Great to be back in Chester, after the lobster dinner, Brian served up mackeral another night, then mooseburgers with blue cheese and topped off all his culinary delights with drunken chicken on Father's Day, what a way to be welcomed back to Nova Scotia, there is no doubt we are at home, thanks again to Dale and Brian , and on top of all this we had free electricity for six days. We are staying in Rayport campground near Chester. Met a fellow today ,visiting from Ontario, he left Nova Scotia, forty years ago! He went to work in a steel plant, he said his father owned a dairy farm and he got tired of shovelling shit and pulling tits!!!!!

We are having trouble blogging lately, the site seems to screwed up from our computer anyway, sometimes the picture of Brian,myself and the lobster are there , other times not. We had a great week with the Haases, Brian and Dale, lobster, mackeral, blue cheese mooseburgers and then drunken chicken on fathers day, then we moved into Rayport Campground in Martin's River, while there, we found a house to rent very near where we used to live in Western Shore, we move in on August 1st. In the mean time, it's Rayport or any place we can steal electricity, this week-end we are in Annapolis River campground in Bridgetown , N.S. We watched the most spectacular fireworks ever on Canada Day , did some Karaoke, drank a little wine, and dined with Brian and Cathy, friends from Dartmouth, next week we spend a week in their driveway helping to get ready for Kathy's daughter's wedding on July 17th!

Our first night home in Chester, lobster was on the menu, and the next morning we were all a little overhung !!

Our odyssey is winding down, winding through the hills of New York State, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
Crossed the border into New Brunswick to encounter fog, rain, but we had our Tim's. Did they downsize, I swear a medium is smaller than it used to be, I do know a medium was bigger in the states. Has that got to do with the U.S. and Imperial gallon??? Gas jumped $1.50 more a gallon! But N.B. gas cheaper than N.S. The roads in N.B. are deplorable, potholes galore from Calais to Sackville, it's a wonder the old truck frame took it! We were happy to see the Lupins, Bullrushes and Birch trees, home again!!!
We seen thousands of wind turbines in our travels, but got back to Amherst to see our Federal Government cannot make the one turbine in Amherst work , at the Mountie station, it was supposed to supply all the power at the new station , but hasn't worked for years. My daughter Karen in Amherst served up a nice supper and today we are heading to Chester Legion to have a few cold ones! Great to be home, I guess!!!!! Six months on the Road, and we are going to be home tonight!

A cross between a Zebra and a Giraffe ! Wonder which was the father ?

Trish and her friend The Thinker ! Actually he is eating the putty out of the window !

These guys are a long way from South America !

Colombus Zoo again, also a long way from Canada !

Colombus, Ohio he's a long way from home !

Two beautiful blossoms ! I picked them both, Paul !!!

What a surprise, to see this in Marks, Miss. Canadian National owns Illinois Central Railway !

We are having trouble posting on the site, we had pictures of our friends Brian & Dale welcoming us home with lots of lobster , also a blog on how weel we ate at their place while winding down from the six month oddessy, another night we had mackeral, then blue-cheese moose-burgers, and to top it off on fathers day we had drunkin chicken. What a wonderful week, we have been busy running around seeing relatives, friends, and looking for a house to rent. Yippee, we found a house in Western Shore, near where we used to live before we put all our furniture in storage and hit the road ,last December! Canada Day we spent in Bridgetown, in the Vaqlley and enjoyed the most spectacular fireworks display we have ever witnessed! We have been staying in various campgrounds and will continue to do so until the hnouse is available on August 1st! We will keep you posted, hope we can get back those pictures and blogs lost in the last few weeks!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GARY!! See you soon, we are in Penn. today. We went to Bethlehem, Rome ,Paris, and East Palestine and finally found our first Tim Horton's in Calcutta, Ohio!
Bernie, the old girl only has another thousand miles to go, that's the truck, not Trish, I figure we have easily put on 15, 000 miles in 180 days, See you soon for some care and attention!
Went from 95 degrees in Kentucky to 59 degrees in Ohio, in two days! We have a thirteen year old truck, a forty year old camper, a ten year old laptop, no GPS, but a 64 year old co-pilot and navigator! We figure between the both of us ,we worked for well over 100 years, we deserved this trip, couldn't afford it, but did it anyway, just to prove it can be done! See most of you next week!

We went to see the wild beast show, the elephant and the wild kangeroooo,
Trish was so emotional, she had never before, been to a Zoooooo!

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and see the cross between a Giraffe and an Zebra!

