Social Commentary From The Road.

Well Mrs. Grumpy (Marilyn) and I finally had a vacation this year for the first time in two years.  Last year I was in the middle of changing companies so we didn’t have a chance to get away.  I’m going to use the next few posts to tell you about our week traveling in Nova Scotia and share a few of the 750 photographs we took.

Two years ago we went for a short (5 day) trip to Newfoundland and enjoyed ourselves immensely but this year due to money constraints and trying to get the roof of our house re-shingled we decided to do our vacation thing on the cheap.  Of course nothing is really cheap when you come right down to it, especially with the truck sitting in the driveway, not making any income.  But you know what I mean.

The only real plan we had was to get as far as Yarmouth, NS at some point in our trip to visit with an old school chum of Marilyn’s she had not seen in 40 years and just recently rediscovered through her art gallery website http://MarilynsArtGallery.com.  We had no set itinerary for several reasons, not the least of which was the predicted arrival of Hurricane Bill on Sunday.  We weren’t too concerned as the storm was expected to hit mostly along the south shore of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton.  Since we were traveling along the Fundy Shore we didn’t expect more than a bit of wind and rain and that turned out to be the case.

Since we live at the tip of the Bay of Fundy near Truro, NS we decided to focus our trip along the Nova Scotia edge of the Bay of Fundy.  Having no itinerary the plan was to drive till we saw something of interest and then investigate.  Where ever we happened to be come evening we would look for a place to spend the night.  On our Newfoundland trip we had stayed in hotels and bed and breakfasts.  This time we removed the seats from our minivan, put an air mattress on the floor and packed our supplies around it and on the roof and we were ready to roll.

First stop was the Visitor Information at Maitland, NS where we managed to pick up a new map of Nova Scotia (our old one was a couple of years old) and some brochures of some of the sights and attractions along our intended route.  The folks there were very friendly and helpful and we snapped a few photos in the area.

Maitland, NS Visitor Information

(Click on any image to see an enlargement)

South Maitland Tidal Observation Deck

Marilyn took advantage of our trip to get lots of practice with the camera.  It turns out her artistic talents come in handy for things other than just painting, scrapbooking, knitting and crocheting.

Marilyn was determined to get some good shots.

There were many peaceful rural and maritime scenes on our way.  Not wanting to bore my readers I’ll include only a few.

One of many peaceful scenes along the way.

Marilyn couldn’t pass this old church without taking a picture.  Who knows? After Hurricane Bill it might no longer be there.

This church has definitely seen better days.

A short way down the road from the old church we spotted this rustic seat near the road as if inviting passersby to set a spell.

Rustic chair.

In my next post we’ll continue along the shores of Cobequid Bay and some of the interesting things we found.