Bus Tour--Part 1

   We have traveled to various states and countries during our 52-year marriage and have been to the places we most wanted to go. We thought it would be nice to see the Maritime Provinces "sometime." This summer I saw an ad for a bus tour that appealed to me. I was in good shape, able to walk two miles in 45 minutes so it seemed like a good time to go. We certainly weren't going to get younger.
Unfortunately, the week before departure I got a kink in my back. Our tickets were fully paid and I was too tight and stubborn to cancel. I bought a new bottle of Tylenol and walked with a cane. We left on September 24 and by the time we returned October 5 I had improved enough to put the cane away. We enjoyed the trip and are glad we didn't cancel.

Tuesday, Sept. 24--We boarded our Melard Coach bus at Ephrata at 6:30 a.m. With the tour leader and his wife and the bus driver and his wife, the bus was loaded with 52 Amish, Mennonite, and Brethren people plus two non-Mennonite ladies. The first day was all driving to reach our motel at Bangor, Maine. This is the bus we rode and our tour group.

Wednesday, Sept. 25--Our first sightseeing stop was Acadia National Park. A guide came on the bus to tell us what we were seeing which made it more interesting. Two of the highlights were Thunder Hole and the view overlooking Bar Harbor. Thunder Hole is a narrow gap in the rocks where the tide rushes in and "thunders" as the water splashes up. Bar Harbor is a touristy town. Notice the cruise ship on the right in the harbor.

We ate lunch at the West Street Cafe while half of our group went out in a lobster boat. When they came back, our half went out for two hours and learned about lobsters and lobster fishing. They brought up some traps and showed us the two crabs and five lobsters they had caught. They've got mean-looking claws, strong enough to break your finger.

Thursday, Sept. 26--We crossed the border into the Canadian Province of New Brunswick. The western end is miles and miles of bush but the eastern end flattens out into farm land. Our first stop was at Hartland Bridge, the longest covered bridge in existence at 1,282 feet. There is a footpath along the side but it was too far to walk the whole way across and back again.

Next we saw a small cranberry farm and learned about growing cranberries. It took several years for the farmer to get the permits, prepare and plant the flat beds. Then it was a couple more years until the bog was in full production. The low bushes can live and produce 100 years, so what's a few years to get it going. See the red berries in there?

 A cranberry bog must be level so the farmer moved a lot of ground to make a flat level place to plant cranberry bushes. The banks on both sides show how much it was dug down.

Friday, Sept. 27--This morning we crossed the 8-mile long Confederate Bridge that connects New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island.

Prince Edward Island (PEI) is known for the potatoes raised there so when we stopped at the welcome center we were each given a bag of potato chips. The big tourist attraction on PEI is Anne of Green Gables. I took advantage of the opportunity to dress as Anne.

First we went to see the Bottle Houses, which in my opinion were not that great but there were nice gardens. The walls are made of concrete and empty bottles with the flat bottoms on the outside and the rest inside the house. They were not made for anyone to live in them.

   I was chomping at the bit for our next stop, the Anne of Green Gables house. 

Anne of Green Gables is a 1908 novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery (published as L.M. Montgomery). Written for all ages, it has been considered a classic children's novel since the mid-twentieth century. Set in the late 19th century, the novel recounts the adventures of Anne Shirley, an 11-year-old orphan girl, who is mistakenly sent to two middle-aged siblings, Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, who had originally intended to adopt a boy to help them on their farm in the fictional town of Avonlea on Prince Edward Island. The novel recounts how Anne makes her way through life with the Cuthberts, in school, and within the town.

Since its publication, Anne of Green Gables has sold more than 50 million copies and has been translated into at least 36 languages. (Wikipedia)

   Those on the tour who have not read the books couldn't appreciate it as much as the rest of us. The time we had there was not long enough for me. Anne was a fictitious character but L. M. Montgomery brought her to life. She used this house at Cavendish, where she often spent time with her relatives who lived there, as the setting for her books about Anne. This is the front and back of the house with the barn in the background.

                           

 I walked through the house and took a picture of every room. Below are a few of them. The house has been furnished as much as possible as it was described in the books.

Anne's room

 Matthew's room

 Marilla's room

Steps go down from the front of the house to a bridge across the creek that opens into the path through the "Haunted Wood."

We ended the day with a lobster supper at the Fisherman's Wharf. Leroy and I each got one of these critters. Neither of us ever had a whole lobster so we didn't really know what we were doing but we managed to get some meat out of them. I just didn't look him in the eye while I ate him. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, too expensive to do again but was included in the tour price.

to be continued