The highway signs, by the way, are so perplexing here in Canada. I'm not talking about billboards; there aren't many. I'm talking about the symbols that tell you what's coming up at the next exit. In the U.S., we have interstate icons that mean "gas," "food," "lodging," and maybe "hospital." Pretty much all you need. Here in Canada, the exits are marked with, like, eight or ten different symbols that leave us scratching our heads. There's one with a little beaver and a squirrel, which, I'm guessing, means nature preserve or provincial park. The key indicates a heritage site ... obviously. There's one that's just an "@" symbol ... Internet access? And I saw one the other day that was a wavy line curled up onto itself in a spiral. Keith thought maybe it was a roundabout, but it looked like little shoots of grass were sprouting from its base, like a fiddlehead fern unfurling from the ground. What, we're supposed to watch for fiddlehead ferns at the next exit? How do Canadians keep track of these?
But I digress. We have dear friends, Corey and Emily, who live in Juneau, Alaska. As you can imagine, we don't get to see them much; and if we ever have a chance to meet up with them, we will go out of our way to make it happen. Several months ago, we learned that Corey and Emily, along with their two young daughters, would be taking a road trip with Corey's parents through New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to New Foundland. Corey was born there, and his family hasn't been back since he was very small. So for months, we have been planning to rendezvous here In Canada, wherever our paths cross.
The plan involved meeting near Amherst today -- near the slender border Nova Scotia shares with New Brunswick, closer to Prince Edward Island. From there, we'd caravan to Battery Park Provincial Park, on Cape Breton Island, and spend tomorrow night together, too, before parting ways. This plan all came together only a week or two ago, when our itineraries finally gelled. We glanced at the map and thought it would work
Despite having advance reservations at campgrounds and a general idea of what direction we're headed, Keith and I have been taking our trip day-by-day, not leaving much time to look ahead at all. We're lucky if we know what we're having for dinner on any given night, never mind plotting out an exact route for tomorrow or four days from now. So, this morning, when we were finally ready to hit the road, we took out the map and started plotting our course to Amherst. It turns out, there's no good way to get from Annapolis Royal to Amherst. We checked with the campground owner for his advice, and he confirmed that the best way to get there is to zig east for 3 hours to Halifax, then zag back west toward Amherst. The entire trip would take at least six hours. And the coastal route, which is more direct, would take even longer as it follows narrow back roads that wind through villages where the posted speed limits are 50 km/hr or less.
Reassessing our plans, Keith and I realized that a drive up to Amherst would mean that we would spend the entire day in the car -- and that we would completely miss the southwestern half of Nova Scotia, including Halifax. So, we reluctantly amended our plans and decided that we would drive only as far as Halifax today. Tomorrow we can drive to Battery Park Provincial Park as planned and meet up with Corey and Emily there.
This is where the trip gets a little seat-of-our-pantsy. We didn't know what to do in Halifax, nor did we have a place to stay. So as I drove, Keith flipped through guide books for some direction. We decided we'd like to see the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, on the waterfront in Halifax, but we also noted that it closes at 5:30 p.m. local time (4:30 our time -- we're still operating on Eastern). Seeing that it was approaching mid-afternoon by the time we figured this out, we realized that we'd have to rush to find a campground, unhitch the trailer, set up the tent, and then turn around and head downtown with time to spare at the museum.
One of our guidebooks pointed us to a campground -- Shubie Park, billed as the closest campground to downtown Halifax. We called ahead from the road, mentioned that we have a small trailer and asked if they had space. Keith was told that all the trailer spots were taken because there's a square dance competition in town -- never a good sign -- but that we could use a tent site.
Around this time, as we were speeding along toward Halifax, I was starting to regret our change of plans. My vision of a Nova Scotia vacation included us meandering through weathered fishing villages on a rocky, windswept coast. And here we were, zooming across the province on what amounts to an Interstate highway, past signs for gas stations and motels. We might as well have been cruising through Ohio. This was not what I imagined.
So we drove into the Halifax/Dartmouth area in search of Shubie Park, and were suddenly a little daunted by all the traffic and suburban sprawl. Car dealerships. Wal-Marts. Strip malls. But what were we expecting? Halifax is a large, modern city, not the little village of my imagination. Shubie Park has an unlikely location in the middle of all of this. It's like camping in the middle of Shoreview.
We found the campground -- really not much more than a large open field packed with campsites) -- checked in and were delighted to discover that we could rent the lone yurt sitting like a centerpiece in the middle of the park.
That meant that we wouldn't have to set up the tent tonight. The kids would sleep in beds in the yurt (thrilling!), Keith and I would sleep in the Teardrop, and all we had to do at the moment was unhook the trailer and hop back in the car and rush downtown to the museum before it closed.
Even better, we got to the museum to discover that they had special extended hours tonight -- open until 8. So we had plenty of time to wander through fascinating exhibits about the Titanic, shipwrecks and treasure lost at sea. Really, a great museum.
After that, we strolled along the waterfront and enjoyed seafood dinners on the deck at Murphy's -- from what I can tell, kind of a tourist hotspot there on the wharf, with a giant gift shop and boat tours to boot, but we had to do it. On the pier, a couple of teenage musicians with an microphone and an electric guitar were butchering rock songs, and Keith and I were so proud that Charlie could immediately identify Green Day's "21 Guns."
We picked up ice cream at Cow's -- a local franchise that looks to be the Ben & Jerry's of the Atlantic provinces, with funky-sounding flavors like "Mooey Gooey" and "Messy Bessy" and a gift shop with cow paraphernalia galore.
We are disappointed that we won't be seeing Corey and Emily tonight. And we are frustrated that we spent the afternoon watching most of Nova Scotia whiz past our windows en route to Halifax. But we are pleased that it all worked out this evening. We had a wonderful time.
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