I had an absolutely amazing time, but I’m glad to be back home. Except for this heat – it’s sweltering down here (heat index around 110) – quite a change from Nova Scotia where I had to wear a jacket most nights.
Best campground: tie between Quechee State Park in Vermont (absolutely pristine campground, private campsites, beautiful scenery) and Cedar Dunes Provincial Park in PEI (on the beach w/ lighthouse, private campsite, great sunset, free hot showers)
Worst campground: we didn’t really stay in any bad campgrounds, although the water ran out while I was taking a shower at Murphy’s Camping on the Ocean. That sucked.
Best food: Halifax all the way: Anatolia Turkish Cuisine (lunch) or Sweet Basil (dinner).
Worst food: a McLobster sandwich from McDonalds (I don’t know why I had to try it, but it seemed like the thing to do at the time). It was on a hot dog bun and I only ate a bite.
Best B&B: Evening Primrose – owned by a lesbian couple who were super nice and felt like family (no pun intended). The room was not quite as pink as in the pictures (thankfully) – and after a few nights of camping, it felt like heaven.
Favorite memory: Whale watching in Pleasant Bay, Nova Scotia on the Cape Breton Trail. The Cape Breton Trail goes around a national park and is definitely a place I want to go back to – absolutely pristine views of mountains and ocean. After a ferocious thunderstorm the night before (which we watched from the porch of a b&b), I was worried that our whale watching trip would get rained out. Around 10:30 am the weather started to clear, and by the time we got on the water the weather was perfect. We followed a couple pods of pilot whales for about an hour, and then ended up in a pod of about 50 pilot whales that surrounded the zodiac – some almost close enough to touch. The baby whales were breaching (jumping completely out of the water), and then turning and swimming on their backs. The female whales were swimming in pods of 8-10 – each group gliding through the water in unison. It was magical.
Places I Never Want To See Again: St. John, New Brunswick sucked. It didn’t help that it was raining buckets, and I almost got into a wreck, and Garmin The GPS took us in circles trying to find a library.
Places I Want To Go Back To: Cape Breton Trail, NS (Pema Chodron’s abbey is in Pleasant Bay – I found out after we left). Halifax, NS. Portland, ME (like Asheville, NC, only cooler). Boston, MA (except I’m not driving next time).
