River which I had on my To Do list for several years. The river appears to reverse when the tidal current traveling up river races over several small underwater cliffs. Actually you would have to observe the phenomenon for at least a 12 hour period or more, but fortunately YouTube clips do that for you.  Later that day I crossed back into the US -- always a palpable visceral 'good feeling" -- even from friendly, comfortable Canada.

Now, I was finally in search of the 'rugged coast line of Maine' and its 'fall foliage". While the ME coast can be rugged, the rugged Canadian coastlines seemed no less so, tho often different. Also, I would soon realize that I had seen quite beautiful foliage in Canada.

Soon over the border I stopped at at rest stop from which I could see a lighthouse and was compelled to hike thru the woods and along the shore until I reached it -- on private property. Looking quickly and leaving as quickly to mitigate my trespass a booming voice laced with annoyance asked , " Can I help you." I apologized for the trespass arguing that the rest stop signs induced me to visit. He understood the problem and then gracefully chatted about his 'official' functioning light house's history. We parted brief friends. 

Next Lubec, ME the most eastern point of the US, its nearby lighthouse, but even more impressive the several mile hike along the rocky cliffs, sometimes unnervingly so and the intimate return hike thru the woods.  I camped nearby in a tiny niche immediately on the edge of the mud-flat bay which was rapidly filling as I ate my dinner of salmon and salad and the sea gulls poked at the moving edge of water that apparently exposed their tasty critter meals. Later, the near-full moon reflected on the filled bay's tidal surface. Next morning off to Arcadia National Park - another of Rockefeller's pay-back contributions to the Nation. 

I spent 3 nights / 2 days in Arcadia National Park with brief Bar Harbor visits for gas/groceries. Bar Harbor is a quagmire of tourists often inundated by as many as 3 cruise ships a day, with innumerable lodgings and tourist shops to placate their lust for the 'usual."  Fortunately, a sophisticated Park- Town bus system can whisk them back and forth effortlessly. I chose a difficult and solitary hike up a mountain trail whose challenging embedded iron steps and hand holds was exceeded only by the scary, thin rock-face trail portions and the tight, rock clefts I had to negotiate barely within my unbending metal knees' capability. I suspect it will rank as the most difficult hike of my later years. I kept asking myself if I should turn back, but that 'known' option was scarier than the 'unknown' option of moving forward. I finished OK with the usual great sense of accomplishment (as my nerves settled down.) Such experiences are not for the faint hearted and even less so for we trained cowards.  The next day I took a bike ride thru the park on its lovely forest "carriage trails' once used exclusively by the old Rockefeller's and their equals who fortunately joined with Rockefeller to create and embellish this unique park. 

The 3rd day I left Arcadia south with a vague intent to possibly search out the Wiscasset, Waterville, & Farmington (WW&F) "steam" railroad;  a 2-ft “narrow” gauge operated from 1894 > 1933, supposed to go from Chicago to Quebec City, but never got much farther than it goes today cuz of bankruptcy an other legal hassles  Seeing the correct side highway, I wandered up on the off chance I could see something even if the train had already left. Luck of the devil -- I arrived 45 min before the train departed. What a great little ride it was! -- thunk-thunk of the track joints, the side-side swaying and the coal smoke nostalgically engulfing us occasionally  I also chatted at length with an old man from Lowell, Mass about this railroad, but more importantly about the birth of America's industrial revolution at Lowell, MA's textile mills. 

Then on to Pemaquid's lighthouse at the end of a peninsula which I hoped would be a quaint drive with typical quaint sea ports. It was.

Then, began my 2nd major goal: the grand foliage drive up thru SW ME. Legendary is its image in my mind: spectacular roads canopied in brilliant reds, oranges yellows & maroons. It was not.     Yes, a few spots of startling beauty and the sporadic brilliant tree, but those scenes were mutilated by non-descript buildings. It did not particularly bother me because I had seen beautiful foliage in Canada and was willing to default the fantastic to Nation Geographic photographers. I camped on a hilltop high up above a long lake and its lovely surrounding landscape.  At the most northern point of my drive I hiked a mountain and visited falls at a State Park that added value to the drive. A nearby Visitor Center attendant advised me that my proposed foliage drive into New Hampshire and Vermont would take me into their mountains whose foliage had already turned. I turned S toward MA -- reasonably content with the foliage I seen. Ironically, in the SE corner of NH and in MA I would discover even more beautiful foliage without the distracting buildings.

Barely past SW New Hampshire I decided I would visit Lowell's National History Park. I did not expect much. I was wrong. The park comprised of several sites including an original textile mill with 88 machines and 8 operating cloth making machines in full operational mode, re-creation of a typical, but enlightened women/girls lodging and the extant canal system. The entire area in which the Park's sites are embedded is beautifully maintained, restored & developed town including its high school and businesses. Old factory buildings restored/maintained on the outside are converted to offices/apartments on the inside. Canals become the venue for landscaped promenades. Throughly enjoyable. I left for Concord, MA 

Concord, MA and Lexington were the sites of the Colonist's first combat engagement with the British, a dramatic Colonial rout. This was truly the beginning of my fulfillment of my goal to visit the major historical cities of Boston, Philadelphia and Charleston -- to explore the roots of our Nation. At 1st I never considered Concord although I noted its existence. I thought Boston would be sufficient. But the more I read about it while approaching MA the more it seemed to rise on the horizon -- it was a fundamental, concept-defining beginning of the Revolution. The intermediates might be skipped, but this seemed essential. I stood a top the hill where Colonists watched the British enter Concord, walked cross the bridge where Colonists 1st decided to engage the British and then rode my bicycle along the Revolutionary road which is the original road on which the British retreated back to Boston hounded constantly by the Colonists as they passed the houses of Colonial names (John Adam's brother home) and sites. The charisma of place as well as the visualizations of the moving battle was  real and engaging.

