On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Elma
In this second installment, we have now left the St. Lawrence River and sail the Gulf of St. Lawrence and into the Atlantic Ocean.
We next sailed to Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine or the Magdalen Islands. This is the first of several lighthouses that we visited.
The red sandstone is sculpted by the wind and waves. It is very crumbly.
Because the cliffs tend to crumble in the winter storms, most of the houses are set well back.
We now left Quebec and sailed to the Nova Scotia port of Pictou. It was settled in 1773 by Scots immigrants. In addition to being picturesque, it had an excellent Museum of Industry.
Everyone was very proud of their Scots heritage. Our guide took it to a whole other level.
Our next port was Halifax. It was the only rainy day on the trip, and it poured. We saw a lot of storm damage from Fiona as we rode around town. Halifax is a big city so we got plush coaches, not school buses. We drove out to Peggy’s Cove. This is the Peggy’s Cove Light.
The rain seemed appropriate for our last stop in Halifax, the Titanic Graves. After the Titanic sank, bodies were recovered and brought into Halifax. If the body was not identified, or the family could not afford to provide a burial, they were buried together in a specially designated area in Fairview Lawn Cemetery.
If the person was identified, and someone could afford to pay for it, the name was inscribed on the stone. Otherwise, it was only the number, representing the order in which the body had been recovered from the sea.
raven
Thanks
davecb
We’ve been to the Magdalene several times, initially on a birdwatching trip, and loved the long quiet beaches and little harbors tucked in corners.
Porky Pine
Thanks for these lovely photos. I visited the Magdalen Islands in June 2001. At the time, it was very much a Francophone enclave–or, more precisely, a “Quebeco-phone” area. I spoke no French, and my elderly parents, with whom I was traveling, were not much better. On a tour by nautilus of the islands’ coast, I sat next to a young woman from Sherbrooke, PQ, who offered to translate the commentary of the Madelinot guide, but she fell silent pretty quickly. At the end of the trip, she confessed that she was having trouble understanding him, too, between the idiosyncratic local dialogue and the technical points about lobster fishing!
A beautiful place, a landscape in miniature. We don’t talk about the seal hunting….
HinTN
@davecb: What’s the weather like in early April? They are in the centerline of the 2024 Eclipse.
Thank you for taking us on this trip, Elma.
Elma
@HinTN: My extended family is planning to gather at the family farm near Alexandria Bay, New York, to stand in cousin David’s hayfield and watch that eclipse in April 2024. Hope for clear sky, but dress warmly.
JPL
Wonderful pictures and dialogue. I so what to visit Quebec and Three Pines. Okay Three Pines might only exist in Louise Penny novels, but I can pretend it’s real.
HinTN
@Elma: 👍 We went to Wyoming for the 2017 eclipse and it was an amazing experience. I realize that the chances of cloud cover are high at Old Harry in April but I’m thinking it’s a trip worth taking.
J R in WV
@Elma:
We parked on a wide shoulder on US 60 in western Kentucky for the last total eclipse of the sun, and I took a lot of photos using the solar filters I had bought to prepare. ETA: some were posted in an On The Road set.
It was nice, we had picnic style snacks and bottles of champagne buried in ice in the bottom of our cooler, and complete strangers joined us. It was amazing, light clouds before and after, but 90% clear during.
It was a long drive west from SW West Virginia, but I had been there many times before collecting minerals, the area is a well known historic mining district once producing many tons of fluorite for use in industry. More in Southern Illinois, but the eclipse was of course in KY.
Would be so nice to have a family reunion to share such a unique event. I’ve only seen one in my 71 years, and two good partials. Will shoot for one more if we can pull off the travel arrangements, nearby hotel, etc. Past camping out now…
JanieM
Thanks for the scenes from places that I feel are my neighbors, but that I’ve never been to. The Titanic gravestones are especially moving.
munira
Enjoyed these a lot. I love the Maritimes and found Peggy’s Cove particularly interesting. I never made it to Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine though the whole time I lived in Québec.
Elma
@J R in WV: We had an eclipse picnic in our back yard for the last one. In Wisconsin we did not get totality, only about 70%. And it was cloudy for most of the early morning; but we went outside anyway. The clouds opens up just at the right time. We noticed a drop in the air temperature during it. Had my grandkids there and they were excited. in 2024, they will be teenagers and will probably be bored. Sigh.
Elma
@JPL: There were several ladies on the cruise who were Anne of Green Gables fans and were talking about going to see Avonlea. Unfortunately, PEI was the one port we could not get into because of Fiona damage.
StringOnAStick
@HinTN: We also went to WY for that eclipse, it was mind blowing in a way that a partial eclipse just isnt, though is still a cool thing to see. I was amazed at how dark and cold it got, and then watching the sunshine line approaching from the West was great. We climbed to the top of Grand Targhee ski resort to watch the show.
An old friend had set it up as a reunion of old and new friends so we had a bunch of rented bunkhouses and almost 70 people at meal times.