Update Fall 2013 - Milton to Texas

 

 

 

We started our next trip by leaving Milton, Ontario where we spent the summer just relaxing and living, so no big adventures after we came back from down east – Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, great trip.

 

The park we are staying at is close to the city (Mississauga and family) and is one of the few open all year round in Ontario. Nice setting, good sites, a few pictures attached for fall as we know it. 

 

We had our friends John and Judy and brother Jim and Mary out in September for the long weekend.  it was great as J & J were newbies to RV`ing and am pleased they really enjoyed it.  We may have more winter travellers soon!!

 

 

 

 

 

After these were taken, it just kept getting colder and we decided to leave on December 19^th after doing Christmas with our kids and grandkids.

 

We headed south through Windsor and did a long drive down right to Louisville, Ky and just stayed overnight as we really, REALLY, don’t like the cold any more (such wooses)

 

After Louisville, we drove straight through to Little Rock, AK and again just stayed overnight and no sightseeing, would have like to go to the Bill Clinton museum but did not, as again a long day.

 

Houston

We stayed in Houston as this is one of the places I really wanted to see as I actually remember James Lovell’s statement “Hey Houston, we have had a problem here” and I wanted to get the Houston space centre.  We did the tour around the Center with stops at the Space Center, saw the area where mock-up of where the moon walk was, and actually can remember where I was at the time.  A little side note, when the actual moon walk was on, in July we were at our cottage on Cotnam’s Island outside of Pembroke, Ontario, Canada and I remember my Mom saying – “Wow once they get out there, they see Heaven”  then of course she realized what she said, but is that not what all of us where really thinking? The people at the Space Center really get it.

We went to Mission Control because that is the main place I wanted to get (me the Geek...) and they took us to the Mission Control Center that was set up for the Mars program.  It is state of the art and they are doing all of the work to get it set up.  They will not get there until 2035 and when the guide was telling us this, we had Goosebumps just thinking about what we were hearing – WOW.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are a few pictures of the spaces center – rockets, mission control, and space center logo.

 

 

Old mission control center set up

New mission control set up

 

                                                                               Star Trek shuttlecraft

 

Actual footage from Space station

 

 

Rockets

 

 

 

There is an area where they have planted trees for astronauts that have passed away, the last one was by natural causes, the newest ones were for the 7 from the Challenger

 

 

San Antonio

We finally did do a stop for a while in San Antonio – still cold but at least in the day time 50F/10C so we did go down to the Alamo and the River Walk.  We went down on Thanksgiving Day as the people at the park told us everything was open, but unfortunately, they were not.  The Alamo was open so that was a bonus as it was not really busy so we could go through the whole thing without any congestion but the Market Square was not. There was a Mexican restaurant that is open  year round Mi Tierra  that we tried and was really good, probably would not have stopped there if other restaurants were open, so that was a bonus – it is a bakery, café and restaurant, quite a few locals and really big.

Very historical area, I did not realize it would be right in the downtown area and surrounded by high rises and stores.  I t hought it would be similar to the National/Federal parks we have at home as in Louisburg or Fort Henri where it would be on the outskirts. We only have a few pictures as there are not pictures allowed in the actual Alamo long buildings or the shrine. The history is really amazing as to what happened at the Alamo and not being American, there were parts of the story as in names of people like David (Davy) Crocket and Jim Bowie (sic) that were only names in movies when I was growing up; I really did not know that these were real people at the time. 

 

 

                                       Entrance to the Alamo

Fountain on grounds

150 year old tree, was planted as a live tree at the time, they actually have some of its branches propped up

Christmas Tree

 

We went for a walk down the River Walk area, everything was closed, so it was very empty and nothing really to see as people watching and watching activities in the area is the best part.

 

From here we headed down to Corpus Christie TX and the weather was finally warm so we set up at an RV park Sea Breeze RV Resort in Portland, Tx and went to do some sightseeing but  unfortunately they have a lot of construction happening and we just kept wandering around and finally found a nice restaurant on the water so stopped and had a drink and lunch and enjoyed the weather and the water.

 

 

 

Some of the residents

 

 

View from the bay

Desert and water, really neat to see.       

 

 

Since the cold weather kept chasing us all the way, we decided to head to our winter home ahead of time as there was supposed to be even more cold weather coming.

 

We arrived at our park, Tropic Winds RV Resort in Harlingen, Tx Wednesday, December 4^th and it was in the 80’s and we sat out and caught up with friends then went out to dinner. Thursday temperature was the same and we went to get some pickle ball lessons at 6:30 at night and it was still in the high 70’s.  Woke up this morning and it was only 40 and we have wind chill warnings and possible freezing for the next few days, we are as far south in Texas as we can be without being in Mexico. This weather is nothing like we had our first year of travelling, this past month has been really challenging.  I know it is better than snow and sleet, but so far Florida has had better weather consistently, may need to look at that again.

 

Well we are set up here, will be doing some checking out of the area and things to do in the next few days and getting settle in down here.  The park seems to have quite a few activities so once we do get settled, will check out what we want to get into.

