Month: July 2023

Thursday, July 27, 2023

After a good night’s sleep, we drove into the town of Baddeck.  It is the town where the Bell Museum is located.  We visited the museum last Saturday (great), if you haven’t looked at that post.  Because the weather got so bad, we just visited the museum but we did not spend anytime visiting the quaint little town of Baddeck.  Today we began by visiting a local bakery – blueberry and raspberry scone and a blueberry cream cheese roll – like a cinnamon roll.  Very good!  They had so many things we wanted to try but that will wait for another day.  We visited the main street shops and then took a nice walk along the waterfront at the marina.  Such a beautiful morning.  We parked BB beside the water and reviewed our maps and planned our drive for the day – about a 6 hour drive back to the main part of NS.  One of the reasons for this trip was to visit a dear friend who now lives in Wolfville, NS and today was our day to make our way there.  Portions of the drive were through more central NS rather than the coastlines where we have spent more of our time.  Beautiful scenery.  Our only complaint was the condition of some of the roads.  We have been complaining about our roads in the US, but sorry to say Canada isn’t much better.  However, didn’t keep us from enjoying our drive.  We stopped at another lighthouse, Waldon Harbor Lighthouse.  It was open to the public so of course we climbed to the top.  Nice little light house.  We are now settled into a campground in Kentville, NS, resting up for another busy day tomorrow.

On a sad note, recall that we told you about the horrible flooding that occurred last Friday and Saturday in Nova Scotia.  Today as we were making our way here, we inadvertently drove through Brooklyn, NS where a large search was taking place for the last of four missing people. We could tell exactly what was happening as we drove past.   Yesterday’s news reported that the bodies of the man and two children were found but they are still searching for the one youth.  Brings back lots of memories from the days when Max was responsible for those searches.  Please say a prayer for all the people in Nova Scotia involved in the search, as well as the families who lost their loved ones.

Wednesday, July 26, 2023

We overnighted at another commercial park last night because it was so hot.  High was above 90 yesterday and we needed to run the AC all evening into the night.  It was a good night to be hooked up to someone else’s power.  Might as well be comfortable.

This morning we disconnected from power and headed straight to the Skyline Trail. Lots of places have a Skyline Trail – Washington, Jasper, North Carolina and Nova Scotia for sure.  It is the most popular hiking trail on the Cabot and we wanted an early start before things got crowded.  (It worked).  We did the entire hike of almost 5.5 miles in a little over 2 hours, including the time we stopped to take lots of pictures.  There was a 575ft elevation gain.  To get out to the most impressive viewing point you descend over 270 steps on a boardwalk and remember you have to step back up all those steps to return to the trail.  The whole trail is a fabulous, but the biggest win is the view at the end of the board walk overlooking the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  We had a great time!  Leaving the Skyline trailhead, we headed to Pleasant Bay Harbor but in route, we finally found our first moose of the trip!  How’s that for a morning? Skyline and moose.  We took lots of pictures and stood around admiring the moose for a while and then continued to the harbor.  There we were hoping to catch a view of some whales, but it was not to be.  We did enjoy the time at the beach and seeing more seals.  We will see the whales another day.  From there we explored some additional side spurs off the Cabot and also stopped at several pull outs for pictures and short hikes.  It was another wonderful day!

Tonight we will lead our weekly Bible study small group.  It’s at 7:00pm CDT but that’s 9:00 Atlantic – the time in Nova Scotia. Hopefully we will stay awake after such an active day.  😊 We are staying at another Harvest Host tonight.  This one is famous for it’s smash burgers and aioli fries so we didn’t cook tonight.  We tried them both.

Tuesday, July 25, 2023

After resupplying a few items because we didn’t know what would be available, we left Sydney, NS and headed for the world-famous Cabot Trail.  The Cabot Trail is what draws many of the visitors to Nova Scotia.  We had heard about it and read about it but still didn’t really know what to expect.  It was about an hour’s drive from Sidney when we joined the trail and began our loop.  Thankfully it was another beautiful day.  We had thought the Cabot would be similar to the Natchez Trace or maybe the Blue Ridge Parkway.  To our surprise the first part was pretty much just a normal road.  There was a lot of beauty in the woods, and glimpses of rivers and ocean but there were also businesses and commercial vehicles.  Our first stop was at the Clucking Hen, a local bakery and café.  We purchased a cinnamon roll (of course) and blueberry scone and sat outside at a picnic table enjoying the beautiful and peaceful view of the ocean.  With some reluctance we pulled ourselves back to the Trail and headed on toward the Cape Breton Highlands National Park.  There were many curves in the road (like the Blue Ridge) and around each one was another spectacular view.  It just seemed to get better and better.  We stopped at many of the pull offs and took a lot of pictures.  We entered the national park and did one short hike – with many steps up and back down.  It was a very hot day – BB was reading 90 degrees when we began the hike.  Average temperatures for today on Cape Breton – high of 71 degrees and low of 56 degrees.  That’s what we were expecting.  Forecast says it will be back to normal levels by Sunday.  We sure hope they are correct.  Inside the National Park, the Cabot did seem more like we expected.  However, the road weaves in and out of the park multiple times.  At one of the pull outs in the park, we walked out on some gorgeous rocks and while we were enjoying the ocean views we began to see seals.  So much fun.  Tonight, we are in a campground just off the Cabot.  We have already met some other van owners and made new friends.  It was another wonderful day with many beautiful sights.  Feeling very blessed to be here.

And a few other observations from the day:

Monday, July 24, 2023

First things first today, we left our parking lot for the past two nights and headed to Louisdale, a few miles down the road. (Non-rvers may just want to skip this paragraph.)   Richmond county does a great service for us RVers by providing a free dump and fill station just off the main highway.  It was very clean and set up correctly for ease of use. Sure wish every county would provide this service.

From LouisDALE, we drove a couple of hours to LouisBOURG to the Fortress of Louisbourg, National Historic Site.  We first stopped at the Welcome Center, paid our entry fee and boarded a bus to take us to the fortress – about 1 mile down the road to an area with little parking. The National Historic Site is operated by Parks Canada as a living history museum.  It is the largest reconstruction project in North America.    We were greeted at the fortress by people in period costumes and speaking as the people who actually lived in the fortress.  Do you know the difference in a Fortress and a Fort?  Some of us never really gave it much thought but our first interpreter this morning was intent on us learning something today and that something was the difference.  A fort usually means a structure with walls and other defensive measures made to withstand an attack by an enemy. It’s usually built by and for the military.  In Alabama, think Fort Morgan built to protect Mobile.  A fortress can be much the same but usually means a much larger area like a city built inside a fortified area.  The fortress probably has some military personnel on premise but there are usually many civilians as well.  The original settlement was founded in 1713 by the French.  The small fishing village grew into a major commercial cod fishing port and a strongly defended fortress.  The British invaded and took the fortress in 1745 but it was given back to France 3 years later in a land trade.  The British took the fortress again in 1758 and this time they demolished the fortress walls to prevent it from ever again becoming a fortified French base.  Over the years there were smaller reclamation efforts at the fortress but in 1961 the government of Canada began a $25 million project aimed at reconstructing approximately one-quarter of the original town and fortifications.  The project was begun for several reasons but probably the most important was to provide work for the surrounding citizens facing severe unemployment.  Most of the buildings are reconstructions of the originals build on the original foundations.  We had a great visit at the fortress and learned many more things.  There is lots of information online if you are interested.