PEI Continued....

Murray Harbor, Prince Edward Island

On Tuesday, the weather was a bit better.  Steve, George and I hit the Confederation Trail with the bikes for a 29 km ride to the Belfast Mini Mill.  Lynn drove the car with her bike and met us there.  There, she was enthralled with the washing, carding and spinning machines where they processed not only wool, but fibers from lots of different animals including poodle, golden retriever, alpaca and muskox.  It was fun to watch her expressions.

After lunch, we unloaded her bike, loaded mine and I drove home while they biked back.  Unfortunately, during that time, the rain had started and the trail got very soft.  The trail is not paved, so the biking was a bit slower and they were covered with the red mud of the islands when they finally pulled into the house.  Thank goodness we have a washing machine here!

Wednesday dawned with a clear blue sky!  Yeah!  After breakfast we took a short bicycle ride around our little town.  It is really very lovely when the sun is out.  It was lovely with the clouds, too, really.

We tried to score some fresh seafood, but learned that there wasn't any to be had, but that they served a wonderful lobster supper in nearby Cardigan.  So with that in mind, we made a plan for the day.






George and Steven took off on the bicycles for Panmure Island.  Lynn and I followed in the car and met them there.  There was a great sandy beach area with life guards and a snack shack.  Lynn and I walked the beach nearly to the lighthouse that was there, while we waited for the guys to show up.  We laid out on the beach, and swam in the surf.  It was a lovely day!






We drove to Cardigan for our second lobster dinner of the trip.  Starting with a wonderful seafood chowder, salad, famous PEI Muscles, the lobster with a PEI baked potato, and topped off with a brownie with ice cream with dessert.  It was wonderful.










On our way home, we passed the Buffalolands Provincial Park.  Amazingly enough, the buffalo were out this evening, so we stopped to take pictures, of course.  Not sure why they are here, but they were interesting, nonetheless.

Another good day on PEI.

Prince Edward Island (PEI)

From Alma, we made our way toward PEI.  Just before we crossed the bridge from New Brunswick to PEI, we stopped at a visitors center at Cape Jourimain.  The Confederation Bridge was opened in 1997.  Before then a ferry was the only way to get to the island.

We stopped at the visitors center on the other side to pick up maps and other information about cultural events.  I even was able to get a bird checklist.  Unfortunately, it is in French.

In Charlottetown, we found a bank to exchange some money, lunch, and groceries.  We had reserved bicycles for the week and a bike rack to cart them around with.  Unfortunately, the rental car has either plastic or fiberglass body parts, so neither we nor the bike rental company was comfortable using it.  So, we arranged to have them delivered to the house in Murray Harbour.  For a fee, of course.




Murray Harbor is in the southeastern part of the island and about 60 km from Charlottetown.  It is a small little village.  The 100 year-old red house is a lovingly kept, 3 bedroom, 2 bath house.  The back porch has a view of the harbor.  Unfortunately, I don't know if I will be able to enjoy it much.  The mosquitos here love me like all mosquitos do.  I've got repellent, so we'll see how much use I'll be able to get out of it.





This morning, we took a short bicycle ride (about
17 km) around the country roads.  There are hills, but not the kind that make me dread riding the bike  on.  The bikes we rented have good gear ratios, so getting up them is no problem, and going down and on flats, the high gears can really help to pick up speed.





We cycled out to the Cape Bear Lighthouse.  The light house now houses a little museum and gift shop.  The Marconi wireless telegraph station that was built there in 1905, was the first to pick up the SOS distress call from the sinking Titanic in 1907.  The Marconi station is no longer there, but they have made a lovely little picnic area were we took a short break before heading back to the house.

That was our first outing on PEI.  We will be here all week.  Something that I am very much looking forward to.  Touring around with the bikes, and relaxing at the house.  Vacation!

Culturally, I am looking forward to the ceilidhs.  These are community gathering involving folk music and dancing.  They have them every night somewhere on the island.  There are at least three of them in our neck of the island this week.  We will be going to at least one of them.

The next day's weather forecast showed rain on our side of the island, so we packed the car and headed west.  Stopped in Charlottetown again for lunch, then on to the College of Piping and Celtic Performance Arts in Summerside.  Stayed for their mini concert where they came out and spoke to the four disciplines they teach: Piping, drumming, island dancing and step dancing.  It was informative and enjoyable.

On our way home we stopped and got fresh muscles, clams and fish for dinner that night.  Lynn & Steve cooked up a seafood pasta dinner that couldn't be beat!

