Summer Finally Arrived And News From Finland

It started to really warm up yesterday afternoon and when I stepped outside at 6:15a this morning the air was like we had been transported right into August. Our apple trees are finally in full bloom, we just hope that the bees have been notified about it and start doing their job. Also this morning my inbox contained an email from Finland. The journalist from Savon Sanomat had located and found my girl friend of 44 years ago. Laila has been married for over 40 years herself and is working as a self-employed accountant in the very same town where she grew up. Liisa, her twin sister, is working at the tax office in town. They still own the rural property at lake Syväri where we visited back in 1969.  As soon there is an opportunity, maybe next year, I will board a plane to Finland and pay a visit. And now I have to hurry outside again. One just never knows how long this gorgeous weather is gonna last. Thanks for stopping by!

SUNSHINE On My Pillow, Makes Me Happy

Since yesterday the sun is shining over Campobello Island. Makes Peter a happy camper.  Taking advantage of the nice weather I went about putting the lettering on our Dodge Van. Stepping back I think the phone number got big enough or what do you think? I even clambered up on top of the roof and painted the escape hatch. The plastic had yellowed so much that it wasn’t looking good. We spent the evening chatting with a group of media reps sent over by Tourism New Brunswick. These people are gonna help us market the island on an International scope. Organizing a few Fam-Tours from St.Andrews is our next big task.  The boat is about ready to hit the cold waters of the Bay of Fundy. But it still needs to receive certification from the Coast Guard before it can be put into commercial traffic. It will have a capacity of 12 passengers and will go back and forth between the Island and St.Andrews. While the good weather “was on”, I decided to take a few pictures of the van in different island locations. I also got some time to read a few blogs today. The one which really caught my interest today was “Jimbo’s Journeys”. Jim is underway in Canada with a bunch of Lazy Daze owners. Yesterday I has been visiting the town of Banff in the Banff National Park. Unfortunately he is experiencing some cold and wet weather in the mountains. The National Parks of Banff and Jasper have been our destinations many times when we lived in Alberta. These two bordering parks are interconnected  through the Icefield Parkway, a 240km  stretch of unsurpassed natural beauty. Two of the biggest natural attractions along that road are the Columbia Icefield and Peyto Lake. We always used to stop there. Hopefully the Alberta weather will get better so Jim and his friends can really enjoy the area. Thanks for stopping by!

Sentimental Old Man

When you are getting older you are prone to discover things with yourself you never knew existed. And sometimes these realizations are coming upon you in the most unexpected ways. For me, yesterday was such a day.  I had a premonition that I should call a friend in Alberta. There has been a 4 months or so of silence between us. That’s kind of unusual. Either I picked up the phone or she did – it never took several months between the calls. So here I’m dialing her number but instead of the ringing on the other end I hear a voice telling me that the line is no longer in use. That startled me. Knowing her, she is the most phone-connected person in the world. I could never sit with her without the phone ringing, interrupting our conversation.    And now there was no phone anymore! I became very concerned. What had happened? Could we find out? How about calling neighbours or friends? We finally decided that we would call one of our former neighbours from the other side of the lake. She would know. So we found that number and called. But she didn’t know what had happened, hadn’t been in contact for a long time. My worries were growing. ”But did you hear about your former house?” she continued. No, I hadn’t. ”They burned it down”  “They what???” When we sold our large property in Alberta it came with an old house from 1936. It was OUR house we lived in for 5 years. It was the house we had put so much work into, had put on a new roof, built an addition, put in new floors. AND NOW THEY HAD BURNED IT DOWN. The new owner of the property wanted to build a new fancy house by the lake. I didn’t know what to say – was totally shocked. I could not comprehend that someone would do such a thing. Burn down an old house. Old houses to me are like old people. Again and again I saw flames shooting through the roof until the structure finally gave in and collapsed in a heap. They probably removed the old standing jack pines as well. Those were the trees I mentioned just recently, one of those being transformed into a pelican with my chain saw. My former neighbour and I agreed that we would call around to find out about our common friend and her phone. She gave me another number to someone else and promised to let me know if she heard something. When I called the number she had given me, I was informed that my friend was well and nothing bad had happened. A rock rolled off my heart. Her phone wasn’t in use as she simply could not afford to pay the bills anymore. That’s when it came to me. Here was a person who could not even pay for a basic phone service, and just a few miles down the road some rich oil man had burned down our house because it wasn’t fancy enough for him. I was tremendously saddened. My friend without a phone and our old house had been burned down. Bea said she didn’t know I was that sentimental. Maybe I am a sentimental old fool, But last night I woke up at 4am and couldn’t find more sleep. I have renovated old houses all my life. Except for the house in Alberta they are all lived in by people who enjoy an old house. But I guess if there is too much easy oil money around people can’t understand and appreciate.

