RVing With a Purpose

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.

Sunday, July 23, 2023

It rained all night.  The storms were predicted to be out of our area by morning.  NOT.  Some of the strongest winds and rain occurred around 8:00am.  We decided to just stay where we are for the day.  We are comfortable, safe, dry and have plenty of food.  We haven’t heard of any current road closures around us but we also don’t get any local TV channels so…it’s a little more difficult.  We decided to just have a quiet day, let some of the water recede and Anne caught up our map for states where we have spent at least one night in the RV and caught up on some business items.  It’s been a restful day.