This is a river of unknown name near Lake Placid - just chanced upon by the road.
Where we found this little crayfish.
In 2005 we drove out to Anapolis Royal to attend the CanIron conference where DARC was presenting an iron smelt. Overall a very enjoyable trip hitting a number of provinces. It is a little hard reconstructing all of the details but we did want to add a trip page for this trip too. Feel free to ask us questions - Karen is kitten@golden.net and Neil is neil@treheima.ca.
Oh, this is the life! Laptop and an internet connection in a
hotel and blogging on the road. It was a long drive, but once
we hit the USA, the scenery was so
interesting. Both human and natural. We crossed into the US ont he
St.Lawrence Islands Park and headed across Route 3 with a plan of
driving through
the Adirondacks, White Mountains, Green Mountains, to Maine,
and
across the Bay of Fundy to Annapolis Royal.
Route 3 is a fascinating contrast in poverty and wealth. Mobile homes
that aren't so mobile anymore next door to century old houses. So many
not-so mobile homes...
The speed limits are different, even after the conversation from
miles/per to kilometres/per. The common limits are 30, 45, and 55
miles/per. This translates to 50, 70 and 90 k/per. In Canada, the
common speed limits are 50, 60, and 80 k/per. Not that anyone drives
the limit in either country 'though. But driving over the limit in a
familiar area is a little different
then driving over the limit in a foreign country. I kept expecting a
friendly State trooper to leap out from behind a bush somewhere.And
driving 90 k/per in these twisting mountain roads - fun! Even if it
does take too much attention away from the scenery at times. Fudge,
handwoven baskets, leather artisans and blacksmiths - oh my!
Yes, we did manage to get through the cat and dog departures even if
Ginger did try her hardest to guilt Karen out when we left her at the
Cat
Hospital for boarding.
There's a pool at the Holiday Inn in Lake Placid - an important feature
in choosing a hotel - but we were too tired to use it. Just curled up
in front of the tv and computer. Maybe in the morning.
You would think Karen would sleep in
on vacation. Neil did. But Karen found the bed too hard and the
room too hot and missed her waterbed. A 7am blog covered the 28th.
Day 2 started off fantastic. We had all this great scenery in
and
around Lake Placid. Mountains and water - two of Karen's favourite
natural
architectural features.
This is a river of unknown name near Lake Placid - just chanced upon by
the road.
Where we found this little crayfish.
And then there was the ferry crossing from Port Kent to Burlington -
invigorating! I
kept trying to hide behind Neil from the water crashing over the front
of the ferry and he kept laughing at me. He was really in his element.
Neil and Karen (who regrets what the wind has done to her hair but
bravely posts the pic anyway)...watch the sights on the way over.
But then the drive just got longer and longer and longer, until we
finally crashed - an hour earlier then planned. By the time we were
checked in, Karen was too exhausted to blog.
We
crossed back into Canada around noon, and immediately around the corner
in St. Stephens, we sat down to the quintessinal Canadian lunch - at a
Tim Horton's. Just across the street from Tim's, there was The Chocolate Museum.
"Presenting the story of brothers James and Gilbert Ganong, whose
candy-making company built in the late 1800s continues today, the
Museum offers hands-on exhibits, interactive computer displays that
explain how chocolate and candies are currently made, collections of
historic chocolate boxes and antique candy-making equipment." Samples
were part of the tour. Delicious! There was an obligatory
Chocolatier store out front, of course. Karen
didn't spend a cent. And if you believe that.... ;)
Then we moved on to St.Andrews where the Huntsman Marine Science
Centre is located. We weren't allowed to take pictures at the
Chocolate Museum but Karen got a few at the Science Centre.The seals were delightful. Chelsey, Buddy and Aurora are a small
family. When the tourist season ends in two days, the young Aurora will
either be moved to another Aquarium or introduced to the wild.
Aurora:
Buddy:
Chelsey:
Buddy was a ham, showing off his swimming abilities...
...and lunging for the food.
A few other folks made the pics as well, but as you can no doubt tell,
Buddy stole the show. :)
I leave you for a few days in the care of a few more friends
from the Aquarium.
Sunstar
A small Ray of some sort...
Crab (again of unknown variety)
Flounder
We took the
ferry from Saint John to Digby, a 3 hour cruise. It was a delightfully
short drive from Digby to Annapolis Royal, after we stopped at the
Visitor Information station and picked up a few million pamphlets.
Annapolis Royal is very pretty, very historical, and quite cheerful
about gouging the tourists.
There's no phone line available, at all, in our little hideaway
housekeeping unit, so blogging will be spotty for a few days, until we
move on to the next leg of the trip. The town library has internet
access, so we can check in from here.
I can only hope the cell phone works in case someone from home needs
us. The remaining bits of Hurricane Katrine is hitting our home in
south-western Ontario right about now.
