On the road again – finally! After being stationery for more months than we could ever imagine, we are rolling again. Not only were we unable to travel, we have not been to a farmers market in over a year. All that changed a few weeks ago while we were staying at Paragon Casino RV Park in Marksville LA.
It will happen sooner or later, the knock on the RV and a ranger saying you have to evacuate. For us, it happened at Bayou Segnette State Park in Westwego, Louisiana. The area had received almost 10 inches of rain and the park had many areas flooded. No water had reached any RV and was not expected to rise. But out of an abundance of caution, the state decided to close the park and we had to leave immediately. Only problem, this occurred at 5pm one afternoon and all campers had to scramble to find other accommodations.
Since we are not traveling in 2020, we decided to go back to 2019 and write about our adventures in Canada. Spending July, August and September in the Maritimes and Quebec was an adventure of a lifetime for us. We began by tracing our roots in Nova Scotia then touring Prince Edward Island and New Burnswick and ended in Quebec.
When you are standing on a wharf at the water’s edge and the 90,900 ton Queen Elizabeth blows its horn, your teeth rattle. You can feel it deep in your being. So begins the excitement of Halifax harbor.
While we try to follow a chronological account of our travels, every so often we vary for different reasons. Today is one of those times and it is a milestone day. Fifty years ago, May 9, 1970, we committed our love to each other for better or worse; richer or poorer; until death do we part. Fifty years later, yes we are older yet we are also stronger in our commitment to each other. So on our 50th Wedding Anniversary we want to dedicate this blog post to Lover’s Oak in Brunswick, GA.
Continue readingOur Acadian roots drew us to the Canadian Maritimes where our ancestors were deported in 1755. Walking in the footsteps of our ancestors has been a dream of ours and after two previous attempts we finally made it to the Maritimes the summer of 2019.
Adventures are everywhere especially when you least expect one. And adventures are not always overwhelming; some happen in rural areas as you round the bend. One of our adventures on Prince Edward Island (P.E.I.) happened just that way – very unexpectedly. While on P.E.I., we wanted to see and do as much as we could. On our way to Malpeque, we could see the steeple of a church miles away. We were intrigued and had to follow the road.
Crawfish we know, Lobster not so much. Growing up, crawfish boils were a fun time for family and friends. A sack of crawfish, lots of seasoning along with corn, potatoes, onions and just about anything someone wanted to add to the pot. Get to boiling and the party began! So what about lobster? Several times we had lobster in Maine, yet we did not develop a taste for it. We know, add lots of butter. So when we found ourselves on Prince Edward Island (PEI) at the beginning of lobster season, we were ready to give it another try.
“You have to go see Hopewell Rocks” was the mantra from friends who knew we were in the Canadian Maritimes. As we travel, people will tell us “you have to go there, you have to see that, etc”. These places and things may or may not be on our route or things we are even interested in. So as we traveled the Maritimes “Walking in the Footsteps of Our Ancestors”, people kept always telling us what to do and see. Since our mission was to trace our ancestors, other things and places were secondary. One of these places was Hopewell Rocks and we wanted to see the rocks yet the time was never right.
Although our ancestors never returned to their beloved Acadie, many Acadians were able to return and begin life anew. Their farmlands which had been tamed and cultivated over generations were now the property of English farmers. The Acadians were given the less fertile land near the coast. Once again these Acadians tamed the land, planted crops and many became fishermen. The living history museum of Le Village Historique Acadien provides a vignette of what life was like for Acadians of the region in the early 1900s.
