Rocky; Bullwinkle

Yeah, that was the most appropriate title for yesterday's post, only I didn't want to give away the punchline about seeing a moose.

But I couldn't resist using it today because –– cute, right?

Rocky does seem to have been the theme for me this week, though. Rough rocks, smooth rocks, jagged rocks, fossil rocks, rocky cliffs and coastlines. They're everywhere, and they engage me in a way that I wouldn't have expected. 

Here are some rocks from today:

The image here doesn't do justice to the colors in these rocks on the eastern coast of Cape Breton.

Wider shot of those rocks.

The day started out with a forecast of rain, so we amended plans to hike in the park again and decided to drive to a remote location we'd heard and read about. Plus it had an irresistible name.

Meat Cove. 

And though it's no Baffin Island, it's pretty remote. You don't get here by accident. You have to drive WAY out of your way, including the last five or so miles over unpaved road. There are people living along this road––a house here, a trailer there, everything very far apart –– and you wonder how anybody ends up living here. I have to think it's because this is where they were born. 

And then you arrive at Meat Cove, which has a campground, a little "restaurant" (photo evidence, below), a trailhead, and fantastic scenery.

The rain was still holding off, so we took a hike. It was billed to us as an easy 20-minute walk up to a grassy knoll. 

Not SO easy, for the likes of me; fairly steep and muddy. 

But I did it. 

View from the top.  

And I got down, too!

Our reward was lunch at Meat Cove's one and only eating establishment. 

Excellent lobster roll.

This little fellow was waiting for his owner outside.

Here's the rest of the day in façades. Happy weekend, everyone!

At first, we didn't realize we needed goat milk soap. But we did.

Mid-afternoon stop on our drive to our next location. I loved this coffee shop. I want to live here and write a novel in this coffee shop. I don't know who those people are, but they are all going to be characters in the novel I write in this coffee shop.

Here's where we're staying tonight, in Louisbourg, still on Cape Breton Island. It's very charming, with a very friendly innkeeper who cheerfully printed out copies of the Friday New York Times crossword puzzle for us. 

And here's where we had dinner tonight. My TC had the "best mussels he ever had" and I had a comforting and tasty seafood chowder. Not a drop of ambience, but a sweet waitress and delicious food.

In the mist

Today I met two fascinating characters.

The human one we encountered at breakfast at the Haus Treuburg inn. A retired math professor, he was in Cape Breton to listen to Celtic music and to escape the summer in Chatham, MA, where he has lived for 45 years. His former means of escape had been that he spent 40 years summering on Baffin Island in the Arctic, where he was dropped off by a local guide and then picked up at some designated spot 10 weeks later.  During which time he was completely alone.

Puts a little perspective on what it means to "get away from it all."

Even so, I still feel like we're off the beaten path; the roads are mostly empty, and when we hiked even the most popular trail in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park of Canada, we were on our own most of the time. There is a very distinct sense of being (nearly) in the wilderness.

But unlike on Baffin Island, we can pop into a boulangerie and stock up on oat cakes (a Cape Breton specialty and very tasty) before a hike.

Maybe hard to see in the photo, but the logo was definitely suggestive of a derriere.

We will be bringing a supply home, if we don't eat them all on the way.

The day was iffy, weather-wise, and my TC (traveling companion) went through the gamut of emotions as the clouds gathered and parted and rain drizzled and stopped on our two-hour drive north from Port Hood. As we began the afore-mentioned hike, the fog was thick and we couldn't see what we were supposed to be seeing on the Skyline Trail, which was, at least for my TC, highly disappointing.

But then conditions improved, and we had a perfectly timed 20-minute window to enjoy the views from the top, on which were perched a series of boardwalk platforms, comme ça:

On the rest of the drive to Ingonish, the sky was blue, the sun was bright, and the water views were spectacular.

This is the rocky beach 50 feet from the cottage we're in tonight. 

The cottage is very comfortable and well-appointed. The temperature is fantastic. We had dinner at a local joint where the TC had a lobster dinner and I had local scallops. All very enjoyable.

But wait. Aren't you wondering about the other fascinating character I met today? The non-human one?

I'm pretty proud of this photo, and I had not the foggiest (pun) idea that it was going to come out so well when I took it. I was just trying to get a shot of Mama Moose before she wandered away. 

Good night!