1-2-3-4-5-6 Six Days Of Rain

That can turn Peter into an irritable fellow. In fact, I don’t want to see it anymore. I would like to draw the curtains close hop into bed and sleep until the sun pops out again, if it ever does.  This is indeed the longest rainy period we have experienced out here since we moved to Campobello. I’m ready to leave for Arizona anytime.   But my desperation resulted in me finally getting around to do the mudding on my drywall in the front entrance room. Believe me, it was a pure outbreak of occupational therapy as I normally would have avoided drywall work as long as possible. This room has been standing like this….wait was it 1 year…or 2? Anyways, I got that error message when I was looking for summer on the internet. Ouch!

Leaving North America

No! WE are not leaving! We will NEVER leave again. We found our home and lots of friends on this continent. But we met a German couple, “Reinhold and Jenny” from the beautiful town of Dinkelsbuehl.       Main Street Dinkelsbuehl  We met them in Holtville California, and they came visiting with us a few weeks ago. I can now reveal their real names: They are Reinhard and Jutta Schmidt. They are currently in Halifax and from there they will be shipping their German Motor Home back to Germany. After 12 months on the road meeting great people all the way enjoying this great continent with its shores, mountains and deserts, they are now ready to leaving North America. Their baggage is full of memories which will last to the end of their days. After living the free life of an RVer they must now adjust to life back in their home town. Friends and relatives will come visiting them and they will have so much to tell….  Will they be back on North American roads?  They were talking about Alaska. The beautiful north is tempting. It has been tempting me my entire life. That’s how I ended up in Norway…and later in Canada. I have seen Alaska too – in winter. I have seen the start of the famous Iditarod sled dog race on 4th Avenue in Achorage. It’s a long time ago. But I think back to it all the time, like I also think back to the days of when we went to Finland. I have got some news about Finland too. I received an email from Finnish journalist. Janne Niiranen. She had seen my posting on the Savon Sanomat facebook page and wants to write a story about it. Maybe she will find my friend Laila. Yesterday I send her pictures from those days. I also found Laila’s letters upstairs. Reading those letters again made me laugh and cry. They are so full of a young girl’s dreams of future hopes and current achievements. It’s 44 years ago. We are at the same age. Where is she? It’s Saturday again and early yet. It’s still raining. Quite unusual that it rains 4-5 days in a row out here. We’ve had it now. Before I go and have a second cup of coffee I will give you Jutta’s (alias Jenny’s) poem about their North-American journey. Have fun! AMERICA by Jutta Schmidt We were travelling with our German car, through fast ganz America. We met people - friendly all, we found friends - wie wundervoll. Deep blue lakes und große Berge, trees so high, wir waren Zwerge. Yellowstone and so viel mehr, we saw Büffel, Hirsch und Bär. We loved the desert zur Winterzeit, Saguaros weit und breit. We had good luck at any time, wollten lange Zeit nicht heim. At last, the visit bei Bea and Peter, thank you for all! May be wir kommen wieder   We will sure be waiting for you Reinhard and Jutta!

