Last Stop

Wednesday, April 1st saw us visiting our daughter Joanne, son-in-law Charlie and grandson Ben who live in Dartmouth. Ben will be 2 years old on May 30th and the rambunctious little fellow was putting on quite a show for his grandparents! The Tortola family also dropped by to welcome us home. Faye’s mother Ruby and sisters Connie, Beatrice and Ella were happy to see us on Thursday in Windsor where they were regaled with tales of our journey.
On Friday morning we hitched onto the RV which we had left parked behind the Irving Big Stop in Aulac, N.B. then headed across the Confederation Bridge, arriving home in Souris West in mid afternoon.
Since leaving on November 15/2008 we traveled 28,342 kilometers through 6 provinces, 2 territories, and 26 states. We left Calgary on January 25th towing the 24 ft. Fun Finder travel trailer heading straight south crossing the border into Montana. We were pleased that the trusty V-6 Dakota with tow haul transmission with cooler was equal to the task.
For security reasons and other comforts such as electricity, water, wireless, cable, and sewer, etc. we chose to stay in RV parks rather than dry camp in farmer’s fields, side roads or places such as Wal-Mart. We became members of KOA, Passport America, Good Sam, and Reserve America and were able to recover most of the fees through the discount. We found the State Parks excellent with KOA a close second. The RV parks gave us the opportunity to meet people and make acquaintances from many parts of North America. It was amazing how many of these people knew about PEI and Anne of Green Gables and wished they could visit. We became personal friends with a number of them with promises to visit here on PEI. In addition we always passed on The Communities of Eastern Kings website www.ekpei.ca (note the link to Souris Wildlife) run by Waldron Lead from Kingsboro, so these people could witness firsthand the beauty of our part of the Island.
This “once in a lifetime trip” was a truly worthwhile experience. We saw awesome landscapes, attended events local to whatever community we were in, met wonderful people, and learned a great deal about the history, culture, and lifestyles along the way.

End of road……. Thanks for keeping up with us.

Shenandoah Valley and Heading Home

After leaving the KOA near Lexington, Virginia we headed up the valley on I-81 to do some sightseeing. Our first stop was the Frontier Culture Museum. The concept behind this place is to show the lives of the early pioneers from Europe & Africa before and after their arrival in America. Farm homes, their furnishings and buildings in England [dated 1690], Ireland [early1700s], and Germany [early1700s] were taken apart, shipped to the museum site and reassembled. People in period costume were cooking and doing their chores in the manner back before life overseas before immigration to America. The last stop demonstrated an example of early American pioneer homesteading in Northern Virginia starting about 1780 to 1840 and the changes during that period. Three pioneer homes show the homes, furnishings and buildings.
We then booked into an RV site called Cosy Acres close to the Luray Caverns in the middle of the Shenandoah Valley. Next morning we toured the Luray Caverns, an amazing experience walking 1.25 miles underground through stalactites and stalagmite pillars which took millions of years to develop. Next door to the caverns was an old car and carriage museum, numerous extremely well preserved vehicles starting in 1903.
We managed to finish this tour before heading north towards home making our way to the I-95 bypassing Boston and sleeping two nights at rest stops in New Hampshire and Maine.
We stopped in Fredericton for a Monday night stay with Paul’s brother Joe. Some time during the night Julie returned from her trip to Las Vegas and gave us a good breakfast. Tuesday night we stayed with friends George and Donna in Onslow Mt. outside Truro. We were happy to also see their son, Robbie, his wife Janet, and their baby daughter Georgia. We had a great evening looking at their western trip photos, DVDs on Janet & Robbie’s hike, and ended with cowboy/retired farmer George singing & playing guitar.
After a delicious breakfast, Wednesday took us to Dartmouth to see Joanne & Charlie and our handsome dark haired grandson, Ben who loves to roughhouse with Grampie Paul. He’ll be two on May 30th and a real joy. Our redheaded grandson in Whitehorse just turned three and we just received the birthday pictures. He loves guitar music and his cake looked like a guitar. We look forward to the summer when all our family will be together on PEI.

Later…..