Thurs. and Fri., Aug 13 and 14

Thursday: No rain in a.m. but foggy. Sherbrooke has restored many old buildings to 19th century status, including houses, churches, stores and workshops. Some of it is formally part of Sherbrooke Village, which you pay to visit, but there are people actually working and living in some of the places. A short distance from the village, but next to our campground, is a restored water-driven sawmill with an up-and-down saw blade. The circlular sawmill blade was invented about 1860, so this is old old technology, but it was very interesting to see all the belts and wheels powering the saw and the log handling. We spent a couple of enjoyable hours going through the Village and had a good lunch there. Then headed down the coast, aiming to get near Halifax. By this time weather had cleared and temp in mid 70's. Have had much better weather in the last week, overall. Found a campground at Bishop's Lake. Plenty to see in Halifax but can't stay here beyond tonight: fully booked for the weekend. Called around and found a campground on the SW side of town where we can spend Fri. and Sat. night, and called ahead and booked for the following two nights at a place at Lunenburg, which we particularly want to visit.

Friday: Clear and calm in the a.m., and the lake was calling. We launched the canoe and spent about an hour paddling around beautiful islands. Best canoeing lake so far this trip. Then made our way around Halifax to next campground, unhitched the trailer and had lunch before heading for town. Halifax is a pretty big city and we quickly regretted not taking the canoe off the top of the Suburban because we couldn't find outdoor parking near the waterfront and couldn't fit into parking garages. Finallly found on-street meter parking and visited the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. Some beautiful small boats and lots of artifacts from the city's long maritime history. Drove to the S end of town to visit a 1797 Martello Tower built to protect the harbor (from American ships, evidently). Had been outfitted with 68-pound carronades. How'd you like your boat to be hit by one of those? Found a more direct route from downtown back to the campground. Plan tomorrow is to see more sights, attend 4 p.m. Mass at the Cathedral Basilica, and take a ferry across the harbor to dinner at Dartmouth. All subj to change.