Happy Days Are Here Again…

I’m more than happy to announce that our website “www.Islanddiscoverytours.com” is fully operable and alive on the net. The big break-through happened yesterday evening. I don’t really know from where I got the energy to a renewed attempt to make it happen. I’d had a long, long day in the resort town of St.Andrews presenting our discovery tours to all the decision makers, shakers and players in the tourism industry. We have been received like long-lost friends and everybody just loves the new boat connection including sightseeing tours to this beautiful island. And best of all: The rumors of us coming to town with a new product had reached the industry way ahead of us. Everybody was just so excited. And after I got home, I sat down working more on the upload of our website and surely I must have pushed the right button, because all-of-a-sudden our webpage appeared on the screen. What a joyous moment! Today I have to go get the graphics for our Dodge van. Unfortunately it is raining again so we’ll have to wait with putting it on. Thanks to Joe and Betty at joeandbetty.blogspot.com who offered help by sending us a link to their son’s webpage www.mpcomputertech.com It was very much appreciated! Thanks for stopping by!

Stressful Times

While it is still cold I am holding out in my IKEA recliner trying to solve a problem that has been with us over the last few weeks. When we developed our new tourism product “Island Discovery Tours” we also hired a web designer to make up a site for profiling and sales. She worked up a site which was graphically pleasing, but confusing to use for potential customers. She registered the site and received access information. When we demanded changes to the website to make it more usable she walked out on us abandoning the work and never gave out access information, which left us out in the dark. We could not access our own website, had login and no ways to do the necessary changes. After many attempts to contact her I lost my patience and called the registrar of the domain. I supplied them with IDs for company and ownership and they changed access information. But the battle wasn’t over. The website was hosted in a different place. I contacted the hosting company in Utah, but they could not help me. Our former webdesigner had several domaines registered in the same account and by that reason we could not gain access to the account.  I decided to make up a new hosting account at the registering company. After that was done I had to upload the revised website and get the name servers changed ….and much to my frustration the website still showed under the old hosting company’s name. So I called the new host and learned that it takes up to 48hrs. until a new site has “propagated” through the World-Wide-Web. So, if we are exceptionally lucky, we might see our new site coming up on www.islanddiscoverytours.com  in a day or two. Under all this I had to deal with a less than adequate internet connection from Bell Aliant. Oh yes, I received a call from corporate where a lady whom I could hardly hear, talked about that she would “bring on” our problems, but whether I meanwhile would accept $15.00 of the monthly bill??? It ain’t gonna make the problem go away, and I feel it is an insult to the entire island. I think a lot more action maybe involving our government is required. Reading other blogs I realize that problems exist also other places. We were quite astounded to find “RV-SUE’s” blog has been taken off the net by the provider. And Al and kelly over at the Bayfield Bunch are struggling with medical problems. Makes my problems seem tiny and insubstantial. Hope you guys getting better soon. Thanks for reading my rant of the day!

The Old Tree

This morning I read a special posting in a special blog. The blog is named Dave and Susie’s Musings. Their last posting speaks of Timber being destroyed by storms. That brought me to a special experience we had in Alberta. I will tell you about an old tree we had. It was the time when we lived on a very large property in Alberta, Canada. We lived in an old house from 1936. It had a roof of asphalt shingles. A couple of large Jack Pines were standing close to the house. They had survived a huge forest fire around 1910. We were always afraid a lightning would lit up these trees which invariably would lead to burning down our house. One year we came back from California. It was in April. One of the old Jack Pines had been attacked by a tree porcupine which had stripped off bark all around the tree. We could already see that the tree was dying. A month later I started my chainsaw. There was no other way with it, the tree had to come down. When it fell our eyes filled with tears. It was a very emotional moment. This tree had probably seen Indians moving around and just how many bears had used it to scratch their backs? After surviving the major forest fire, it now had become a fire hazard itself. I started to cut up the huge trunk. When I got to the really big lower parts I had an idea. maybe we could use this for something other than firewood? I had always had the idea of carving something with a chainsaw. So I made these chunks of the lower end fairly large. After we had cleared all the debris away I started the chainsaw again and carved a 3ft. tall pelican of it. It was painted white, and I left the beak in natural wood. It was beautiful. Why I made a pelican? Because every summer we had a small group of pelicans on the lake. You see the pelican in the picture to the left. We put it where it belonged in the most natural way – on top of the root of the Jack Pine from where it guarded the property. There was enough wood to carve several pelicans. One of them was purchased by someone in Ontario. It ended up in his garden. We have again fought our way through an impossible internet connection with Bell-Aliant. With the long weekend nearly over I hope and expect some reaction to my Bell-Canada letter the coming days. We are also back to the normal cold AND rainy weather. And the news is it’s gonna last for several days into the next week. YOU have a great week and thanks again for visiting!

