Our first meal in the van. We stopped for the night in Paradise Michigan at the Superior Campground at about 8pm.
Saturday 7-25-98 We left Two Harbors about 9am. Had to stop in Duluth so Lynn could drop off some
work she did the night before. Got out of Duluth about 10:30. We stopped at a rest area just
before Ironwood Mich. that over looked the Apostle Islands and had lunch.
Our first meal in the van. We stopped for the night in Paradise Michigan at the Superior Campground at about 8pm.
We cooked our first meal in the van (chicken and noodles) and did the dishes. The campground was on a sand bluff right on lake Superior and was a nice piece of property. The campground
was very run down and the shower was so gross looking, we didn’t use it. At about 4am
somebody was coughing and a baby started crying. Since we were awake and had miles to make
up, due to the late start on Saturday, we pulled down the top and left Paradise behind us
(paradise is not all it’s cracked up to be)
We stopped in Sault St. Marie, Mich. and had breakfast and gassed up before crossing
into Canada. After passing the test to enter Canada and spend our money, we headed east.
About 8am I was feeling tired and so was Lynn, so we pulled into a parking lot in a small town
and took a nap. About 9:30 I woke up much refreshed and continued on our journey. We
stopped at a rest stop by a lake on the other side of North Bay, Ont. for lunch. We put a lot of
miles behind this day going through Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec. Between Ottawa and
Montreal we started to see the bent over trees from the ice storm last winter.
We saw this to some degree all the way through New Brunswick. I cooked dinner while Lynn drove and we pulled into a rest stop to eat. Quebec is French only, we were foreigners. We pulled off the highway at about 11pm to go to a campground for the night. We got to the gates at 11:10pm; they close at 11pm and there was no one to be found. We pulled up to the next one at about midnight and it was also closed so we parked at the gate and went to sleep.
We got up about 6:30 the next morning to try to find someone to let us use the showers.
All the signs were in French and as best as we could tell no one would be around until after 9am;
so we left. We stopped by the St. Lawrence seaway and had breakfast.
About 10am we found a campground right on the route so we stopped in and paid them $5.00 Canadian to use their showers. Feeling much cleaner we headed for New Brunswick were they speak English. Stopped in Sussex, NB to get groceries, (we bought salmon for diner), and a DQ. I found out that you cannot get a rootbeer freeze at DQ’s in NB. Must be a Canadian thing. The girl waiting on us knew how to make them but wasn’t allowed to. Strange. We ended up at a campground on George’s Bay.
It was the only place that ripped us off on the exchange rate giving us 125% when it should have been 150%. Our fault for not exchanging money at a bank yet.
Got up early Tuesday and headed for Cape Breton Island. We got there about noon and
stopped in the information rest stop across the causeway. I brought in my map showing the
location of the Fox property and asked how to find it. The gal helping us picked up the phone
and tracked down Yvonne Fox and told us how to find their business. Within 1/2 an hour we
were being taken around town and out to lunch by Yvonne.
We still don’t know if we are related for sure, but we found a lot of Fox’s still living on the property. We exchanged money at a bank at the 150% rate.
Promising Lynn that we would not spend the whole vacation in libraries and cemeteries
we headed up the west coast for Inverness.
We stopped and the Inverness Beach Village and campground. All the cabins were full, so we camped. They had a beautiful sand beach and a small river that came out through it. The restaurant on the site was called the Casual Gourmet. It was very good food. That night, as the sun set, we sat on the clif above the beach and listened to a lone bagpiper on the beach below.
In the morning we shopped the stores in Inverness then headed up the coast. We stopped
in Cheticamp to have lunch in the parking lot of a whale watching tour boat. The next boat went
out in 30 minutes so we ate fast.
Did I mention it was rough, ... real rough.
When we got on board, with about 15 others, we were told that it would be a very rough ride due to the high winds and we would more than likely get soaked on the way back in. We were also told that some of us would get sea sick. We had 30 seconds to change our mind and get off. No one did. They passed out pressure point bracelets to help with the sea sickness.
We saw a lot of Pilot whales, did not get sick, ( two young girls did ), and got very soaked on the way back in. Had a very good time. We meet Lyne from Montreal on the boat, she told us of a very nice camp site just up the coast. After a complete change of cloths we headed out. After getting a park permit we checked out the campsite that Lyne recommended and found it beautiful, so we stayed the night on a cliff above the ocean. It was rather windy but nice.
It had a pebble beach and high rock cliffs around it. We have found this site to be one of the most photographed areas of the island. We sat on the beach at sunset, drank our wine coolers and looked for whales; we’ll say we saw some because nobody can say that we didn’t.
We had to drive back to the main campground to use the showers.
We stopped at one of the high cliff lookouts and had breakfast, then continued on the Cabot Trail. We stopped and the Lone Shieling. It is a reproduction of the sheepherders shelters in Scotland set in a 300 year old maple forest. Stone and thatched roof with one room for the herdsmen and one for the herd.
