Prince Edward Island

Our trip to PEI started with just exploring the area around the dock.  It's quite pretty and has a nice walking area near the ship.  The town is quaint in a good way, with a friendly walkability and cute shops.

After lunch (mussels) we headed out for a lighthouse tour with a drive through the countryside stopping at a couple of lighthouses.

I climbed to the top of one - long narrow, steep winding stairs like attic stairs. Great view, though.
Lighthouses tend to be on the edge of the land, and some have had to be moved to keep from crumbling into the sea.

The island consists mostly of potato and soybean farms and is quite pretty.  Somewhere there is also a fictional house with Green Gables.  But Anna and I didn't visit that.

Leaving the island we got to see the red red rock of the cliffs and beaches.

Mountain biking

A brief pause from the cruise to bring you a panorama from today's mountain biking at water dog lake park.

Sydney & the Fortress of Louisbourg

The 16th started out with another of those amazing ocean sunrises:

Today was the Fortress of Louisbourg, and all the books tell you that it can be freezing any time of year.  But it was gorgeous.  The Fortress has been rebuilt to match the era and there are a variety of costumed folks reenacting life at that time.  You get a brief intro tour and then can wander the fortress area on your own.  The first stop is... hot chocolate!  Even back in the 1700's they knew the healing powers of chocolate, and made it with cinnamon, nutmeg, and other spices, but without milk.  Really fantastic.

Lunch was also keeping with the times, and absolutely fantastic.  I had soup and basically turkey pie and they were fabulous.

We got there just in time as it was crowded with quite a wait when we finished.  After lunch Anna and I spent some time wandering around and sketching and taking pictures.  Really cool place to explore.

We got back on the bus in the early afternoon and made it back to the ship in time for afternoon tea.  Indonesian tea with cool little treats, followed by a painting session, and then a late dinner.

There was an amazing sunset that night as well.

Halifax

I love sunrise on the ocean, and on the 15th we had a lovely one.  There was a thin band of red on the horizon with the water below and the clouds above.  As the sun came up you got greater spots of color and light coming out both in the clouds and the water.  And of course you can feel the ocean below you.

As we got closer to Halifax, we were greeted by a tiny island with a lighthouse, and then we made our way to the dock.  Anna and I didn't have any specific tours planned for this stop, just a trip to the Botanic Garden and spend some time at the waterfront and maybe wander the city a little.  We struck gold, though, when we grabbed a cab across the street and the cabbie gave us a tour around - to the top of the hill to see the view, a gorgeous lake-front park, and the Titanic graveyard - along with the local viewpoint on it all.  There's actually more to the graveyard than just the Titanic graves:  It's very cool with a number of tall headstones that make you feel like you're in a giant chess set:

But it's the Titanic graves that get the most attention.

In three rows and shaped like the prow of a ship, they are numbered with the order in which the people were found.  There are several sites around Halifax (and a few in Montreal) with Titanic victims, but I believe this is the largest.  Halifax was the port closest to where the Titanic went down so it got the lion's share of survivors and victims.

After our driving tour, we had him drop us off at the botanic garden, which is quite nice.

There's a few nice statues, a pond (with a model Titanic in it) and these cool serpentine gardens with flowers in snake-like S's and succulents for the heads!  After drawing there for a while we walked down to the Maritime Museum and then along the Harbour Walk.  It was a really beautiful day and we just enjoyed the afternoon until making our way back on board.

The 15th is also Anna's birthday and we had an awesome cake (the frosting was amazing) and some presents and oh, yeah, a nice dinner.  That evening there was a performance by some local musicians of Celtic music.  The Goin's On was performing:  http://jasonmacdonald.com/  Great performers and I bought a CD.  While talking to the lead singer I asked about how they do the performances, and basically they pick him up in one port and drop him off in the next and bus him back home.  Kinda cool

Bar Harbor, or not

Well, in Bar Harbor we were supposed to take a trip to Acadia National Park.  The ship is too big to pull into harbor, so they shuttle people via the lifeboats.  The first two groups went out and then we were waiting for our group to be called and... instead were told that shore leave was cancelled.  The wind had picked up and the chop was making it a challenge to get from the ship to the lifeboat.

Anna and I of course turned this into a fine day for painting.  We planted ourselves at a window-side table in the Crow's Nest and painted the scenery as it went by.  We put the window ledge to use: It was in the sun so as we got partway done with a painting we would put it on the sunny ledge to dry and work on another painting.  We both did a number of paintings, and I was experimenting with painting styles.

After lunch we painted some more (of course - this time on the deck of the stateroom) and then went to a lecture that they were having on the Montreal World's Fair of 1967.  The guy giving it was a historian of World's Fairs and it was quite interesting (they had to build the islands that made the fairgrounds and used the dirt that they had excavated to build the underground metro system).  Then we painted some more and had a wonderful dinner and dessert.  We may not have made it to land, but we had a blast anyway!

Getting there and Boston

I'm back now, so here's some more stories and pictures now that I'm working off a computer instead of my phone.  Part I: Getting there is half the fun. (Getting your luggage is the other half.)

Cab to the airport; check bag; wait at the gate; seatbacks in front of me; passengers loading, and my favorite part - the safety demos!

It was crazy hazy as we took off - California needs rain and wind badly.  Once we got out of the haze there was some interesting scenery:

followed by a lot of boring scenery.  Then Wisconsin.  I couldn't get a direct flight, so I had a stop in Wisconsin.  No plane change, just a quick stop where we trade out passengers.  I have a theory that the leading cause of death is suburbia.

My luggage seemed to be intrigued, though, as he and 10 other bags got off the plane.  We didn't know this until we got to Boston of course, and a handful of folks were all standing around that baggage claim watching it rotate.  Turns out that everyone who flew all the way from SFO to BOS was looking for their bag.  I have a theory that a redneck suitcase was talking about beer and they all decided to party in Wisconsin.  Either that or someone accidentally pulled the bags and didn't realize it until we had left the jetway.  Southwest is pro, though, and they were like "we'll deliver it to the hotel, just tell them to expect it."  Hotels are quite used to this.

The Silver Line goes from the airport right over to the hotel, and Anna was game for a late dinner with me.  So we had a late dinner, and a quick planning session before calling it a night.

The next morning I managed to cope without a hairbrush, but it was a little windy anyway.  Her sister was joining us for lunch, and Rob and Jess were due to appear, so we went on a sketchwalk.  The area where we were staying has changed dramatically in the last handful of years.  It's gone from the Wrong Side of the Tracks to a happening area thanks to the removal of the expressway and the addition of the new convention center.

We hung out at the new park for quite some time - tables, chairs, and good sketching material!  We were quite content.  We all reconvened at lunch (including my luggage, who had returned from his wild night in Wisconsin), and Helen offered to take Rob on a grand tour while Anna and I headed out again.  Quincy Market, city scenes, a cool old graveyard, then to the water by the aquarium.

The next morning we had a few hours before getting on the boat, so we went out for some morning sketching and I got my Dunkin' Donut. :)

After getting on the Maasdam (which is much less of a zoo then the larger ships), we headed up to the Crow's Nest - a lounge with wraparound windows and the requisite bar.

4:34 pm we pulled out of Boston Harbor.  Up next: Bah Hahbor.

Towel animals

Cruises are like Disney Land in that every night, when they turn down your room, they also make a towel animal.  They range from cute to perplexing.  See if you can figure out what they all are:

And then there's my own invention - googly-eyed fruit: