Diane and I returned late last night from our two-week Grand Tour of the East Coast - Georgia to Nova Scotia. On this trip, we were behooven to visit:
The west side of the Appalachians south of the Mason-Dixon line (we never saw them before!)
Family (I have lots of aunts & uncles, eight brothers and sisters, countless nieces & nephews)
High School chum in GA
Letterboxes and letterboxers
Historical recreators (our other hobby)
Civil War sites
Fort Gordon, GA - home of the Army Signal Corps (Hooah!)
Acadian sites in Maine, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick

So we didn't get to even a third of it all.

The story continues...
August 7th: Diane and I Made it up to St. Stephen, New Brunswick and did much-needed maintenance on our box. We've got lots of clues for the area, but the sun is setting fast and all hotels are booked, so we find a bed in St. John before midnight. Next day, we visit Fort Beausejour, Aulac, NB and find no good place to plant a box - WIDE open fields! We cross into Nova Scotia and head to Louisbourg to tour the fortress. Louisbourg is an incredible spot - like Ticonderoga and Plymouth Plantation combined! I ponder planting, but I realize that we may not make the multi-day trip much for maintenance! I also must find out what the Canadian Parks folks think about our hobby...
August 10th we swing down to Grand Pre, NS to see the old homeland. There's some good places for a planting, but I worry about those 25-foot tides. Ah, well.
August 11th, we go by the old site (from the LB basement) of the Cap d'Or letterbox. Great cliffs, but no letterbox. No worries - we didn't really expect it too much. Down the road, though, we go looking for the Red Rocks and no one seems to know where the old road in the clues IS. HOWEVER - the park looks like a *wonderful* scaled-down version of the Appalachian Trail, with lean-tos and cabins and all. This place has gobs of potential for letterboxing planting! Notes taken...
August 12th, back in St. Stephen, Neuveau Brunswick, to spend more time in the Town that Chocolate Built. After some searching about, we found An Ocean of Chocolate, placed by Chip! Hurrah! Our first find since Georgia! We stamped in and toured the Chocolate Museum and eenjoyed lots of free samples laying all about on platters. Oh, the horrors of travel!
Continuing on, we find that we're actually ahead of schedule! In Brewer, we drive by some statues that I *know* are useful to letterboxers. We stop by the nice ladies at the library to borrow a cup of internet. We get the directions for North to Freedom and, finding it in good order and fine fettle, stamp in. Great stamp, TwoMaineCats! Back on the road, we see rain a-threatening again. Just time to get Rest and Relaxation in Augusta (Maine, this time). Thanks, Nautilus and Culex! No problems there - stamp and box are doing fine!

Then a long drive home in the rain and checking our many hundreds of e-mails received. Oh, and family is visiting, and I have duty this weekend, so no time to box NOW, either! Dang it all. Thanks to all for a great letterboxing experience - this trip would've been greatly lessened without it!

Dave & Diane
The von der Insels
P10 F238 X121 H9 E2



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