A nice day after all!

After the weather forecast that we saw yesterday was indicating rain all week, we woke up this morning to sunshine - clouds with the sun, but definitely not raining! We decided we had better take advantage of any opening to see Cape Breton Highlands and headed out.

The Cabot Trail goes up right along the west coast of Cape Breton Island.

Yes, it was that chilly at that point in the morning!

The waves were quite magnificent!

As the day went on, it got less cloudy and more beautiful - this is looking over Pleasant Bay, a small town at the northwest corner of the park.

After crossing over the top of the park, we started heading down the east coast of Cape Breton Island.

Amazing waves on this side too!

Just beautiful!

In this one, you might notice a small brownish thing in the spray on the right - you might think it is something on the camera lens, but it is actually a piece of seaweed that got thrown up in the spray!

Gorgeous...

Rather than returning the way we came, we kept on driving on the Cabot Trail, eventually ending up in Baddeck. There, we visited the Alexander Graham Bell Historical site - it was very interesting! We did not know of his areas of invention with airplanes, hydrofoils, and his general work with the deaf.

An interesting comment made by Bell in a letter to his wife, Mabel: "The days of handwriting have gone forever; they belong to the 19th century. The 20th century will not tolerate manuscript."

School Room Charts on Visible Speech - this was a writing technique to communicate to deaf people how words should be said, by indicating what should happen in their mouths, to their soft palate, to their tongue, what kind of sound should be made - all to help deaf to speak. It was fascinating!

His family was very involved with speech and hearing.

"He was a very independent amateur, experimenting for the pure joy of gaining knowledge."

Because of his experience with proving his claim as inventor of the telephone, there are many pictures of him throughout his life.

 

Solar still to obtain distilled water from salt or contaminated water.

Solar still model.

 

Bell with granddaughter Gertrude.

 We enjoyed our day of visiting, and... if we don't get another day to tour the area, we feel that we've seen much of it.