A Sunday In May

Usually I am up around 6am, but today I held out until close to 7am. Molly, sleeping beside of me on her own floor bed had started to make a few noises. A sure sign that she needs to get outside. So here we go again. A fresh cold breeze outside, call Molly back from the lawn, make some coffee and start looking up emails and blogs. Today I made the breakfast European style with boiled eggs and a crusty roll for each of us, some cheese and jam.   Slowly it’s sinking in to my mind: It’s Sunday! Yeah, the sun is out, but it is pretty cold. Wind’s blowing out of the east-south-east. Coming right off the cold waters of the Gulf of Maine. Is it ever going to warm up? After breakfast I take Molly out for a real walk. Down the street I meet a neighbour with HIS Yorky-dog. We have a chat like man-to man. I talk about my bout with the RBC-Bank. And he states that they basically refuses to deal with them. Must be quite the place – really! I also had an email yesterday saying that my email to the President and CEO of Bell Canada was read. But so far no reaction. Guess he is in his roomy cabin by the lake and must mull it over first. After all Canada has its Victoria weekend now. Give him some time into the next week.     Since it is pretty cold outside I go upstairs and throw myself into a battle with going through some old stuff in our storage room. There is a need to throw things out, if we are ever going to make something of this room. I find papers from 10+ years back in time. All the old stuff is piled up high, but since I can’t just throw it into the dumpster I decide to burn it outside in our fire pit. That keeps me busy for a while. And it is a lot warmer by the fire. :-) After lunch we went for a drive in the Red Lady. Took Bea and Molly down to the southern part of the Roosevelt Park. There is a small winding path along the coast. A few places it offers a view across “The Narrows”. The International bridge comes into view, and one gets really close to “The Sparkplug”.  The soft light green path is a pure pleasure to walk along. Small wooden bridges cover wet areas. Out here one can find really big old shade-giving trees. Too bad that so few people get to discover these parts of the island.    Back at home we could enjoy a piece of “Peter’s Apple Cake” of course with real whipped cream!  Thanks for this hike, Nature!!

