... at louisburg we joined into a guided tour of the fort, one in which a very nice lady both entertained and informed us using a great sense of humor and an extensive knowledge of the personal lives of the inhabitants of louisburg ... i will not offer a history lesson here, the fortress is most likely to remain for awhile so i'll leave that for you to find for yourself ...
... one of the young "inhabitants" of the fortress flashed me a smile when she saw me pointing my camera lens in her direction ... i'll remain happy pretending the momentary friendly connection was more than just an item in her job description ...
... in the guardhouse i chanced upon the soldiers preparing for their daily musket firing routine ... i believe this snapshot may be one of the best pictures i've ever made ... perhaps hubris on my part, but if so my artistic soul is perfectly comfortable with the conceit ... for me, the whole point of actually walking through the fortress at louisburg, this image transcends time ...
... the firing of the muskets was very entertaining ... as always, of course, i wonder what it is about the sound and smell of exploding gunpowder that is so intriguing ...
... in the small village outside the fortress jon and eric weren't too mature to resist acting a tiny bit touristy for me ...
... roger, of course, just sat behind me on his motorcycle and chuckled ...
... many of the actors in the fortress appear to be teen-agers or very young adults ... i was told that the girls play "young boys" ... perhaps not completely historically accurate, still, i found their youthful exuberance makes the "show" more fun to watch ...
... in the chapel, of course, the accessories and decorations typical of a french catholic church ...
... interesting, the fortress at louisburg ... in building it to defend against their spanish and english enemies the french neglected to provided any real defenses on the land side ... the english snuck up in the fog, landed a few miles from the fort, worked their way through the swamp and attacked, taking the fort ... years later when the war had ended, the english bargained back the fort in the peace negotiations ... not too long after that, the english and french once again went to war ... and, once again, the english took the fort with exactly the same tactics as they'd previously used ... this time, again giving the fort back, the english decided enough was enough and blasted the entire compound to rubble ... in the 1960s, as part of a massive government public works project designed to put unemployed miners to work, the fort was reconstructed as a historical monument ...
... i find it somewhat ironic that the fortress at louisburg has served longer as a tourist attraction than it did as a military garrison ... very, very interesting ...
... after visiting the fortress jon led us on a bit of a backroads wander along the coast to the hotel ...
TODAY WE EXPLORED THE CABOT TRAIL
STAY POSTED TO LEARN ABOUT THE BEAUTIFUL VIEWS, WINDING ROADS, HOWLING WINDS, AND OUR CRASHES
DON'T WORRY, OTHER'N A MINOR BRUISE AND SOME WOUNDED EGOS, WE'RE ALL OKAY
YOU'LL HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL THE "3RD ENTRY" FOR THE REST OF THE DETAILS
TOMORROW, PERHAPS, THE TIDE AND ANNE'S HOME