New Brunswick

The drive to Canada was long, scenic, and the day was beautiful.  We drove along Highway 1, then cut across at highway 191 to meet up with highway 9 to cross the boarder at Calis.  The boarder crossing was uneventful, and I spied a bald eagle soaring as we neared the checkpoint.

Driving up highway 1 in New Brunswick, we stopped in St. John for dinner.  Turning off the major highway onto the minor highway 114 toward Alma, the poorly paved road became a gravel road.  So, not only was there the road to really pay attention to, we had the possibility of moose crossing the road. Unfortunately, we were driving along this just at sundown when these animals are usually on the move.   Luckily, no moose were sighted.

We arrived at Barb's B&B north of Alma, New Brunswick around 10pm  In the morning, the four huge windows we saw nothing out of when we arrived gave a spectacular view of the marsh that gave way to the bay of Fundy.  The owners, Rick & Barb, served us a wonderful breakfast while providing a font of information about the area.  After consulting with them and the tide tables, we made the decision to spend the day at the Hopewell Rocks.

This bay has the worlds largest tidal changes which we experienced it up close and personal.  Low tide was a 0.0 ft tide around 9am, so we headed out to the Hopewell Rocks about half way through low tide.  There we walked on the “ocean bottom” around the bases of the Flowerpot Rocks.  These are rock formations of glacially deposited conglomerate and sandstone that have eroded due to the tidal shifts in a way that has made them separated from the mainland.  Kind of like our stacks off the Oregon coast.  They were pretty impressive, especially after we saw them during high tide at 44 ft.

The left picture was at low tide (0.0ft).  The center picture is of me at the base of the arch in the left picture.  The right picture was at high tide that same day (44ft).  Amazing.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon at Barb & Rick’s.  I used the time to write about our adventures.  We went into the nearest town of Alma and ordered take out from the local diner.  The seafood chowder was wonderful.

The next day we packed it all up into the car and headed for Prince Edward Island (PEI).  

And the Vacation Begins

I spent four intense days at the National Congress on Science Education in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  Along with my colleague, Susan, we discussed opportunities and challenges in science education with our colleagues around the country.  And, believe me there are plenty.  With the Next Generation Science Standards out and likely to be adopted by many of the states, we see an opportunity to further the cause of science education.  We also attended workshops related to running our organization.  We have many ideas and resources to work with now.

But now it’s time for my summer vacation to begin.  I flew from San Juan to Boston to meet up with George and our friends, Lynn & Steven.  We traveled to South America with them on our last big adventure in 2006.  This year, the adventure started in Bucks Harbor, Maine, and continues into New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and ends in Quebec, Canada.

From Boston, we drove to Belfast, Maine, where we spent the night.  The next morning, after provisioning up, we boarded at 38 foot, double-masted, wooden sailboat called Cygnet.  Captain Steve briefed us all on the features of our home for the next four days.  We motored out to the Eggamogin Reach, then set sails.  After about 20 minutes of sailing, the wind died.  Bummer, we motored on and set anchor near the end of the reach in the lee of Torrey Island for the night.

 

 In the morning, it was raining.  But, after breakfast, we hauled anchor, and set out for Stonington.  It was raining, but that’s what rain gear is for.  But wait, there’s more…no where in the guide books did it say anything about the thousands of lobster pots out in the cruising grounds.  I guess we should have known….Maine….lobsters.  Ok, so George stood on the foredeck directing whoever was steering the boat through the lobster pot buoys.  If only that was the only little snag….  Once the rain stopped, the fog rolled in.  Thankfully, we had trusty Captain Steve and the charts along with the GPS navigation system on board to get us to Stonington. 

Once there, we tied up at what we thought was a public dock, but was, in fact, a private one.  And if that weren’t bad enough, the owner of the slip showed up and asked us to move.  We moved the boat forward, and after talking with the owner, he took some pity on us and said we could use his mooring ball in the harbor and gave us a small bag of crab claws.  Unfortunately, it was still pretty foggy, and we couldn’t really figure out where the ball actually was, so we made our way (still in the fog) to Billings Marine were we rented a spot in their marina for the night.

We walked into town and had a twin, soft-shelled lobster dinner.  There, after dodging the obstacle course of the lobster pots, we were able to take some revenge by eating some of them.  Great dinner!