The Story Of The Little Foxes And A Trip To Town

Several weeks ago I saw a big fox running right underneath our kitchen window. It turned out it was mother Fox being busy with finding food for her kids. At the time we neither knew that she was a mother nor where she had her den. But neighbours had seen the mother fox and possibly the father too in a decrepit barn down the road from us. The barn was just a ruin as a tree had fallen across the roof during the last winter.   About 10 days ago we heard shots from the woods bordering our property. Shortly after, Bea came back from meeting a neighbour and told me that someone had shot the parents of the little foxes. We just couldn’t believe that someone would do such a horrible thing. We still don’t know who the shooter was, but we saw two little foxes looking quite forlorn into this harsh world.   Meanwhile there are at least 2 people feeding the fox babies with hamburger and cut-up sausages. They have adjusted and every evening they are sitting and playing around the old barn. We feel so sorry for the two foxes but are glad that they look to survive the loss of their parents.   On a much happier note I went to St.Stephen today to get our Florida-van registered and RIV-inspected. First stop was at Canadian (Crappy) Tire where an employee took care of all the papers and stamped them. Afterwards we went outside where he checked the VIN-number and all the weight figures.   It was all over after 20 minutes – pretty straight forward procedure and yet absolutely unnecessary as all this has already been done at customs. Next stop was at an auto glass shop where I wanted to get a small window on the passenger side of the van replaced. It was a plexi-glass window and the sun in Florida had pretty much destroyed the plexi to a blind piece of plastic. I couldn’t even see the outside mirror through it. They suggested to replace the plexi with a piece of real auto glass. So “Tom” started by removing an inside cover underneath the window. Next thing he pulled out was a steel base and finally the piece of plexi came out. It was about 10x18 inch. A piece of auto glass was found and placed on a table. Tom followed a procedure I have never seen before. After a glass cutter was used on both sides the area was sprayed with a liquid which Tom ignited with a lighter. I saw a flame creep along the cut and before I knew it Tom had the cut-off in his hand. After all the cuts were made he went to a band sander and sanded the edges and the round top. Back at the van he then inserted the new window glass from beneath – and made a face. The piece didn’t fit. What neither Tom nor anybody else had realized was that the glass was curved. The straight piece simply wouldn’t fit in. Tom went to his boss and a decision was made to use Lexan – plexi instead of auto glass.  Lexan is UV stabilized and has a certain flexibility to follow a curved profile. This time the piece was cut out with a jigsaw. Another careful sanding of the edges followed and after another 30 minutes I had a new clear window on the passenger side. Taking out the old pane Tom had discovered some rust on the metal frame of the glass. He scraped off loose rust and applied a rust converting primer. I was impressed how professional this guy went about his work but was curious about how much i would have to pay for all this. By this time I had been traipsing around the shop for close to 2 hours. When it was time to pay the bill it was just $124 bucks for the material and one hour of labour. Not a bad deal at all. But I had 2 other errands on my list. First I needed the New Brunswick license plates from “Service New Brunswick”.  Normally this office is so busy that one has to calculate a lot of waiting time. Not so today. It was almost empty and I didn’t even got my butt into a chair when my number appeared on the screen. I dumped all the papers and stamped forms on her counter and 400 Dollars later I had my registration and license plates. The 400 Dollars are also containing 8% provincial sales tax which New Brunswick is asking for EVERY time a vehicle is changing ownership. I had previously paid the federal part 5% GST (Goods and service tax) at the time of importation.   From Florida……………………………………………to New Brunswick Now I had only one more errand left. I was thinking of establishing a business bank account at the RBC, the Royal Bank of Canada.  After entering the bank I was standing around at the information counter, but the lady there seemed to be very busy with something else. There was no other customer around but nobody made any attempt to step up and ask how they could help me. Finally after about 5 minutes a lady came up from behind one of the teller counters to inquire about my business being there. I told her my errand and she asked whether I had an appointment which I had not. I replied by asking her whether that was needed, which she confirmed. Yet she went to the rear of the offices but came back with that professional “I’m sorry-look” in her face. Nobody was available to take on a new customer for establishing a business account. All I got was a business card with a number to call. Let me just say that I NEVER EVER will walk into that bank again. I’m certainly not spending another  three hours on the road to see an arrogant bank officer, If it is not possible to walk into a bank and get a bank account without a prior appointment they do not deserve to have customers at all. On my way out of town I had to wait more than 30 minutes to get across the border. The Americans have currently closed a 2 border crossing west of St.Stephen so more traffic is going across the bridge between St.Stephen and Calais. In fact, the traffic line-up went all the way through Water Street. It was slow going, but I finally got trough. For our American neighbours: EU=French for Etat Unis      Our Head Harbour Lightstation is welcoming visitors to New Brunswick     Thanks for visiting!

We Have A Lousy Internet Connection

Writing a blog usually requires a speedy internet connection, especially so if we want to insert a few pictures to spice up the story with.  Ever since we moved to the island we have experienced harsh times with our phone provider “BELL ALIANT”.  The problem is that our internet connection starts getting slow after 3:00p and comes to a real crawl during the evening hours. We have tried to talk to the company about this and all we get are excuses about low bandwith on the island. Asked whether they intend to do something about this, they tell us that it is too expensive and in any case will take a lot of time. There are days we cannot make a posting during the evening. All we CAN do is get up darn early in the morning and use the time for doing our postings. All the time we have been dealing with this, the company asks us to pay the full price, even though the speed is not better than old-fashioned dial-up. I am sure that one can get a better HIGH SPEED internet connection in many parts of “third world” countries. But in Canada nobody cares. Whenever we choose to pay with our bank card at the post, customs office or the local grocery store there is a lengthy wait for the dial-up connection to start working. YES, these terminals have a dial-up connection! Maybe it’s time we take a trip to see the CEO of this hapless non-caring company!

