This was what we woke up to yesterday.

This is what we did.

I know, living the high life on vacation. Once back to our lodging we could hear very operatic seals on a nearby island. They did a lot of complaining. I took a walk around the property and came upon Franklin and his human swimming in the little beach. Evidently Franklin only goes up to his chest and gets very scared when his paws don’t touch the bottom. He stays in the shallow end. On his trek back up to the house he stopped by to say hi and decided to do a baby Moses in the rushes act.

This morning we set out early for our drive to Cape Breton Island.

On the way we stopped in Baddeck. Beautiful town on Bras d’Or Lake. We had a lovely lunch on the wharf with an incredible view. When there is no whole lobster, a roll will do.

After lunch we toured the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site. Very interesting, but focused mostly on his flying experiments and just gave a nod to the telephone. He fought for eighteen years to be acknowledged as the inventor of the telephone. Perhaps he could have used some help from Ernestine.

In 1885, Bell and his wife were taking a vacation cruise along the eastern shore and due to an accidental grounding they discovered Baddeck and Bras d’Or Lake, fell in love with scenery and Scottish culture and built Beinn Bhreagh as a vacation home and eventually lived there year round until his death in 1922. He and his wife are both buried on the estate. The estate is still in the hands of descendants. We tried driving around to find it but were met with a sign reading, “The Bell estate is not open to the public, and is not visible from Beinn Bhreagh Road”. So much for window peeping. Tomorrow the plan is to drive part of the Cabot Trail. Happy trails to you and yours.