July 2, 2011

Oh, Canada....So like the USA, but still different.  I learned they pronounce Quebec as Kay-beck, instead Quee-beck, like I do.   And there is always road construction everywhere, but there are also, always, the great, wide sweeps of forrest on both sides of the road.  The forests are really beautiful, with the dark green of old first and the lighter green of new growth.  Beautiful, tall flowers called lucernes, in shades of blue and pink, grow everywhere.

During high tide, the waters of the bay reach inland through meandering paths.

When the tides wash away most of the land but leave a section big enough to grow plants, it’s called a Flower pot .  Some Flower pots are big enough to grow trees -  although eventually  trees will outgrow the pot.

Nova Scotia, naturally, has strong Scottish roots.  Names like McDouglas are always spelled "MacDouglas".  And every so often, a bagpiper in full kilt comes to the RV park and walks around the whole park, playing the bagpipes.  It sounds just right!

Tim Horton’s is Canada’s answer to McDonalds - there is one in every small town.  We tried it once but didn’t think it was good enough to try again.  Randy did stop at a McDonalds once for me, and we found that Canadian McDonalds burgers taste more like beef than the US ones; probably because Canada has stricter controls.  And their Hershey Kisses are better too.  Scotsburn is the ice cream of choice here, and you can get ice cream cones everywhere.  It’s excellent! 

This is a picture of our favorite breakfast place - the Canada Petro, with that great home-made blueberry and strawberry jam, plus fried baloney!

But some things are hard to get used to, like four chicken breasts for $26.68.  I am not sure what they feed the chickens that make it worth that!

And this place has the worst bugs we’ve ever met, including the famous Skagway mosquitoes!  The Nova Scotia black flies are simply terrible.  They literally feast on everyone, leaving big red welts that start out itching and end up painfully sore.  And they are everywhere!  We found that we could not sit out in the evening to watch the tidal changes because within 2 minutes the flies were all over us.

We went to Halifax for a day (one of the 6 sunny days there have been since we arrived).  It's a harbor town, of course, but I was surprised to see jellyfish in the harbor.  They have a glass shop where glassblowers work in view of the tourists; it was fascinating but an RV is not the best place for expensive glass, so we passed.  We toured one of the boats in the harbor, and I thought Randy looked right as home behind the wheel!

The same day we went to Peggy's Cove, a cute little harbor town.  The day we were there a group of folks with very old cars were touring the place so we got to see some interesting cars from 1911 or so.  But the cove itself was the main draw.  The town is picturesque, with several small buildings scattered about almost randomly.

At the edge of town the coastline is made of huge granite rocks.  They are big enough that people hike over them like dunes, and lie down and sunbath on them like the beach.  

And at the very edge of this granite land stands Peggy's Cove lighthouse.  It's become sort of a symbol of the area.  It must have been difficult to anchor it on top of all that granite, but it is easy to see why it was necessary .

All of this probably sounds like a wrap-up, and it is.  The never-ending rainy season took a toll on Nova Scotia tourism, and there wasn't a need for us to stay at the RV park.  So Thursday we left the cloudy weather and black flies behind, and are now sitting in southern Maine.  It's been sunny since we got here, and not a single bug bite!