Rooted In The Music

I was born in 1952. Music was something my young parents indulged in whenever they could in their leisure time. I listened to musicals, opera and strict classical music. My mother played the Grand Piano when we got one. Later, in school I was “drafted” for the choir. I guess I must have had a voice worth enough to be heard. When my parents bought a new radio I got the old one. It had a “green Magic eye”. When that green light was glowing it meant that the radio would be “warmed up” and ready to play. Being the traveler I later turned out to be, I loved to scroll down the many international stations. The radio was an AM, FM and Short- and Long-wave version. FM had the best reception, but AM had all the International stations painted on the glass panel. We listened to stations from Russia (without understanding a word) Bulgaria, Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium. From time to time the sound would fade out into a screech, or another station would suddenly interfere. We turned the knob and scrolled farther down. We had to do that very slowly, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to tune in to the stations.                        A non-modified sunset as seen from our house tonight   Of course, sometimes we would be so lucky to hit on a real nice station playing the hits of the time. It was just about 15 years after the war and the station’s DJs loved to play American music. So for the time being we forgot about opera, operettas and classical music. It was the time of great hits being launched. We sat glued to the radio. We had no TV to be glued to. This love of music continued through the sixties and seventies. I could sit and picture myself living in America. I day-dreamed about a different life. I forgot to mingle with my comrades. They had other interests. While they played soccer I listened to music. To this day, I can all of a sudden pick up an old melody and whistle along. Sometimes I think I am still a hippy. That is in spite the fact that I never was one. Today I can “see” hippies when I’m listening to the music of the late sixties and early seventies. Transporting my mind back to those days, I’m seriously saddened that I can’t turn back the time. WE WERE HAPPY in those days. We were FULL OF IDEAS and PLANS. Like I said many of those were just daydreams. But aren’t our dreams giving us direction? Don’t we run our lives after our dreams?  I ended up in North America. I ended up where the music in my youth came from. My roots are in the music of those days.

Our Pets

Dear Reader and Pet Owner. You’re gonna love this: The following was found posted very low on a refrigerator door. Dear Dogs and Cats: The dishes on the floor with the paw prints are yours and contain your food. The other dishes are mine and contain my food. Placing a paw print in the middle of my plate does not mean that it is suddenly your food, nor do I find that aesthetically pleasing in the slightest. The stairway was not designed by NASCAR and is not a racetrack. Racing me to the top of the stairs is not the object. Tripping me doesn't help because I fall faster than you can run. I cannot buy anything bigger than a king sized bed. I am very sorry about this. Do not think I will continue sleeping on the couch to ensure your comfort. Dogs and cats can actually curl up in a ball when they sleep. It is not necessary to sleep perpendicular to each other, stretched out to the fullest extent possible. I also know that sticking tails straight out and having tongues hanging out on the other end to maximize space that you are taking up, is nothing but sarcasm. For the last time, there is no secret exit from the bathroom! If, by some miracle, I beat you there and manage to get the door shut, it is not necessary to claw, whine, meow, and try to turn the knob or get your paw under the edge in an attempt to open the door. I must exit through the same door I entered. Also, I have been using the bathroom for years - canine/feline attendance is not required. The proper order for kissing is: Kiss me first, and then go smell the other dog or cat's butt. I cannot stress this enough. Finally, in fairness, dear pets, I have posted the following message on the front door: TO ALL NON-PET OWNERS WHO VISIT AND COMPLAIN (1) They live here....you don't. (2) If you don't want hair on your clothes, stay off the furniture. That’s why they call it "fur"niture. (3) I like my pets a whole lot better than I like most people! (4) To you, they are animals. To me, they are adopted sons/daughters who are short, hairy, walk on all fours and don't speak clearly. Remember, dogs and cats are better than kids because they: 1) eat less, 2) don't ask for money all the time, 3) are easier to train, 4) normally come when called, 5) never ask to drive the car, 6) don't hang out with drug-using people; 7) don't smoke or drink, 8) don't want to wear your clothes, 9) don't have to buy the latest fashions, 10) don't need a gazillion dollars for college and 11) if they get pregnant, you can sell their children.

