September 16 til ???--Cape Breton

Well, we were shooting for the 11:15 a.m. ferry from PEI to Caribou, Nova Scotia. We took out time getting up, having breakfast, packing up, and getting the bike loaded. We were on the road and to the ferry site at Woods Island by 9 a.m. and in line for the 9:30 ferry.

A fellow came up and talked with us about our camper. He had a similar motorcycle camper but pulled it behind his truck. He was from New Brunswick, and spent the summer on PEI working for his son who does something with electrical mosquito abatement. We laughed about how the mosquitoes in NB actually ATE DEET and it seemed like they were on steroids after sucking it up. The DEET did nothing to keep the mosquitoes away from us in NB.

Well, finally the ferry started loading, and we were in line for the 45 degree vertical climb up to the upper deck (my knuckles were certainly white, and Steve should have been feeling my claw marks). But at the last minute they waved us to the lower deck with the Big Rigs!!! Whew!

After a 90 minute ride during which we had a great American breakfast complete with fried eggs and sausages, we landed in Caribou and headed east to Cape Breton Island. Just gorgeous!! But the colors haven’t turned much up here yet, either. We stopped at the Glenora Distillery, and were going to do their tour, but it was getting late, and we decided to go to the next town and settle in and come back tomorrow. We were directed to the McLeod Campsite about 20 kilometers away by several people. When we finally got there and turned on the gravel road, we were very skeptical. The gravel road was potholed and a bit rough, and then you had to go down a slight hill on gravel to the campsite office, about 1 mile off the main highway. However, it is fabulous! We are staying at least two nights, and maybe another one.

The reason the road was so bad is that it is a county road and apparently two weeks ago one of the remnants of a hurricane (Hannah, I think) arrived over the McLeod campsite and stayed for several days, dumping 30 inches of water on a very centralized 25 mile square area. It washed away two of the trailers that were camping in the campground. The owner apologized for the road conditions, but it seems he is still trying to get his campground back together after this storm. He also told us that the wind we had in PEI the last two days was the remnants of Hurricane Ike, so you can imagine the winds Steve drove through on PEI.

I’ll upload photos later. Tomorrow we are doing laundry and then going back to the Glenora Distillery for a tour and tasting.