My husband and I went on a road trip to Canada last week to attend a friend’s wedding in Nova Scotia. This was my first real road trip, and I was simultaneously excited and nervous. We didn’t know where we were going to stay and we didn’t know what we were going to do! We spent the first day doing nothing but driving, and were grateful that we didn’t hit any traffic! We stopped for lunch in Bangor and had dinner at a diner shortly after crossing the border. We ended up in Alma (in New Brunswick) and stayed at an awesome inn right on the Bay of Fundy.
On the following day we walked around Alma a bit to check out the low tide. The tides on the Bay of Fundy are very dramatic, and vary significantly from low to high tide. We happened upon a boat that had been in water the previous night and was now on land. I walked to it through the mud so that I could get a close wide-angle shot of it, and I felt like I was walking on quicksand. Small islands started appearing in the bay, and we decided to get a closer look. As the tide kept getting lower and lower, the little islands eventually formed a walkway out into the ocean! From there we headed to Cape Enrage, which is an awesome cliff with a bed of rocks below it. We were then onto the Hopewell Rocks, which were amazing except for the mud and the fact that, as usual, I was without appropriate footwear.
After the rocks we began our journey to Nova Scotia. We had a nice dinner in a town called Truro, after which… wait for it… our car starting acting crazy (battery light went on, other lights were flashing, the engine started overheating, etc). Under normal circumstances I’d have been very concerned. In fact, I’d have been angry. Instead of feeling nervous and angry, I felt grateful and relieved. For the previous two hours of driving in Nova Scotia there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. No people, no houses, no streetlights, no cell phone reception. Nothing. We happened to break down approximately 1/4 of a mile from a VW dealership (we have a 2007 Rabbit), which happened to be right next to a Comfort Inn. I looked it up, and there are only seven VW dealers in all of Nova Scotia. If we’d broken down anywhere else during our drive through Nova Scotia we’d have been stranded without cell phone reception, light, or a place to stay for the night. It was cosmic. We drove to the VW dealership, abandoned the car, and stayed at the Comfort Inn for the night.
We woke up early the next morning and went to the dealership. Turned out something was wrong with our alternator belt (something about pulleys and tension). The battery wasn’t charging, and basically the car was shutting down. Since the shop wasn’t open until Monday, we left the car behind, got a rental, and headed to my friend’s wedding! The wedding was at a lodge in Liscombe Mills, on the east coast of Nova Scotia. The drive there was lovely – once again we drove through beautiful land and coastline, and saw signs like “Last Restaurant For 45 Minutes.” We arrived at the wedding site starving but happy! The wedding was so much fun! It was slightly different from an American wedding, and had FIVE FULL HOURS OF DANCING. Amazing!!!
We ended up staying at the lodge again the following day since there was no point in leaving since we were without a car. I did a whole lot of nothing. I read a book on our room’s private deck overlooking the river, went kayaking, ate lots of food, and watched Something Something Something Dark Side on my laptop.
On Monday we headed to the dealership to retrieve our car, and they said “We rush ordered the part – it will be here tomorrow afternoon” and we freaked out, because my husband had a ton of work waiting for him in MA (and also we didn’t want to be stranded in Nova Scotia – as I have already mentioned, there’s a whole lot of nothing and while that is nice for a while, at some point one wants to do something other than sit in a hotel room). The owner of the dealership (much like everyone in Canada) was super nice, and offered to take the part out of one of their cars. Yes! We waited for about three hours, and were on our way back to the States. We crashed at a hotel in Bangor on Monday night, and came back yesterday.
All in all, it was a positive trip. I am sort of bummed out because the “Return” portion of our road trip, which was supposed to be on Sunday and Monday and involve stops in Maine and Acadia, didn’t get to happen due to our car troubles. But it could have been far worse, and the bright side of this story is really really bright.
I didn’t take many photos on the trip. Lately I’ve been focused on having experiences instead of documenting them. Plus, this was mostly a scenery trip and landscapes have never been my forte. Nevertheless, here are a few of my favorite photos from the trip. There are some photos of Cape Enrage, the Hopewell Rocks, and the cool ocean walkway that formed before our eyes in Alma. Enjoy!
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