Cruising - Portland & St. John

So we landed in Portland yesterday to perfect New England weather: cold, blustery, gray and overcast and it was alright with me. We jumped into a rental car and spent the entire time driving down the coast to Ogunquit (as I found out since I butchered the name yesterday) and all points back up the coast. Most of the little towns seem built for tourism and you can't throw a rock without hitting a bed and breakfast but it was all uniquely New England and beautiful in it's particular way. I already new I wasn't going to get to hook up with J.Go on this Portland trip but I was secretly hoping he was going to be at Gilbert's Grill and Seafood Shoppe when we stopped in for a quick lobster roll.

We cruised all night and wound up in the Bay of Fundy off the cost of St. John, New Brunswick, this morning. We hooked up with a great cabby who shuttled us all over the town today, pointing out the most amazing Victorian architecture and points of interest. Most of the stories he told were dated to the historical fire in St. John that leveled 2/3rd's of the city in nine hours back in 1877. The rebuilding of the city was quite substantial and impressive. The one place we really wanted to visit was Pigeon Island that was set up as a quarantine and immigration station for New Brunswich, swelling the ranks of the population with mostly Irish and Jewish settlers. The island is completely abandoned now but is reputed to have amazing old cemetary's of those immigrants that didn't live to get off the island.

For anyone thinking about taking a cruise, it's an awesome vacation. It's all eating and relaxing and doing as much or as little as you want and seeing as much or as little as you want. We have a little casino on our ship and yesterday I started out with $40 and wound up last night going to bed with over $200 which for me is impressive since I never win those kinds of things.

We're pulling out of St. John in about an hour and then heading around to Halifax tomorrow then Bar Harbor, ME the day after and then home to Boston on Saturday. The trip is simply zipping by.