I also visited several of Concord's historical cemeteries including Sleepy Hollow Cemetery's Author's Ridge which protects the final remains of Emerson, Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Louisa Alcott.  A couple of years ago I re-read , empathized with the characters of and enjoyed Hawthorne's "House of Seven Gables" which I had been brutally force-fed in high school. As I gazed down at Hawthorne's grave I especially felt the charisma not just of 'place' but that of being in the presence of the man himself. Almost as though I had reshuffled the deck of cards that some science fiction writers analogize to  'time' so that our two cards were for those few moments next to each other.  

Month's ago I downloaded Emerson's"Leaves of Grass" only to discover that it was in French; must download again in English. And, later that day I walked around Walden Pond and visited the wooded site of Thoreau's 8' x 12' cabin constructed gratis on Emerson's property. How inter woven seems the history here.  The next day I drove to Lexington and walked the Town Commons where the 1st shot of the Revolution was fired and visited the house where John Adams was warned that the Redcoats were coming to arrest him; he escaped.        On to Boston.

FYI, if traveling in a small RV to Boston, DON'T :  ------    park your  RV in the Concord Visitor Centers parking lot, walk a few blocks to commuter rail station and take the Commuter Rail to Boston for the $8 + round trip; drops you mere blocks from historical core including tourist and local historical markets with their food kiosks and shops. Boston is a joy. A beautiful historical city, appreciatively preserving its past and desired quality of life while giving the tourist a simple easily followed strip of double red bricks on a 2 1/2 - 5 mi historical site walk through this beautiful city.   I will NOT recite each site and its significance because if you are really interested you can download Boston's Visitor Center Walking Tour brochure which does it all. Then, if you are truly inspired Wikipedia can flesh out any more questions you might have.   On to Philadelphia, but first a stop outside Philadelphia in West Chester to visit one of the 2 truly inspired great teachers I had over the 18 years of schooling I have had.

My parents sent me at 16  to Manlius Military School before my public high school either put me back a year or kicked me out. Frank Milliman taught math, specifically my calculus class including the horribly arcane differential deductive- indiuctive equations. (He wasn't kidding. I still have no idea what they are or what they were for.) Often he would invite me or my class mates to his apartment just to chat. I only remember that he was a teacher who inspired me to try excell in his class -- I passed. I also remember his playing Respighi's "Fountains of Rome" and "Pines of Rome." -- still my special favorites. He exuded a respect, affection of and patience with his students. I have no memory of any other teacher during that 2 years except my effete French teacher. 

On this visit of several days Frank disclosed that he had wanted to be a teacher from his youth, rejecting a personal offer from 2 State Senators for an automatic position to either  West Point or Annapolis. A horizontal hand tremor that  precluded his blackboard writing had forced his retirement from West Chester College ( now university) in his late 70's  it was the saddest day of his life. His passion for teaching even now is exuberant and boundless.

Frank, it was a privilege to have been your student and an honor to be called your friend. 

Thank you.

One day during my West Chester visit I slipped into Philadelphia by commuter train to visit the historical sites. 

Unlike Boston, Philadelphia seems a city that has great Revolutionary and Constitutional sites protected and exhibited by the US Government as a national imperative. On the Internet I found it difficult to find and distinguish the official Visitor Center from the tour companies that seemed to duplicitously pose as visitor centers although locals easily directed me to the obvious official Visitor Center. 

Sites are embedded in the old ignored city area in which upon close probing old buildings can be detected that seem abandoned for lack of sufficient economic justification for replacement by skyscrapers, yet with just sufficient economic hope to justify their occasional, frequent turn-over, fringe economic uses (strange exotic African mask shop, esoteric clothing, music etc.esoteric music stores)  or mutely disguised condo conversions. 

From West Chester/Philadelphia I began the pilgrimage to the homes of Washington, Madison and Jefferson. All three sites are held in private status of trusts, etc. because the national government never felt compelled to own them even when opportunity was offered. The prices are somewhat high ( $12 - $18/adult) , but the management of thousands of daily visitors and the often substantial reconstruction, restoration and archeological pursuits justify these prices. While the totally uninitiated may gain an overview from the tours, all will gain new, novel insights, for me it was primarily a homage to and a charism of place experience to be specifically embellished by my own internet research. My comments are not meant to detract, merely to suggest different agendas for different visitors. I hope that having seen the insides of the houses and the grounds my subsequent readings will have a stage to play out on. Again I leave detail to your own research.

Tomorrow I will pursue the last fragments of my historical quest: Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, perhaps Yorktown, VA; the beautiful small coastal Beaufort, SC and Charleston, SC. Then, to FL to visit my high school chum, Sol Schick,  not seen for almost 6 decades and my sister, Diane and husband, Chuck.  

Take care,

Scott