green gables or bust: Sept 1, Day 2 in Halifax

After a lovely sleep (thank you ear plugs) we were off to find breakfast, W2 (my traveling buddies prefer not to have names or faces mentioned so will be W2 and E) anyway W2 stopped someone on the street who was happy to recommend the Bluenose for breakfast it was a fair hike but well worth it, Eggs Benny are served with hash browns (expected) and salad (what??) turns out it was delish. After it was time to wear off the breakfast so we headed up many many hills or so it seemed thru a shopping district to the public gardens. I think all cities should have a place like this so people would have a nice peaceful pretty place for lunch or just to hang out. The place is full of trees, a little pond and flowers so many flowers (sorry I have to come back and add the pictures after I get home can't figure out who to download them off my camera...new camera plus new note book equals much confusion on my part) Nancy I was sure to snap a few pics of the roses just for you. After our tour thru the gardens E and I decided to check out the Citadel, W2 has having feet problems so stayed in the gardens to rest.

The Citadel was great, lots of walking to the top of the hill, but the view was beautiful, and there was lots to see, cannons, the Highlanders in their kilts, and full regalia, trails thru the hills, the rooms built into the hills and of course the gift shop. We figured it would take us maybe an hr to run up the do a quick look around and get back to the gardens to meet up with W2 , we did a rush thru and still is was at least an hour and a half, poor W2 was just about ready to give up on us and head back to the hotel. we did get back in time to grab a quick ice cream (another great feature of the gardens ) and started working our way back to the hotel.

E wanted to check out the memorial for the Halifax Explosion,(she had done a report on it in high school) W2 was more interested in going to Point Pleasant Park, so we split up and E and I hit the information center to find out where we were going , hoped the bus and as we were asking the driver if he knew the street we had to get off on to find the memorial and this other passenger answered, we ended up sitting across from him and he told us where to go when we got off the bus, then he filled us in on some of the history, very nice guy, turns out he's an artist from England and works part time as a tour guide. He got off on his stop we continued on and of course I couldn't remember which way he said to go so we poped into a store to check and there was the most beautiful Bernese Mountain dog, just lying there happy to let anyone who happened in the store give him a belly rub. The store owner set us off in the right direction and we found the memorial checked out the view, tried to imagine all that happened how far the water had come, all the people who were wiped out, etc and then headed back to find a bus stop so we could meet up with W2 , as we are standing waiting for the bus we texted W2 to find out where she was, got a reply saying we just passed you don't get on the bus, what the heck?? As a friendly sort that talks to pretty much anyone W2 had met some local ladies at the park who were more than happy to zip her across town and take her to the monument| (may have even beat us there as she arrived in time to hear the bells on the monument which ring every day at 5) anyway a few moments after the text a car pulled up and there was W2 and her two new friends who gave us a ride to the Maritime Museum, supper nice ladies who also filled us in on her family history about the Halifax Explosion, turns out her grandfather worked on the tram taking tickets or money and his was hit with shrapnel which hit him was such force they found him 2 blocks away from where he was suppose to be. She said she didn't learn about the history from history book but from her granny and her granny's friends. Supper nice ladies. So we toodled around the museum, then back along the board walk to find supper, ended up at Salty's for supper, I had a wonderful Atlantic Salmon with some maple ginger sauce, we then strolled back to the hotel and another day has been stored in our memory bank. good night

Frankie makes an appearance, if you look up near the top of the picture you can see a wrench that some worker had left outside our window at the Westin