From there we climbed to 1500 ft. to the top of French mountain then down to sea level at
Pleasant Bay.
At most of the gift shops along the route there would be a young man playing the
bag pipes for donations. They all had signs on their instrument cases saying that they were piping
for tuition. Just outside of Ingonish on the east coast we stopped at the Screaming Eagle ski area.
They were operating the chair lift for sight seeing, so up we went. Needless to say it was a very
scenic ride. More souvenir shopping then on to the town of Braddeck on Bra D’or, a saltwater
seaway that runs through the middle of the island. We camped on the edge of the seaway and
saw ocean going ships passing in front of our campsite.
Time to start heading back. We stopped in Port Hastings to mail our postcards and get
the last few souvenirs we needed. Before we left the island we stopped at the light house were
there are about 6 gravestones. Charles J. Fox is buried there. We took pictures and a
transcription of the headstone. We stopped at the library in Mulgrave in hopes of finding more
information on the Armstrong’s from Guysbough county and possibly any Fox’s that stayed on
that side of the channel. The person we needed to see did not work that day, but we got her name
and address so we can correspond later. In the middle of nowhere on the 104 somebody set up a
toll booth and cost us $3.00. We don’t know if the government knows about it or not. We
stayed at the New River campground on Fundy Bay that night
The tides in Fundy Bay are the highest in the world due to the shape and orientation of the bay. The tide started going out about 8pm and by 10pm was 200 feet out and still going as low tide was at midnight. We walked back to our campsite in the dark and almost couldn’t find it. In the morning we had the raspberries that we had pick the evening before on our cereal.
This morning Maine, USA is only about an hour away. We stopped and ate breakfast at a
rest stop on the St. Croix River that separates the US and Canada. We stopped at the library in
Skowheagan, Me. and found Fox’s and Hilton’s in the phone book. We were told to stop at a
little snack stand between Cornville and Athens to get directions to the Hilton’s farm. Of course
we had to have some homemade wild blueberry pie as long as we were there. That was worth the
stop even if we didn’t find any family in the area. We stopped in at the Hilton’s and they directed
us to the Fox’s up on Fox Hill. I don’t think we are directly related, but I got the name and
address of his son, who has done a lot of research on the family. We head north for Canada
again, seeing many different icons for moose on the roadway. Stopped in Moose River for gas
before entering Canada again. Never did see a moose.
That night we stayed at Domaine de la Chute in Quebec. This is unlike any other
campground we have stayed at. Most have quite time after 10 or 11pm. Not this place. It was a
party village. There is a 100’ X 200’, (or 30 X 60 meter), pole building that has a live DJ under
black lights and colored strobes singing the Mackaraina, YMCA, and old Elvis tunes in French.
Many of the dancers were dress up for the event. And the beer was flowing. Very loud, very
busy, and lots of fun. Our site was next to the boucie ball courts. We watch a group playing for
awhile not knowing how the game was played or understanding a thing they were saying. When
we retired at midnight we were tired enough to fall asleep in spite of the commotion around us.
You can bet that we were pretty much the first ones up in the morning when we left around 7am.
We wanted to put a lot of miles behind us today so we could have an easy day along the
south shore of Lake Superior on our last day. We wanted to get close to Sault St. Marie and
picked the town of Spanish on the north channel of lake Huron to spend the night. As we slowed
coming into town the water pump gave out. We coasted to a stop and diagnosed the problem.
We found that the camp was only a mile away so we limped and coasted to it. Our vacation is
pretty much over now. 8pm on a Sunday night in Spanish, Ontario, we are not going to find a
water pump. Turns out we are not going to find one on Monday anywhere in Canada as it is a
Holiday and everything is closed. The people in the campground are very helpful and Cal gives
me a ride to the VW dealer in Sudbury, about 70 miles away. They don’t have one in stock,
nobody in Sudbury does. After Cal gets the parts he needs for his boat we head back. We stop in
Espanola at the NAPA parts store and they order a pump for me to be in the next morning.
Espanola is only 30 miles away and we are there at 9am the next morning. They got the wrong
pump. We go to the Car Quest store and have them order one to be delivered to Spanish the next
morning.
Wednesday evening Bob and Jinny, our neighbors, had us over for dinner and afterward
took us on a boat ride. The next morning Bob gives me a ride to town to pick up the water
pump. It is there and the right one. I pick it up at 9am and by 11am we are on the road. The van
runs great and with a tail wind most of the way we get home at about 10pm. We saw the only
rain of the whole trip off and on for about 4 hours that afternoon. It’s good to be back home.
We saw many places that could compare with the beauty of the Two Harbors area of Lake
Superior, but none that would surpass it.
We loved traveling in the van. No reservations needed for rooms or meals. There seemed
to be a brotherhood of Westfalia owners. The Vanagon owners (that’s what ours is) all waved to
us. The older VW campers owners give us the peace sign. The newer Eurovan owners don’t
always recognize that we’re related and only about 1/2 acknowledge us.