Overcast
or raining most of the day. Surprisingly, there was just enough of a
window in the afternoon to make it to the Historical Gardens after all.
And Karen took pics, of course. It's a big ol'garden - whatever else
could she do? :) Mind you, there are a million more pictures but she
narrowed
it down to just these few.
Oh, and we can play a guessing game. For most of these, I haven't the
foggiest what it is, so please feel free to let me know.
Blue something and white something.
Blue something and yellow something.
Love Lies Bleeding - this one I know! It's very distinctive.
Pretty things...identified as Cosmos by Diana and Jamie. :)
Water Garden...
This was the point of getting us here, to this place. The Dark Ages Recreation Company,
of which we are a part, had a specialized smelting team out at CANIron,
a Canadian conference for blacksmiths from North America and Europe.
Neil and I followed our hardy smelting crew out to take pictures and
document the process.
The day started at 9am and
finished at 9pm, more or less. The historical smelt was an abject
failure. *sigh* We've had successes before with the process, but this
time, the team made a fatal mistake. They tried too hard. The team made the smelter *too* good, *too* much
able to handle heat. They used a highly refractory clay and added
kyonite to the mix as well. Apparently the process actually depends on
part of the smelter breaking down and contributing sand to the slag
bowl that should form at the bottom of the smelter, for the heat to
reflect back and help the iron solidify and sit in the bowl. No smelter
breakdown, ore that was too pure (and hence didn't have enough slag of
it's own to contribute) = no slag pool, not enough heat for the bloom
to solidify. Now, there was a bloom and the removal and hitting therof makes for
great pictures but that came only after they gave
up on the historical process and added an electric blower.
But first, the shoreline of Annapolis Royal on the morning of the smelt.
Before the smelt got started, we needed to have the ritual Jiffy Pop
over the smelter as the pre-heat took place... that's our erstwhile
leader Darrell, doing the honours.
More details then you could ever want about the process of iron ore
smelting in the Viking Era are available on the DARC
webpages, under Iron, so we'll just give you some highlights here.
With a lot of hard labour pumping the bellows....
...the smelting process gets started - iron ore is added, alternating
with charcoal.
Skipping ahead a few hours of bellows pumping and adding stuff and
monitoring the smelter (by the sound of it, and the glass runoff), the
boys decided that they had failed this time around. And after some
discussion, they even came up with a good reason
for the failure.
So....they added an electric blower to compensate...
...finally got the glass slag runoff they were looking for...
...and eventually came up with a bloom...
...which Kevin and Mark proceeded to beat in order to consolidate it.
The final product, last seen below, is much smaller and compact then it
comes out of the smelter.
When we woke up the next morning, we had found that someone had stolen
the bloom! We think it was the Weird Guy (there's one at every exhibition, it
seems), since he disappeared that morning as well. But how disappointing is that?
We spent the day watching the forging contest DARC sponsored. Setting modern blacksmiths up with hand powered bellows, rocks or tiny metal blocks for anvils and charcoal for heat. Much fun!
Also got a tour of some of the local historicl buildings with the local museum curator and Dr. Wallace. Neither of us is all that familiar with the Acadian history but this was one of the very first settlements in Canada. Maggie - a friend of a friend, whom we met in Annapolis Royal
A drive up and a ferry across to PEI a province Neil hadn't been in before. Spent the night in a hotel near Charlottown.
This is the best view I could get while crossing the PEI
bridge. Karen was
very disappointed. It's the longest bridge in Canada, possibly the
world, and it's got those damn concrete barriers for walls. Karen
couldn't even get a decent view of the bridge itself from the shore.
Once back on the mainland we stopped at London Wul
the
people were wonderful to talk to, the dogs delightful, a natural dyes
garden, and a great selection of all things fiberish. Karen
talked and shopped. Neil focussed on the puppy. Then we
proceeded to the Bay fo Fundy a first for both of us (not counting a
few days earlier of course...) We stopped at Hopewell Rocks
arriving as the tide was dropping. It was fun to compare the photos taken when we arrived, and those just before we left.
We finished the day at Lakeside Lodge in Grand Falls. A Spa tub with lots of hot
water and jets and lakeside view = good thing. Karen was much relaxed.
It was a very very very long day of driving. All the way from just-before-Quebec to just-after-the-province-that-doesn't-want-the-rest-of-us. Stopping at a hotel just across the border back in Ontario
We finally pulled in mid-afternoon today. After several discussions along the way about stopping at various fun places like Cullen Gardens, Black Creek Pioneer Village, Richters Herbs or Ikea, because the opportunity was there, because we had the time... we both decided that we just wanted to get home. Of course that also meant that we had to stop to get the dog, the cat, dinner stuffs from Zehrs, and the mail. But we finally made it. The drive home from a vacation is always the toughest part.
Here is a link to a google map for this trip. Gotta love Google!