Rover and Dover Adventures

7/31 - Linkletter Provincial Park, PEI to Smiley's Provincial Park, NS Last night proved to be the toughest sleep of the trip so far. While the camp was nice and quiet, the rain in the middle of the night was not so quiet. While it wasn't an intense storm, without any trees or anything to slow down the drops, they slammed into our roof and made the storm sound much worse than it was. After about three and a half hours, the rain stopped and I finally got some good sleep. Thankfully, it seems that the rest of the family slept right through it. Once we were up and moving, we a wonderful morning with more griddle pancakes. That helped with the lack of sleep! The boys were really helpful as we attempted to turn our late start into a reasonably timed departure. We had asked the boys if they wanted to take the more scenic route to Nova Scotia that included a ferry or if they wanted to see the science museum of Halifax. They opted for the science museum and since it closed at 4, we had...

7/30 - Fundy National Park to Linkletter provincial park While we went to sleep to a fairly loud campground, we woke up to silence. I was actually up around sunrise and thought about heading down to the beach, but there were enough clouds that I said I'd rather stay at camp. So, I got some work done while every one else rested.  Soon enough Amy got up and, just as we mentioned to the boys the night before, she and I left camp to go do the waterfall hike. It was a crisp, cool morning and seeing the stream trickle through the valley was a great way to start the day.  We got back to camp and Robinson was just starting to stir. Amy took him to get some wifi and download more books on tape while I continued to work. Sebastian eventually got up and we all enjoyed a breakfast together before we packed up and hit the road.  The road today was identical to the road yesterday and we had plenty of company until we passed Hopewell rocks again. While it was almost exactly low tide and...

7/29 - Fundy to Hopewell rocks to Fundy Today was largely the reason this trip was designed.  The bay of Fundy is an incredible, once in the world, natural phenomenon and being able to experience this incredible daily water flow is something I could remember since my trip as a kid. Needless to say, I didn't have any issues getting out of bed!  Of course, it didn't hurt that I had fallen asleep around 9:15 and we had a low of 57 degrees.  Anyways, I was running us on somewhat of a schedule since the natural timetable of low tide was what we were aiming for as we headed toward Hopewell Rocks for the day.  As such, we opted for an easy-ish breakfast of bagel/egg/cheese sandwiches and some fruit.  After a quick 40 minute drive, we pulled into Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park. As it turns out, so did all of the rest of the province!  Seriously, there were a LOT of people that were all ready to take a trip to the ocean floor. We paid our entrance fee and, before we...

7/28 - New River Provincial Park, NB to Fundy National Park, NB Last night turned out to be a very quiet campsite so everyone stayed in bed until after 6:30.  Because we had moved so far to the east, it was nice to be on Atlantic Time because the time the sun came up was much more aligned to what we are used to.  We packed up camp and headed into St Joh)n. I had a work meeting so we unhitched the camper in the Walmart parking lot and I went into a McDonald's for the meeting while Amy and the boys went downtown.  My meeting was uneventful, but Amy and the boys had a great time They decided to wander down by the port to see if they could find some souvenirs. While Robinson couldn't find anything he liked, Sebastian found an "elbows up" sweatshirt he's very excited about. They walked around a bit exploring the town before coming back to pick me up.   I finished up my work stuff while Amy handed out some lunches for the boys. Then we hooked up the camper and, before w...

July 27 - Acadia National Park, ME to New River Provincial Park, NB We had another rough night of sleep initially as we continued to try the idea of sleeping in the hammocks.  While it took us a while to get to sleep, once we were all in the camper, it was a good night of sleep.  Still, we got a later start to the day than we had planned. We had a breakfast of pancakes and eggs on the skillet for breakfast then packed up and, after a quick farewell to Snax and Lola, we were on the road.  We headed east on highway 9 and there was a stretch where we went 20 miles without seeing a building. Fortunately, the building we found was Airline Lodge, a campground and store/restaurant.  While they offered a lot (when you're the only building for 20 miles, you sell a lot of different things), we tried their DELICIOUS pastries and blueberry muffin.  We stopped again one last time in the US to fill up on gas before crossing the border and we entered New Brunswick, Canada!...

July 26 - Acadia National Park Apparently we were all tired from yesterday because we had a pretty slow start to the morning.  Robinson had a great start to the day though.  As he wandered camp, he met a pair of bulldogs named Snax and Lola.  As he returned to camp, we realized that he was carrying a towel.  It turns out that Snax and Lola have swag - they have their own towels and Robinson now had 2 of the towels! Despite the draw of the dogs, by 9, we had left camp with our backpack full ready for a day of hiking.  Our only fear was that because of the crowds (especially since it was Saturday), we were be too late and there wouldn't be a parking spot at the trailhead.   Unfortunately, we were right to be worried, there were no spots remaining when we pulled into the parking area.  Fortunately, we got SUPER lucky and someone was leaving as we pulled in. Our personal hero! From there we started a fairly epic multi-hour hike which included both of the "...