The Long and Winding Road

The Beatles sang the song and we traveled the road today.  It was most definitely long and winding.  The big blue tour bus picked us up at 8:00AM this morning for a trip on the Cabot Trail, 187 miles (I was misinformed yesterday) of long and winding road, after we drove an hour and a half to the jump off point.  The morning was gray, foggy, and cool and didn’t improve until some time after lunch.  Bev, our onboard tour guide, spent the morning describing beautiful scenery that we could have seen had it not been so foggy.  That’s how it would be for at least the first half of the trek. 

Our first stop was a museum for facemasks worn on a holiday during Lent.  I suppose they would be something similar to Mardi gras masks but I don’t really know because the museum was closed when we arrived.  They knew we were coming but apparently decided to sleep in.  It was a small museum out in Podunk and it would have probably made their day (or week) had they not been closed.  After stretching our legs and grabbing a cup of coffee at a café next door we got back on the bus and continued the foggy tour.  Our next stop was at a gift shop, which was also out in the middle of nowhere.  They did have free Wi-Fi, which gave me an opportunity to check my email.  Once everyone was ready we hit the road again, still unable to see very much of anything.   Next on the itinerary was an old Catholic church, built (I believe) in 1795.  It was quite large, capable of seating a couple of thousand people.  The first priest was buried in the basement.  I’m not Catholic so that seemed a little weird to me.  After a walk-through and some photos we were back on the bus and headed for lunch at a restaurant in Cheticamp.  Carol Ann and I some pretty good fish and chips.

After lunch we were on the road again.  We stopped at a couple of scenic overlooks as we drove over the mountains.  Bev described what we should be seeing and we squinted into the fog and let our imagination run wild.  We did actually see something on that leg of the tour.  A moose!  Finally, after almost six weeks in Canada I saw one.  And not too long afterwards we saw another one!  I pointed the camera and shot through the bus window and, similar to the whale photos, I have photographic evidence that there are at least two moose in Canada but the photos are not very sharp.

We stopped at another museum.  It was a hooked rug museum (yawn).  I didn’t spend much time inside but they did have free Wi-Fi so I checked my email again before we left.

After the hooked rug museum the bus stopped for a while at the Keltic Lodge where we got some ice cream and walked around a bit taking photos.  By this time the fog was gone and the sun had come out.  As we were leaving the lodge we saw another bull moose, standing in the water.   Unfortunately, the bus driver didn’t see him in time to slow down so we had no chance at a photo.  That made three moose in one day.

There were no more stops before we arrived back at the RV park at 6:30PM.  We had been about three hundred miles in ten and a half hours for stops at a facemask museum (that was closed), a gift shop, a church, a hooked rug museum (that also had a gift shop), a restaurant, a couple of foggy overlooks, and a lodge for ice cream.  It was a bit tiring to say the least.

Tomorrow is a free day and I will probably visit the Alexander Graham Bell museum, which is located about 20 miles from the RV park.