Quieter Days

August 6, 2007
North Sydney, NS

First, let me apologize for the spotty posts for at least the rest of the week. We’re in a spot that gets no satellite signal (no Internet, no DirecTV), so we’re communication-challenged this week. We’ll compose offline and post when we can. I’m not sure if it’ll be any better on PEI next week, as we’ll be further north. The satellites associated with US services are just very low in the sky the further north you go, so the least little barrier (like trees, hills, etc.) causes an outage. It tried to manually point the dish, and the signal’s there but too weak to lock in. Oh, well; well survive…

Yesterday, we stayed close to home and didn’t try to do too much. Overnight (Saturday night/Sunday morning), we had severe thunderstorms. The lightning started after dinner, and soon it was accompanied by rumbles of thunder. The rain started before we went to bed, and continued all night long. The storm cells came through in waves. It would let up for a while, and then the next cell would pass through. It seemed like each one was stronger than the last. This went on until after dawn, and the last of the rain passed through around 8 AM. It was breezy and cloudy for most of the morning, which helped us decide that it was an “in” day. It cleared up some in the afternoon and by evening it was quite nice, but it cleared too late in the day to effectively do anything on the road.

This was fine, as we used the time effectively anyway. Geri did three loads of laundry in the coach and one big load at the campground’s machines. I made another loaf of bread in the new machine, and we did a little planning for what we want to see while we’re here. We defrosted some sauce from the freezer and had a nice pasta dinner with an unremarkable but pleasing Tuscan Sangiovese that I’d picked up in Halifax (Bedford).

Today was pretty nice, but we hadn’t gotten ourselves organized, so we did a short 3-hour excursion. We started off in downtown North Sydney, which is where the ferry to Newfoundland docks. We passed by as the ferry was pulling in, and we saw the large queue of vehicles standing by waiting to board. There were about 10 RVs, 10 tractor-trailers, and probably close to 40 cars waiting. These ferries are supposed to be the largest vehicle-carrying ships in North America (another superlative; there are many here). We’d toyed with the idea of extending our trip that way, but chose not to for several reasons (there’s nothing there; we’d have to leave the pups in the coach for the whole voyage; we want to get to Alabama by early-September).

We circled around the harbour to Sydney proper, stopping for a quick picture at the local EDS call centre (I had a chance to visit there several years ago). We found a McDonalds with “McLobster”, so we had to have lunch there. It wasn’t bad for C$5.99: I gave it a solid C: not a lot of meat but nicely dressed; too much iceberg lettuce; no toasting on the roll.

We toured downtown Sydney (only to confirm that there’s not much there) and then headed out along the coastal drive. We didn’t go too far because we wanted to get back around 2 PM to get tonight’s dinner (baby back ribs) cooking low-and-slow. It was a nice drive, and we got back as planned. The ribs came out quite well, and Geri made foil-wrapped sliced potatoes/onions/peppers and finished up the asparagus we had on hand, all on the grill. It worked out well; as I was only using one burner for the ribs (they go on the “cool” side). We sat outside for a bit but it was actually starting to get pretty cool, so we’re hoping for good sleeping weather.

Tomorrow’s plan is to do the full Cabot Trail (180+ km/110+ miles) by getting an early start and having dinner on the road. We’ve got the lunch made, the coffee’s programmed, and the car’s ready to go, so we’ll see how we do!

Oh, and Happy Birthday to Britt!