The next morning, it was still foggy.  However, for brief moments, it would clear up, and we could actually see the surroundings.  By about 11am, we decided to make our way to Vinalhaven Island, which was across Penobscot Bay from where we were.  With a carefully plotted course made by Captain Steve, the GPS navigation system running, into the fog we went.  It was pretty eerie, but we finally made it out and when we got closer to Vinalhaven, it cleared up.  We even set sail and had some fun sailing and admiring some of larger sailing vessels sailing around us. 

That lasted all of about an hour until we saw the clouds amassing.  We decided to make our way to Pulpit Cove where we would spend the night.  After a couple of passes, we finally set anchor (or so we thought) between two other boats for the night. Although we felt the anchor set, Captain Steve worried about the placement and about the length of the anchor chain; was it enough?  So, he briefed us on what we should do in the event that the anchor slipped and prepared the deck for that scenario. 

Thankfully he did, because during the night the wind really picked up, and even though the cove was protected on three sides, the wind came directly from the entrance and broke our anchor hold and we drifted almost into one of the boats we were next to.  Luckily, both Steve and someone from the other boat were on deck when they almost collided.  Steve called us up on deck and we were able to keep the boats apart, while he started up the motor, George and Lynn hauled up the anchor, and we made our way to a mooring ball not far away.  On the third attempt, we were able to hook it and secure the boat to it.

In the morning, we had a visit with the owner of the other boat.  Luckily, we were able to keep the boats apart and there was no major damage to his boat.  We had some scrapes on the gunnel of the boat that we thought were a result of the incident.  But, when we returned the boat the next day, it turns out that that was damage from a previous charter. 

It was a beautiful morning, and our last on the boat.  So, shortly after breakfast, we motored out on our way back to Bucks Harbor, but with the intent to get some actual sailing in.  We set sail and sailed around for about an hour.  It was glorious.  And, as an added bonus, very few lobster pots to avoid.

At Bucks Harbor, we de-boarded Cygnet, took showers, packed the rented car, and headed toward Canada we went.

Next stop: New Brunswick, and the Bay of Fundy!

End of the school year does not necessarily mean vacation

So, the school year ended, and my summer "vacation" has started.  Anyone who knows me knows that for the past couple of years, the summer has meant planning for the next school year.  This year is not much different.

I'm the Local area coordinator for the NSTA Portland Area Conference.  That event is happening in October, and I spent the first weekend working with my committee to get some strings tied up and sent on to NSTA so they could complete the conference webpage.

I was also called to Jury duty the first two days of my "vacation."  I was selected for a criminal case the first day, but spent most of the time in the jury room waiting while there were some negotiations going on.  In the end, the defendant plead out and we were sent back to the jury pool shortly before lunch.  As the lunch break neared, they called a list of names to report back that day.  I was not on that list and was dismissed for the day.  I had completed my jury duty.

My colleagues Susan (l) and Moe (r)

But wait! There's more!  On Wednesday of that first week, I traveled with my long-time friend and colleague, Moe, to the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators Annual Princpals conference in Seaside.  There, we staffed the OSTA booth, handing out information and talking to administrators about the Next Generation Science Standards that will be adopted by Oregon by the end of the year.  I also gave a session along with my President-Elect, Susan, which was well attended.  I was very proud to represent and advocate for Oregon's science teachers.

Coming back from the conference, I then started in on completing the first advanced chemistry unit materials in order to take them in to the print shop to ensure they would be ready for the beginning of school.  There is nothing more irritating to me than standing in front of a copy machine.  It has to be the biggest waste of my time.  So I do everything I can to be able to get it out to the people who are there to do it for me.  Monday it was in!

I had the opportunity to represent and advocate for Oregon's science teachers again at the STEAM forum hosted by Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici.  She is on the Science, Space, and Technology committee in congress and is the lead for their STEAM Caucus.  I'm not sure what will come of this, but I was honored to have been invited, and made a point to let them know to call on OSTA if we can be of service to them regarding science education in Oregon.

After that meeting, I high-tailed it out to the beach to be with George and our friends, Lynn & Steve.  It was nice to have some fun that was not related to work.  We will be vacationing with Lynn & Steve starting July 21 when we all arrive in Boston.

My next opportunity to represent Oregon's Science teachers will be at the National Congress on Science Education July 17-20 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  During that time, I will be working with my President-elect on OSTA business and networking with our colleagues from all over the US and Canada.

After that, the real vacation begins, with my sweetie, when we meet up in Boston.  Stay tuned...