End of Week Seven

We've decided with the cool temperatures, and the need to spread out to organize genealogy papework, we will renew the Kabin and just use that as our base while we are in Cape Breton - the ferry to Nfld. is on Monday, so we got a weekly rate by staying here, which is a bit cheaper, and much more comfortable. The day dawned bright and sunny, albeit quite cool (okay-downright cold!). We set off for Sydney, to search the records of the Beaton Institute, a research facility dedicated to the history and culture of the Cape Breton area, and attached to the University of Cape Breton. I almost went blind searching various old and faded church records on microfiche, books, maps, charts, other peoples' family histories. An internet connection who'd known we'd be there showed up and introduced herself, and gave us a few leads on places and things to look up. Roberta is well known in this area, and respected as an area researcher, and the archivists seemed impressed that we'd been able to get her to assist us. By late afternoon, however, we'd turned up very little new information on our family roots, as much of the data we need is either missing, or in the Nova Scotia archives in Halifax - I guess we'll be spending a bit of time there on our way back. We then had a quick hamburger and searched for a Jiffy-Lube or similar, as we are again at the point of needing another oil change. No such luck.....but we did find a Wal-Mart, where I was able to find a reasonably priced belt.....this trip is causing my pants to expand, and I now need a belt to hold them up. We drove back to Baddeck, and then headed over to meet up with Walter, who has done a fair bit of research on the land grants and transfers in the area, for a couple of books on the early settlements. We had a great visit with he and his wife Judy. They have a son who lives in Courtenay, and another in Vancouver.....so it won't surprise me if we get to see them again sometime in the near future. Walter has family data on over 70,000 people (my database is only 6,000). We compared notes on families of interest, and although he and I agreed on the facts, he could not add any more data to my lines. He does, however, have quite a lot more on two other lines we are investigating for other cousins, so cousin Marla in the Sault, and Brendan in Australia should be getting a bit more information to chew on. We headed back to our Kozy Kamping Kabin in the frosty evening, happy to (again) not be in a small, cool, tent. Today is the end of week seven, and a day of reckoning. Totals:
Distance travelled week 7 - 1,152 Km. Gas - $156.82 Food - $170.40 Accommodation - $225.00 Other - $178.53 Total - $730.74 That puts us, for the third week in a row, over our $700.00 budget. No pictures to go with this week-end wrap up, folks!