Nova Scotia to Maine

Cold and rainy (again) this Monday morning. We met up with Richard and Pauline in the hotel restaurant and said our good-byes; they had an airport shuttle to catch and we had many more miles to go on our way home to Michigan. We'll miss Pauline's quick wit and gentle sense of humor and Richard's canny ability to put the world in its proper context. Good friends are hard to come by these days and good traveling companions even more so. 

We were on the road by a little before 10am heading north to Moncton, New Brunswick where we switched to Rte 1 west to Saint John and on to the US border at Calais, Maine. The 4-lane roads were excellent and traffic was light -- indeed there were times we were the only car on the road -- but the persistent rain along with several quick stops slowed us by perhaps a half hour or so. 

Once across the border the road dropped to 2 lanes but we still sped along to Bangor, arriving at our hotel about 4pm (local time, 5pm Nova Scotia time). Susie texted her sister Joyce and we planned to meet for dinner at Mason's Brewery just across the Penobscot River in Brewer, ME. (We had probably come very near to the place on our way into greater Bangor.)

Susie and I arrived a bit early and grabbed a table, Joyce and Avery arriving a few minutes later. The meal was very good -- starters of crispy cauliflower and crunchy Brussel sprouts followed by a round of sandwiches and a salad for Susie. The conversation was warm and afterwards we drove to their house to pick up a few items we left there a week ago. It's hard to imagine it has only been a week and we have seen so many new and wonderful things; but then travel should be that way, don't you think?

Tomorrow will take us along very familiar territory: south on I-95 to I-495 to I-290 and to I-90 and the Mass Pike, ending in Albany for the night. Then it will be a long day's drive straight through to Grand Rapids.

The long way home

After some 2,300 miles we began our long return back to Michigan. Sunday morning was cold with a promise of rain (a promised not kept fortunately). After breakfast and tidying up we packed the car; fortunately Pauline had taken a photo of our success in packing the cargo space when we left Halifax so we spent little time fussing with the bags. 

But before leaving Baddeck, we had one final stop to make: the Alexander Graham Bell national historic site. 

While his home and family cemetery is located north of town and is not accessible to the public -- the family still owns it -- the exhibition halls showing his work in helping the deaf to speak as well as his work in early aviation among numerous other inventions, made this a most illuminating and worthwhile stop.

Once we left Baddeck we returned to the 105 and drove south to the Canso Causeway and off Cape Breton Island onto Rte 104 in the direction of Truro. 

It wasn't long before we found ourselves back in Antigonish, where we stopped for lunch at Justamere, right off the highway (and I had a scrumptious fish burger). An hour later we were back on the highway and soon afterwards switched to the 102 south to Halifax arriving at the Halifax airport about 4:30pm. 

That evening the four of us ensconced ourselves into easy chairs in the lobby and sipped wine chatting away the time until we walked across the hall for dinner (which was quite good).

backside of the entrance to the exhibition halls

beginning of the exhibition

comfortable couches were everywhere 

my lovely fish burger

Nova Scotia's southern shore

After breakfast at the hotel -- free of charge since the air conditioning is still on the fritz -- we walked to the car and headed off to Peggy's Cove. We had been getting mixed signals about whether the roads farther west from Peggy's Cove were closed due to wildfires but once at the Cove we confirmed with the tourist information folks that indeed they were open! So from Peggy's Cove it was on to Lunenberg via Mahone Bay with a stop for lunch in Hubbards.

Once outside of Halifax we wended our way to Rte 333 and meandered past one small village after another, most of them perched on or close to the water. We soon found Peggy's Cove and pulled into the spacious parking area overlooking the ocean. (You can find information about the origin of the name more details about this gorgeous bit of rock and its old fishing village right here.)

When we arrived the sun was bright in a clear blue sky but the wind was rather fierce as we strolled across the village to the lighthouse and back.

Once can see right off why this place is so famous among artists and photographers -- it just begs to be painted or photographed. 

looking farther southwest down the coast

Richard just happy to be here!

looking back to the observation deck from the lighthouse

From Peggy's Cove we returned to our shoreline meandering back west-southwest until we reached the tiny village of Hubbards where we stopped for a delicious lunch at the funky Trellis Cafe. 