A Rainy Sunday

There wasn’t much going on today. The day started out grey and rainy and that’s how it stayed all day. Reinhold and Jenny had decided to start on their last leg north before they are going to drop off their motor home at Halifax harbour for the RORO shipping back to Germany. Reinhold told us that they have to get their propane tank rinsed INSIDE.  The very same shipping line also works from Baltimore but there is no “rinsing” necessary there. CANADA on it’s best again. And of course, the cleaning operation runs up a bill of 100 bucks. Speaking of bills and bucks: I asked Reinhold about the price of a propane cylinder. For a German propane cylinder containing 11kg (25LBS) he had to fork over 350 Euros!!!!  That’ll be about $420.00, not including the fill.  I think we better stop complaining about pricing in this country. So, around noon our friends were ready to head out. We were waving Good Bye from our porch asking ourselves will we ever see these nice folks again? Today was also Mother’s Day. And I have spend a lot of thought about my mom who left this world in January 2012. I still have a hard time to understand the fact that she won’t be picking up the phone anymore when I’m calling. Bea’s brother invited their mother out for coffee to a nice Cafe in Germany. Bea called the Cafe owner who she knows quite well, asking her to give Bea’s greetings when her mom would arrive. But the Cafe owner lady did much more. Sundays are always busy in a German Cafe and there was a chance that they wouldn’t have gotten a table. But with the call from Canada, she went ahead and put a RESERVED sign on one of the tables. When Bea’s mom arrived with her son, she was greatly surprised by being directed to the reserved table. And, indeed, it was the only one being available. All the other guests had a great time with that as well. This goes to show once more that the little things often mean more to us than a costly present.

A Great Day With Friends

Our friends and fellow travelers Reinhold and Jenny had arrived on Thursday with their beautiful German Motorhome. We moved our vehicles around and made room for them in our driveway. Initially, we had met them in Holtville, California, before they continued their 1-year journey through North America getting all the way to southern Florida. They had lots to tell, so the evening flew by as we seated ourselves in our living room. Friday started with fog, which isn’t all that unusual out here. We had a slight southern wind hitting the cold air over the Bay of Fundy, and that means fog. Looking out into the fog At 11.00 Bea and I went to the Grand Opening of the local village mart. No we didn’t go for any “deals” but to see who had come and how it all went down. Our local Coop has been through a difficult time, as it has been threatened with being put down. But a miracle happened. A new owner couple popped up from the west, and they have done a lot of work to revive the local grocery store. Even the Provincial Government has stepped up to the plate and helped out where it was needed. So for the grand opening the local MLA, our mayor and representatives from Coop Atlantic addressed the public, praising the work this new owner couple has done. Afterward there was a great reception with food for everyone. When we got back the fog was about to lift off and we decided to take our friends Reinhold and Jenny from Germany for a sightseeing tour, an excellent opportunity for me to get “the feel” for a new season.        View towards Cobscook Bay   Liberty point was still a bit foggy, but when we got over to Mulholland Lighthouse we had a clear view to the west. One of the nicest viewpoints from the island is Friars Head. Reinhold and Jenny just marveled over the enormous view over to Eastport and far across the Passamaquoddy Bay. We took a break at home for coffee and ice cream, before we continued our sightseeing program to the north of the island to hike over to the Head Harbour Lightstation. It was low tide at 5.00p and there was plenty of time to explore this jewel of the coast. At Head Harbour Lightstation The day concluded with a great rib-eye steak dinner and strawberry dessert. It is sure fun to hang out with friends enjoying this beautiful island. Thanks for stopping by!