We'll always have Halifax

Lotta driving today. We left Wolfville around 10 and ended up in Port Hood at about 6:30. I'm not making anybody get out an atlas (as if), so just accept that it was a long drive, and we made plenty of stops along the way to see what there was to see.

What we didn't bother to see at all was Halifax, as we were advised more than once that a) there isn't very much of interest there and b) if you drive into Halifax you will get lost going in and lost coming out. So we're leaving Halifax to your and our imaginations. In my version, it is full of one-way streets, all going the wrong way.

At the end of our day we find ourselves at country inn on Cape Breton Island run by a German couple, where we were served a delicious dinner, the dessert of which is depicted below.

Apple streudel and a salute to the USA in cinnamon.

Here is the little porch attached to our cottage, overlooking. . . uh . . . that body of water, which now that you mention it I don't know what it is. According to my "atlas" it might be the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Everything here is surrounded by water and it if you ask me, it's all the Atlantic Ocean.

At any rate, it's a pretty setting, and the air is cool, and there is a fine mist that occasionally becomes a drizzle. And it was on this spot that I had a quiet little meditative sit before dinner. When you travel –– OK, I can't speak for you -–– when I travel, by the end of the day my head is filled with the zillion new things I encountered during the day, and it's especially challenging to quiet the mind. So what I did was follow the very simplest of meditation instructions, which is to sit very still and see what comes up.

And what came up was the empty road, and the wide sky, and the sea, and a lobster roll and fries at a already-nameless roadside joint in an already-nameless town (luckily, they didn't literally 'come up'), and numerous rustic facilities at gas stations and trailheads (it always comes back to toilets with me, and I don't see that changing, unfortunately for my readers), and more road and more sky and most of all the beach at Lawrencetown, NS, which is apparently "known for some of the best surfing in North America." 

Because the beach is completely covered with stones. Hundreds and thousands of beautiful, smooth, perfect stones.

Dipping my toes in

I feel a connection to these stones, and I can't say exactly why. Maybe everybody does. I wanted to take them all home. I will have to be satisfied with a variation on Steven Wright's one-liner:
I have a magnificent collection of beautiful stones. I keep them on the beach at Lawrencetown, NS.

But look again. Aren't they something? Screen-saver of the gods.

Quick n tasty

A quick recap because I am sleepy. Because we were awakened at 5:30am to vacate our cabins, please. (Yes, it was a nominally more civilized 6:30am in this more eastern time zone, but that's an irrelevant technicality.)

Drove off the boat 90 efficient minutes later, and were met with a foggy rain in Yarmouth and our 3-hour drive east, including a stop at Joanne's Quick 'n Tasty. 

Drizzly gray and sunny humidity alternated here the rest of the day, but the sky is huge and pretty magnificent in either condition. 

We are here with our Wolfeville host who took us to many very interesting places, the highlight being Blue Beach which, at low tide, is STREWN with fossil specimens. 

That's a fossil of wave ripples. 

I will sleep now, perhaps to dream of three hundred million year old tetrapods, guarded over by Princess Patricia, who stands, ever vigilant, in the front yard here, carved out of a tree trunk. 

That's right. Not just standing on a tree trunk but part of it. 

That's something, hunh?

Farewell, Portlandia east

My first day of posting was thwarted by lack of cell service on the open sea. Sure there's wifi on the ferry--for a fee. But did the early seafarers pay for wifi? They did not!  And neither will I. 

So you may see this in the morning and if you do, think of me waking in my little bunk . . . 

. . . $13.00 richer!!

Because on Deck 8:

And

That was after my very first bet of 21 cents!

Had I stopped there . . . Ah, but I didn't. 

Here are the other photos from embarking today. After waiting with 99 other cars for about 90 minutes we entered here:

And you already saw our cute little cabin, and here's the bathroom: 

Whaddyaknow? I managed to sneak in a toilet photo. 

Next stop: Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. 

I've got a system

Pants and tops in one suitcase. 

Underwear and socks in another. 

Shoes and outerwear in another. 

Laptop, kindle, books in another. 

Toiletries and sundries in another. 

Empty bag to collect laundry. 

Theoretically, I will take only what I need into the hotel each night, and not have to sort through everything every night. (9 different accommodations over 12 days.) 

Right now it seems genius. 

We'll see. 

Is this thing on?

I'm clearing my throat, readying myself and you, my little band, to the idea that I will be posting here again, starting on Monday.

It's travel time.

Hint.