Halifax July 8


We got excited yesterday when we saw the price of gasoline had dropped 11 cents to 1.92. Of course, we filled up and today, the price dropped another 9 cents! You just can't win.
One of the things we noticed while driving around outside the city, is that a lot of commercial and residential buildings have solar panels on their roofs.
.    (actually, this house is in the neighborhood that we're staying in)        Which is even more surprising when you learn that it either rains or snows, on  average, 189 days of the year. Seventy percent of the office buildings in downtown Halifax are connected by closed in pedestrian paths.
We went back to downtown Halifax again. Sat again at the waterfront
while waiting to take a one hour ride, on an amphibious vehicle.
This is something that Michael wanted to do even though I reminded him that people have died on these things. I became more interested when I saw  the Harbour Hopper drive up the hill,  where the Citadel is, saving me the climb. I also learned duck boats were originally trucks made into boats while the Harbour Hopper started as a boat and was built to be a marine vessel first and foremost.

Then the American army had them redesigned to be able to travel up out of the water up on to land to resupply their troops in Vietnam. There had been 900 of these made and there are still about 100 left around the world.

The ride was fun. We didn't drown.


The boat in this picture, is the Arcadia. It is the only boat to have survived the Halifax explosion and both world wars. 
.      (The Halifax Public library)
Some other pics from land and water:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/9k4VxdL5Zf9ULGZV6

And these are the main gates of the public gardens that we visited yesterday. The Main gates are only opened for royalty and the last time that happened, was for Princess Diana.

Afterwards, we had lunch and walked around just a little more, before saying good bye to downtown Halifax.
(Huge Canadian flag, not legal in Quebec, normally found only in Plattsburgh, New York).
Each time that we drive in and out of Halifax, we pass the Irving Shipyard. Although the Davie shipyard in Quebec is bigger, this one is still huge at 408 meters long.

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