It is with some sadness that I'm looking back at Prince Edward Island from the deck of the Wood Island - Caribou ferry.  Today I remember driving through the bucolic landscape toward the ferry, still relishing the contrasts --- the red roads and cliffs, green meadows and fields, and blue skies and sea.  I also enjoyed our stopover at the historic Orwell Farm, a restored home place and farm en route to the ferry.  Visiting the barn, my daughter discovered two timid kittens who poked their heads out from behind a weathered red door, mewing.  We toured the general store, home place, church, and one-room schoolhouse which functioned until 1969.  Our guide spent at least two years there herself.  You have to use your imagination a bit to see it as it was earlier in the twentieth century, before or not long after the advent of cars, before the drone of airplanes overhead, and before, perhaps, the tidiness bred of a more leisurely era.  (For example, the well-tended flower beds would certainly not have ranked high on the original farm family's list of priorities.)  It's easy to think of such a time with nostalgia, but while the loss can be lamented some there are gains as well (better healthcare, less grueling labor).  

After a 75 minute ferry ride, we were in for a bit of driving through the Nova Scotia countryside --- more than I had counted on!  The landscape was markedly different than that of PEI --- much more forested and less agrarian.  After a couple hours, we crossed over to Cape Breton, a peninsula in northern Nova Scotia.  We spent our first night in the very small town of Mabou (pop. 300), home of the Rankin family, one of the best known musical Cape Breton families.  (They are sort of like the Carter family in the bluegrass world, yet they are Celtic.)  The best treat of the evening was a "ceilidh", which is basically a hoedown, held in the community hall.  We heard three local fiddlers, accompanied by a pianist, play Celtic reels, jigs, and waltzes.  They even had two step-dancers take the stage with dancing reminiscent of Irish dance in Riverdance.  It was a crowd of approximately 100, most of whom appeared to be locals.  We felt right at home.  It could have been the Blue Ridge Mountains, only with different accents.

There is an oddity located right next door to our motel --- Our Lady of Sorrows Shrine, a white clapboard church with a lit cross atop it.  We walked right into it at 10:00.  Numerous candles were lit, and in the front of the church was the painting of the suffering Jesus held by Mary.  At first I thought it might be a good place for prayer.  After visiting, I think not; the focus on the continued suffering of Jesus, the candles lit for those presumably in purgatory, and the explicit Mary worship truly distract from worship in spirit and truth.  Better the woods and sky and ocean.

The next day, making our way up the western side of the peninsula, we stopped in Cheitcamp for a meal.  At the nondescript Acadian Restaurant (recommended by Frommers), I had meat pie, an Acadian favorite, which was excellent.  Proceeding on, we entered Cape Breton National Park, a beautiful drive that hugs the coastline of the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the Cabot Trail.  This is a dramatic country, much like that of our Western parks, with mountains meeting sea in a jumble of rocks and boulders, the gulf glittering for as far as you could see.  Stopping at one sand beach just north of Inverness, we discovered tons of sea glass, something which made my wife very, very happy, as she had been looking for it ever since we left home.  We all loaded our pockets full of the tumbled smooth green, white, brown, and, on occasion, blue glass.  Never have I seen so much sea glass.  Looking for sea glass is like fishing for me: great if they're to be found, but boring if not.

Making our way around the park we ended up on the east side, in Ingonish, where we have stopped for two nights at the Keltic Lodge, the former summer home of a  friend of Alexander Graham Bell.  The lodge sits on a slender peninsula that juts out into the ocean between North and South Ingonish Harbours.  The views are incredible.  I'm already thinking about home, yet a bit of the wanderlust remains, enough for another couple days, at least!