 

We apparently have a quite a few jack rabbits (we saw at least 8 on lot beside us when we arrived) but also coyotes as well so will need to keep an eye open from them as well

 

 

 

 

                                            

Cornerbrook Nfld

Snow removal attachment

 

 

 

We did a trip down to Cornerbrook as needed a few supplies we could not get in park area.  This is where most people in the area do their major shopping as there is just about every big box store you could want around.  We stopped at a small railway museum and had a tour.  It had the original narrow gauge trains as they were smaller and easier to maneuver. They also needed to remove snow from tracks so this machine was attached at the front of the train, but was on its own system, no facilities.  The fellows working in this had to be awake the whole time and watching the tracks, very stressful job at the time.  The locals called the train, the “Newfie bullet”, it wasn’t very fast, but it stopped wherever anyone wanted it to. Unfortunately, they did not match up with any other trains that CN had running elsewhere across the country.  The last passenger train in Newfoundland was in 1969 and last freight was in 1988.  It has all been replaced by truck traffic.

We have always joked that all RV Parks are near working railway lines, this is the place we have ever staid that this is not the case!

 

South Gros Morne Park Newfoundland

 
We did another drive around the south end of Gros Morne towards the Tablelands and this section is very barren and is where the plates have shifted on the island and moved the mountains up, pictures not close enough but you can actually see where the land was on its side as it turned into the mountain. On the other side of the mountain, it is all green and bog and trees.  This is an amazing island.
 

Tableland - rugged

Other side

 

Driving into a cloud

Snow caps on mountains

I wish my geology was much better, there is so much information, and we can only take in so much!  Drove through a cloud or two as well which is always kind of neat, back home we call it ‘fog”.  There is a Discovery Centre in this section of the park that is totally amazing; if you ever get to the island and head up through Gros Morne, you have to take this in.



The day we were there was July 1^st and could not figure out why so many people dressed up.  They were having a citizenship swearing in at this location, MP’S, Mounties, Veteran’s – it was really an amazing process they were doing for these new Canadians.  We left before actual ceremony as we had an agenda but glad to see this happening across our great land.

Farewell Newfoundland

 

From here we set off to get ready to get on to ferry and leave Newfoundland.

This was a beautiful province, scenery was amazing, and people were great. We are really glad we did this trip.  As I mentioned before, if you are contemplating this province, give yourself lots of time.  As there is only the Trans Canada Hwy to go from east to west, you can be doubling back over same territory a lot but do go to the different “loops” that all head up to the ocean at some point, if you hit water, turn around and go back or swim!!!

If I were to recommend any thing if you were pulling an RV, take ferry in on one side of the island and leave the other – Argentia (east side) or Port aux Basques (west side).  The Argentia trip is longer on ferry (12-14) hours, but book a berth and make it a mini cruise.  We did berth coming over on shorter ferry (5-7 hours) as we travelled at night since we were going to friends place in middle of province to stay for a while which was great.

So farewell Newfoundland…..

and our one and only moose!!!

 

Nova Scotia - Lunenburg

Nova Scotia

When we were down east when we first got our rig (2006) we went to PEI, NB and did Cape Breton Island but not the rest of Nova Scotia so decided to spend some time here.

We stayed in an RV Park in North Sydney (Arms of Gold) that was quite nice and right near the ferry (we stopped here on way down as well). The owner told us about the anniversary of Lunenburg, so we decided to do a day trip while we were here.

 

 

Lunenburg   

This year was the 300^th anniversary of Lunenburg. You drive to the park area for your tickets and then a shuttle drives you out to the actual Fortress location.  As we were entering, there was a French “soldier” questioning people as to why they wanted in; since the family in front of us was French, he was questioning them in French and was telling them that they had to be careful of “English” spies trying to get in. (Remember this was a French fortress) He then asked about rest of people, if French or English, I responded “un petit peu” (a little bit) and was accused of spying and to be careful if they let me in.  Couple behind us piped up, “thanks, we may never get in” – all good fun.

The have rebuilt some buildings and you can go through the, others are just maintained to the minimum so that they can be seen from outside.  One of the ones inside was the home of a commanding officer and had people telling of them having several servants, cooks, gardeners, etc. 

 

 

 

At noon they have a ceremonial shooting of the cannon on the grounds accompanied by drum corps and riflemen.  The cannon, if it had actual ammunition, would go a couple of miles but may or may not hit anything – not accurate but pretty explosive.  The worst part is the soldiers that were in charge were more likely to be hurt or killed than the enemy!

 

Drummers and pipers

 

Ready, aim

 

FIRE

Load

 

Fire

As this is part of Parks Canada, we used our discovery passes again; these were definitely worth the price we paid and can be used until next June across Canada.

Nova Scotia - Halifax/ Peggy's Cove

 

We moved to an RV park outside of Truro for a few days to do some touring around Halifax.

 

The day we went was a drizzly day, so we walked the boardwalk down the pier to where the cruise ships come in and over by the boats and tours. Saw a few cute ships while we were here.

 

Bridge to Halifax

 

HMS Sackville, last of the Corvettes

 

Tall ship Sylvan

 

Theodore Too - tug contender

 

From there, we went to Peggy’s cove because everyone said you have to.  I will probably be charged with heresy by some of you, but I thought it was very commercial and not as interesting as a lot of other areas we have been in the Maritimes and looking at lighthouses and area.  There were several tour buses there so I guess these tours are offered by the cruise lines and if you had never seen any bays or lighthouses before, this would have been a great one to see, but there is no tour in it nor any write up of any kind on the actual lighthouse.  (I am a bit of a lighthouse nerd you may have guessed – love seeing them and climbing when we can)

Peggy's Cove lighthouse

Peggy's Cove from the other side

Town of Peggy's Cove - all tourist centers

Constant searching for whales

 

This is one of the cases of doing the touristy things that was just ok.