Columbus, Ohio Zoo is known as the very best Zoo in all of America, ,we seen every animal in North America, then Asia, then Australia, a kangeroo almost knocked us down, then Africa. In most cases we were less than three feet away from all the animals, sometime three inches, with only thick glass between us. The orangatangs were eating the putty holding the glass in, one guy had a rock as a tool, removing the putty. The arctic section was really impressive, polar bears, arctic fox, and cold, cold ice cream! Don't let the idea of glass fool you, these animals are not caged, they have a large, large ,large , natural habitat to roam, unlike the zoos I went to years ago, with all animals in a cage. After five hours of walking we seen every animal, bird, reptile, fish in the world. We went on a Merry-Go- Round, a 1914 restored Carousel, first time for Trish and I hadn't been on one since 1949 at the Bill Lynch Shows on the Hfx Commons! It is a small world, we asked for directions to the Zoo, and it turned out the guy I was talking to, had served as an exchange officer at the diving school in Shearwater in the eighties, he lived in Lake Echo for two years, and served on the Comorant!

Left lovely Louisiana and travelled through Arkansas to ippississiM, crossed the River at Greenville and discovered there is a river highway all the way to Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, the beginning of the Mississippi . Followed the highway to Clarksdale, seen the Blues Supper Club owned by Morgan Freeman, call Madidi! For Mayor Peter Kelly of Hfx, Clarksdale pays people to go up and down the streets to clean up trash each morning! Back in my day, I worked at a drug store opposite city hall and each business cleaned in front of it's own place by nine each morning, what a concept, but of course ,that was back in the fifties! We found out that the Queen and our friend Donna Malloy will arrive in Hfx on the same date to attend the Tattoo. Prince Phillip will accompany the Queen, but King Bill of St. Lawrence refuses to leave the Rock, he has been to St. John's and ventured in his boat to Port Aux Basques, but says he will never set foot on the mainland! We seen a CN truck in Marks, Miss., talked to the guys, they work for Canadian National , CN bought Illinois Central Railway years ago! Couldn't find a clean park State or Federal in Miss., so went to Tennesee. Trish saw her first ever fireflies in Chickasaw , Tenn. I captured a few in a jar , as we did when we were kids, she cried, imagine her reaction when we visit the very best Zoo in America in Columbus, Ohio, she has never been to a Zoo before, also! Did the Wal-Mart thing in a Big K Mart in Glasgow, Kentucky, the Scotch coming out in me ! We stopped to help a turtle cross the highway in Chester county, Kentucky.
Sorry Gary, no way we will make it for your birthday, buy you a drink on Monda or Tues, or Wed, whatever! For four months we kept looking for warmer weather, now we are heading North looking for cooler weather. We are on ourway today to discover Columbus!

We are bringing home one of Lucy's puppies, if he turns out to be as big as his father ( pictured here) we will hire him out as Chester's watch dog !

Be careful, do not enlarge this photo !!!!

As we left B&G loop, our address for the past seven days, we saw a hawk circling us! Hurricane season officially starts in the US on June 1st, so we are hurrying to get home, Gary, we will be there for your birthday! We started travelling north but keep favouring Northwest highways, heading for Calais to cross the border. We passed the Bonnie & Clyde RV park ( we relate because we sometimes filch electricity) and have landed at another Louisiana State Park, we stated earlier that they were great, but this one surpasses them all, they have the cleanest and largest washrooms we have seen yet, the showers are no where near the shitters, the laundromat machines are only 75 cents, half what they are in the rest of America. The staff are the friendliest, they have a picture of a eighty(80) pound catfish caught here! We are travelling with catfish cooked cajun style by our Scottish friend Andy, the freezer is full! Catfish and Kraft dinner, wow!!!

All good things must come to an end, the week long party is over, today we pull out of the Laverty's driveway for points North and New Scotland, Canada, we hope someday soon, Lucy and Andy will visit the Maritimes and experience some downhome hospitality. We capped off our visit to Leesville yesterday by attending the Memorial Day celebrations, the food was fabulous and the friendship extended to Trish and I will always be in our memories! This all happened because we dropped into Post #145, for a beer, just over 13 months ago, they adopted us , invited us into their beautiful home, and we have become friends , Andy & Lucy are the ultimate hosts, leaving isn't easy!Tonight, before leaving the state of Louisiana we will probably stay in a LA State Park, by far, also the best, we stayed in state parks all across America and Louisiana offers free wi-fi , laundromat and all amenities for $18.00, just as a comparison, none others had wi-fi or laundromat, California was by far the worst, $33.00 a night and no hook-ups, all you get is a shower for that money.