Back on the road we made our way through Mahone Bay, a wonderful place worthy of a serious stop, but we pushed on to Lunenberg, where we found parking right down on the waterfront near the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic.

Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993 it is also a National Historic Site of Canada. (Want more?)

The town sits on a series of ridges overlooking the harbor which reminded Richard of San Francisco and indeed the streets, while short, were steep. One of the things we wanted to see was St. John's Anglican Church. Along the way we walked past the Royal Canadian Legion Hall which sported a block of the Berlin Wall on the corner. 

The original church burned down in 2001 and was rebuilt soon after. Unfortunately it was closed the day we visited but we thought a beautiful structure well worth a tour.

St. John's

From the church we walked back a couple of blocks to the memorial park, with plagues and plinths commemorating the Norwegians who trained here during World War Two as well as the local men who died in World Wars One and Two.

Just opposite and up the street from the memorial park is the Central United Church. We wouldn't have given more than passing notice except a man had just opened the door and invited us in if we'd like. So we did. 

Once inside we discovered a huge, cavernous space with a ceiling of carved wood and matching buttresses and what seemed like a veritable sea of pews. 

John, the organist and choir director as it turned out was there to get ready for choir rehearsal later that day and had let us inside kindly chatted with us about the church. He proved to be a literal font of information about the churches in the area as well as local history and we all thoroughly enjoyed the conversation.

the church on the left

the Fishermen's Memorial

view of the town from the waterfront

the Bluenose II

Before leaving town we sat outside by the museum and enjoyed a drink, which also gave us the opportunity to watch a pair of women practice for the upcoming Dory races.

We returned to Halifax via the limited access Rte 103 and were back in the hotel by about 6:30pm. Richard and Pauline took a quick swim and by 7:15 we were back out, this time walking up toward Argyle Street and our supper venue for the evening the Five Fishermen.

On the way we stopped off at Lot Six for drinks. 

After a delicious meal of seafood all round (Arctic Char for Susie and Richard, shrimp and mussels with linguine for Pauline and Halibut for me) we walked back to the hotel and headed off for a well-earned night's rest.

Tomorrow we check out and drive north to Cape Breton Island and Baddeck!

strolling down Argyle Street

To Halifax and old friends

It was a gorgeous morning when we left our hotel in Yarmouth. I had originally planned to take the southern (coastal) route 103 up to Halifax since it promised to be the most scenic. But portions of it were closed due to wildfires so we ended up on Rte 101, which proved to be a lovely drive: letting us occasionally see the Bay of Fundy, passing Digby (reportedly the scallop capital of the world) and through the Annapolis Valley area and Berwick (the latter apple capital of Canada). 

The highway was usually two-lane but limited access and frequent passing lanes for most of the journey; the surface in good shape and traffic light. 

After a little over 300kms and about 3-and-a-half hours were were struggling our way through the traffic chaos of the greater Halifax area. That said we soon found our hotel and checked in, unloaded our bags and settled in until time to drive to the airport and pick up our friends Richard and Pauline who were flying in from London.

Back out into Halifax traffic we wended our way through Dartmouth (on the other side of the harbor) in search of the airport - which, as it turned out, was about 30kms outside of the city. We arrived at the airport with about 45 minutes to spare before they landed so we parked and made our way to the international arrivals gate where we discovered their plane had just landed!

 Although we were now familiar with getting into the city traffic was in fact worse on our return. There is really only one way across the harbor from Dartmouth into downtown Halifax, the MacDonald Bridge, which is a toll bridge and their toll system is probably 50 years old. And the bridge itself is only three lanes so we found ourselves coming out of the half dozen tolls lanes squeezed into one lane. . . 

But once across we quickly found our way back to the hotel, dropped Richard and Pauline off to check in while I parked the car.

That evening we strolled a bit of the waterfront before ending up at Salty's for dinner.

the Historic Properties part of the waterfront