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Downeast Maine
The Maine coast from Acadia National Park to the Canadian border is called “Downeast Maine”, abbreviated from the direction sailors would travel “downwind” and “east” from elsewhere in New England. Besides the super busy area of Acadia NP near Bar Harbor, this part of Maine is a hidden gem. After our beeline through the Maritimes, we stopped at Sunset Point RV Park in Lubec, ME for the workweek. The park delivered on their sunset promise. I think our rear widows are our favorite part of the Brinkley. We wanted to see a couple of lighthouses in the area. The West Quoddy Head Lighthouse is the easternmost point in the US.…
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Historic & Colorful St. John’s, NL
St. John’s, the capital of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador (and yes, both doggos are from there), is Canada’s oldest and easternmost city. Roughly 1/3 of the province’s 500K population live in St. John’s and it felt completely different than the small communities we’d been visiting. It was extra busy while we were there because they were hosting families from all over Canada for the Canada Games, which are for the country’s top high school athletes. Wildfires weren’t on our Newfoundland bingo card, but we had plenty in St. John’s. We’d planned to boondock on the Avalon Peninsula, but the wildfire I mentioned before continued to grow so we…
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Terra Nova National Park & the Bonavista Peninsula, NL
We left Fogo Island on a Friday morning so that we could spend a weekend at Terra Nova National Park. Terra Nova is an old growth boreal forest so we didn’t think Dishy would work well enough to spend the workweek there. The Newman Sound campground has full hookup sites with potable water, a rarity in Newfoundland campgrounds. We must have been tired at this point, because we got completely set up in site 244 when we realized we were supposed to be in site 243 and had to move. That was a first. We hiked the Ochre Hill trail on Saturday. Terra Nova doesn’t get nearly as much attention…
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Island Hopping: Twillingate & Fogo, NL
From Gros Morne on the west coast we had a big move over to the Twillingate Islands, connected by short bridges and causeways off the north coast of Newfoundland. Twillingate is part of NL’s Iceberg Alley and calls itself the iceberg capital of the world. When we planned the timing of this trip, we prioritized having good weather instead of seeing icebergs, and while we are enjoying all the hiking we’re able to do in good weather, we are also having some major iceberg FOMO so we may have to come back one day. We boondocked at an abandoned campground at Sleepy Cove, on the northern tip of North Twillingate…
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Gros Morne National Park, NL
I used to think the Appalachian mountain range ended in Maine. But no, we just spent 2 weeks in the Appalachian mountains of Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland! We spent the first week in Shallow Bay, the northernmost campground in the park, which put us in a good position for a day trip up to L’Anse aux Meadows. Newfoundland is 1.5 hours ahead of Eastern Time which means Michael is working from 9:30-6:30 local time. Shallow Bay was perfect because the campground had miles of beach that we could walk every morning before work! We took a boat tour of Western Brook Pond, which is a inland freshwater fjord.…
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We’re in Newfoundland: Vikings & Icebergs!
Last summer we were trying to figure out how we were supposed to go back to normal life after Alaska. What other trip would require a similar amount of planning, be as challenging, but also be as amazing? We came up with Newfoundland! And so far, it’s delivering. To get to Newfoundland, we took an ~8 hour overnight ferry from North Syndey, Nova Scotia to Port aux Basques, on Newfoundand’s west coast. We booked a pet friendly cabin so we could bring the Cody kitty with us. I think our ferry crossing would have been much more fun had Cody not been sick in the days leading up to it.…
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Cape Breton, Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia has two sections, the mainland attached to New Brunswick, and Cape Breton, an island just off the northeast side. Cape Breton is easily reachable by a short causeway but seems like a completely different world. It’s known for its Celtic culture and music and the natural beauty of its highlands that reminded Scottish and Irish immigrants of home. The Cabot Trail, a 185 mile scenic drive, loops through the mountains, along the coast, and in and out of Cape Breton Highlands National Park. We had read that the most beautiful parts of the Cabot Trail were the northwestern and northern sections so we chose the Chéticamp campground as…
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Family Trip to Prince Edward Island & Nova Scotia
Continuing our vacation week with Michael’s parents, we left Bar Harbor early for our 385 mile, plus a border crossing, beeline to Prince Edward Island. It was a long day but the windshield views were great and we made it without any issues. PEI is connected to the mainland Nova Scotia by the 8-mile Confederation Bridge that only opened in 1997. It is the longest bridge in the world that spans an ice covered body of water. As soon as you get to the island the landscape turns to peaceful rolling hills of farmland. As we made our way to Cavendish on the north central coast, we said “Hey, this…
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Leaving Alaska: Fairbanks to Wisconsin
We spent our last workweek in Alaska in the Pioneer Park parking lot in Fairbanks. It was not the most scenic spot but the price was right and there was access to the Chena Riverwalk and everything we needed to prepare for our long drive south. We were surprised by how fast the weather was changing. We had seen termination dust (the first snowfall) on August 11th in the mountains near Denali. It was so cold we were running our furnace during the day. Fireweed is Alaska’s summer calendar as the blooms move up the stems. And we finally understood the saying “When the fireweed turns to cotton, summer is…
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Alaska Bound: British Columbia & Yukon
We crossed into British Columbia on the 1st weekend of May. BC has chain laws from Oct 1 – April 30, so we started our trip north through Canada as early as we could. There are plenty of worthy stops and side trips along the way, but because we wanted to maximize our time in Alaska, we spent most of our weekends behind the wheel. The first day of our drive took us through the Fraser and Thompson River Canyons. We stopped at the Dugan Lake Recreation site for the night. Then continued driving through small First Nation and logging towns of central BC to our first workweek destination of…
