We took a short honeymoon after we were married and for some reason thought it would be fun to take Sid to school in Canada. We thought we would camp out and cook out and so we would be able to afford the trip. We would take Sid to Quebec and then travel on to the east coast and drive down the coast and back home. No particular time table. We had a 2 passenger car, a 2 man mountain tent to stay in and...well we had an adventure.

Packed and ready

We got some groceries and stopped at a roadside park to eat.

We crossed the bridge into Canada. We stopped on the Canada side to take a picture and didn't really pay any attention to the clouds building. We drove for several hours. When we decided to stop, we could not find a place to camp because everyone else had stopped and the places were full. We finally found a place and tried to set up our tent in the dark.

Our tent was a 2 man mountain tent that we had borrowed from a friend. A mountain tent is very effecient anyway but when you put 3 people in a 2 man tent...well you can imagine. We finally got through everyone whinning that they did not have any room or get your elbow out of my ribs etc. Then the clouds let loose. It started raining.

Luckily the tent is water resistant. However in order for it to be resistant you cannot touch the sides. Not touching the sides is a little difficult when you have 3 people in a 2 man tent. So of course the tent began to leak as we touched the sides. Well this was not working so we finally packed up and left. We drove until we got out of the rain and continued to drive until daylight. What a night.

We finally could not take it any longer so we stopped and found a dry place to rest...and boom we were asleep. Can you imagine Mary sleeping in a bunch of weeds with the bugs? She was quite the happy camper.

We continued to sleep

We reach Quebec

There were a lot of neat attractions

New church

Old church

Mary was so care free. Little did she know the adventure that awaited her. After we left Sid we traveled on for a while. We got some food at a grocery and stopped at a roadside park to eat. They had some swings and beautiful scenery. We were there for a while and went on. After traveling for a while Mary screamed something. I could not understand what she was saying. I could only imagine that she had another spider in her hair and she could hear it chewing her hair. (that's another story). I pulled over to the side of the road and Mary explained that her purse was gone. We looked through everything and finally determined that when she got into the car at the park, she had placed her purse on the top of the car. She got distracted and then forgot to get it. We went back to the park and looked around and did not find it. We then drove slowly back along the route we had followed and still found nothing.

Mary's purse had our extra cash and of course all of her ID. She also had our emergency funds in the form of travelers checks. I think that was about $300 that we had only for emergency. For something like if someone fell into the ocean or something. Credit cards were not so common so she probably didn't have any of those. The main thing we were concerned about was her birth control pills.

We decided that we were not going to find the purse so we went into a town that was nearby. We went to a doctor's office and explained the situation to him. He looked at us and decided that he liked our story. He said he didn't know if our story was true or not but it was fun to hear. So he gave us a refill of birth control pills.

We were on our way and didn't need anything that had been in the purse. It did cut our trip short because we didn't have the cash cushion in case of emergency. When we got home, the purse was waiting for us. Someone had found it along the highway or at the park and sent it back. That was a very nice thing to do. They kept the cash but everything else was there including the emergency funds and IDs.

There was a nice lake.

The park was very pleasant

After we got everything all squared away and were satisfied that we had lost the purse we camped at a nice lake.

The road from Canada to the US got us a little worried. It continued to get worse as we drove along. It was nothing but a logging road.

We visited some old cemeteries

headstone

headstone

headstone

Trash day at the House of Seven Gables

Salem Witch House

The homes in the northeast were very picturesque

New England home

The Lexington-Concord bridge

The home of Ralph Waldo Emerson

I was surprised that no one was here

The serenity was noticeable

It was a very pleasant walk

I wonder what it was like in the 1840s

Walden Pond

Thoreau's grave site

We enjoyed the outdoors. Nothing like a meal cooked on an open fire. Or a package of bologa opened while mosquitos are eating you alive.

One of our gourmet meals

We arrive at Arcadia National Park

The forest

Our camp

Getting ready to eat

Fixing breakfast in Arcadia

Our camp in Arcadia

We had gone to bed the night before without exploring anything. When we got up we could hear a noise and didn't know what it was. We walked a short distance and saw the waves of the ocean crashing against the bolders. I was wearing sandals and we started to walk down some rocks to the edge. My feet went out from under me and down I went. I was sliding down the slick rock heading for the beautiful ocean. As I slide down the rock I was trying not to damage my camera but still trying to find something to grab to stop my slide. When I got to the edge there was a lip of rock that my feet were able to push against and stop my slide. I got up and was unhurt. And my camera was not damaged either. Mary wanted to know what I was doing.

Ocean

More ocean

Mary coming out of the woods. I wonder what she was doing in there?

The rest of the trip has faded from my memory. Except for the drive through New York City. We decided it would be good to drive through there at night. We didn't have much desire to sitesee now. We wanted to get home. So we were driving through at about 3 in the morning.

As we were driving along on a new highway (interstate highways were just being built) we were suddenly confronted with the problem that the highway ended. A bridge was being built and so there was no way to get from here to there.

We were apparently not the only people who had this problem because there was a path from the highway we were on, down over the embankment to the street below. So we took it. I cannot imagine why someone would be so stupid as to do something like that but there we were. Had no idea were we were. Had no idea why we were allowed to drive on a dead end highway but somehow we made it out.

It's probably best that I don't remember the details on that escapade. We got home and Mary never wanted to camp out again.