Cabot Trail,Day 2-August 13

Since we had not completed our drive on the first day(we really had not expected to),we decided to stop for the night in the town of Cheticamp. As we drove through the town all we could see was "no vacancy" signs until we came to the Nestle Inn. What a lovely home;it was a bed and breakfast type place. We got a room in an apartment which we shared with two other couples. They were from the states(Maine and Virginia)and very friendly. You certainly have to be willing to talk to strangers if you are sharing a bathroom! Our brief stay there was very enjoyable. From there the next morning,today,we went to les Trois Pignons.This was an Acadian culture center with a large display of decorative hook rugs made by the ladies of the area.It was a very worthwhile stop. As we were leaving town we stopped at an historic site. There I saw cows standing in the ocean at the next small island over from us. I was confused,surely they were not there to drink ocean water? Maybe waiting for their ship to come in? I asked Germaine at the information center there. She said that the cows were there either to keep cool,or perhaps it was one place for them where there were no flies. I am not sure how it happened,but Germaine then proceeded to give me her life story. Her parents initially had a farm in what is now the national park,but just before she was born they had to leave and live in the town as their land had become government property. Her family only spoke French when she was young so it was difficult for her and her sister to enter an English speaking school. She said she was picking up the English with some difficulty until the ninth grade when they started studying Shakespeare. She said:"I was already having problems learning English,but boy the English of Shakespeare was too much for me-I dropped out of school at that point!" One other stop today was to see a scarecrow display. In the early 1980s a seventy year old man put up several scarecrows to keep animals out of his garden. Tourists started stopping to look at them and the rest is history. It really became a thing of art for him. I will post a couple of those pictures here. In the first he has scarecrow children playing ring around the rosy. The laughing guy has the title "laugh and the world laughs with you.." We ended our day back at the town of Baddeck,the town near where our home is parked. The town has a ceilidh music concert every evening during the summer months. This concert was different than others we had attended. We heard a Gaelic vocalist and participated in square dancing to a Celtic jig!