When I made plans to meet a friend in Nova Scotia, Canada, I hardly gave a thought to the border crossing.  I suppose I was remembering the old days when all I needed was a driver’s license and I’d pretty much get waved through.  It turns out that they’re paying a bit more attention these days, and the fact that I have no permanent address and carry all my possessions with me in my truck made them a bit concerned that I might be planning to stay illegally.  After being detained and questioned for a while, and becoming increasingly aware of how sketchy and improbable my life story sounds at the moment, they did eventually decide that they believed me, and that I was legitimately there just for a visit and planned to leave again.  Mostly because I had a ticket to Rally Fest in New Hampshire the following weekend.  But they did ask me to leave within a week and not return until I was gainfully employed and had a permanent residence!  So I kind of got booted from Canada… in the politest possible way.

Unfortunately it rained just about all the way through New Brunswick and into Nova Scotia, so the driving was a bit tiresome and there was no scenery to look at because of the haze.  I was briefly amused by the Miata that you see below… driving with the top down in the pouring rain!

When I got to Cape Breton I could vaguely see that the coastline was probably spectacular, but… this was not the day to see it!

I had no phone coverage at my camp site that night in Cape Breton Highlands National Park, so couldn’t check the weather forecast, but the next day dawned bright and sunny.  While waiting for my friend, I read some of the literature that they gave me when I entered the park, like how to deal with wildlife.  Bear: stand up to it!  Coyote: fight back!  Moose:  heh heh, good luck with that!

We drove up the Cabot Trail road to the Skyline Trail to go for a short hike.  This turned out to be mostly flat until we reached a boardwalk and stairs that descended to the coast for some beautiful views.

There were just enough clouds hanging around to be picturesque and shade us from the sun.  On the opposite hillside you can see the Cabot Trail winding along the coast.

We spent some time looking for whales, which were supposedly there offshore, but we never did see any.  Ah well, time spent gazing at the ocean is never wasted.

We had a few sprinkles as were heading back to the car, but they didn’t amount to much and were gone quickly.  As we drove toward the town of Cheticamp, we stopped at several coastal spots to enjoy the view, and also enjoyed the road along the way.  We were driving a rental Dodge Charger Rallye Edition, which had a very gutsy 3.6L V6 engine for the hills and handled the curves beautifully.  And it had flappy paddles… we didn’t so much bother with the flappy paddles…

So it was a beautiful day for a drive, and a beautiful day to stop driving and just enjoy the view.  This is a perfect spot for an Adirondack chair… except for the erosion danger, that’s probably not ideal…

Just imagine this peaceful location, with a light cool breeze blowing… the ocean, the hills, the sun, the clouds, and the road leading us on.

Farther south we stopped at a pebbled beach for a while, and listened to the sound of the surf.

There were many smooth flat stones there, and it seemed that building little cairns was the thing to do.  So yes, I made one of my own.  I like to think that it’s still there, my little presence on that lovely beach even though I’m now far away.

I suppose you’ve gotten the point by now, but here’s another beautiful view.

In the afternoon we picked up my truck again and headed south to Halifax, and the trip was completely different from when I had driven up in the rain.  The picture below was taken in the same spot as the picture of the rainy window above.  As you can see… it’s worth seeing.

After an evening in Halifax, where we tried the local speciality of “donair” (which seems like a yiros with a cream based sauce instead of tzatziki), we drove down to Peggy’s Cove the next morning in the drizzling rain.  In spite of the weather there were still quite a few people there.  We wandered over the rocks around the lighthouse, where I also got a phone call and had a short job interview!

I couldn’t help regretting that soon I would have to take a job and give up exploring places like this except for on holidays.  I think I’ve used my year of freedom well, but I’ll be sorry to see it end.

It was a wet and wild coastline that day.

A photo of my friend the photographer…

We drove a bit farther along the coast to see the Flight 111 Memorial.  This commemorates the 229 victims of the Swissair Flight 111 that went down off the coast here in September 1998.

I’m told that the memorial faces the area of the ocean where the flight crashed, about 8 km (5 mi) from shore.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_111)

From the lonely site of the memorial we could look back at Peggy’s Cove.  The white spot you see on the horizon behind me is the lighthouse.

We stopped back in Peggy’s Cove for coffee, where I visited the Fisherman’s Monument, and learned that Peggy’s Cove was actually named after a girl who was the sole survivor of a shipwreck off of Lighthouse Point in the mid-1800s.  She was rescued by the people of the town and stayed in the area, eventually marrying a local man and making her life there.  In the Monument, she’s believed to be the figure just to the left of the black crack in the rock, carrying a basket.

Personally I liked this sea captain at the far end, being swamped by greenery.

It was still raining and hazy when I took the picture below.  Unfortunately, it was at this spot that I learned by text message that my poor greyhound, Bonnie, was not doing well back in Australia.  Later that night we lost her.. I think I’ll always remember this as the place where I started to lose my lovely little dog.

I found this whale bone — is it a vertebrae, or maybe a jaw bone? — further up the road, next to an old rendering pot.

On the drive back to Halifax we spotted this sign.  Now this is effective advertising..

In wandering around Halifax the rest of the day, we found a few interesting things, but the weather wasn’t very conducive to being touristy.  That’s me sitting in the big red chair on the left.  The sign celebrates the 150th anniversary of confederation in Canada — there are many celebrations happening across the country, and all national parks have free entrance.  Yay Canada!!

Remembering my promise to the nice Canadian border security people to get the heck out of their country within a week, I said goodbye to my friend and headed south again, spending one last Canadian night at New River Beach Provincial Park.

I wandered the beach in the morning as the tide was coming in, sad for the loss of our little Bonnie, but happy to be still exploring the beauties of the world.  Bonnie used to love a walk along the beach.

The ocean, seen from a snail’s perspective (yes, there was a live snail in the shell) seems like an infinite universe.  We all find pleasures and beauties in the world in our own ways, from our own perspectives.  Time to move on and continue to find new points of view…