Summer Travel Map

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Rain, wind, and a short trip

August 9, 2007
North Sydney, NS

As expected, the weather overnight was pretty wet. Today, it was wet and windy in the morning. The rain turned to showers, and I was able to make a quick run to the park office to dump garbage and recycling, and to fill one of the propane tanks used for the outdoor grill.

We decided to take a quick trip to the Alexander Graham Bell center, down in Baddeck. Before we did, though, we decided to take a short detour down the unpaved road that the park is on. We’re glad we did, since we saw a nice little waterfall (running well because of the overnight rains) and two foxes hunting along the side of the road. Geri did the photo honors on the cascade, but neither of us was fast enough to catch the foxes. We did see an interesting driveway marker along the dirt road down a couple of kilometers from the park, and Geri got a photo of that as well.

The Bell place was an interesting site, focused much more on the things he did here than his earlier work with the deaf and the invention of the telephone. In the early years of the 20th century, he lived and worked in Baddeck, and experimented with flying machines (planes and kites) and hydrofoils. Neither was particularly successful on a commercial level, but created some interesting ideas and certainly left a lot of artifacts behind. These included a wooden-hulled, propeller-driven hydrofoil prototype that actually set a speed record of 114 KPH (~71 MPH) at the time. The operation is run by Parks Canada, and pretty well done. They have a large number of activities for kids, so there were a lot of families there.

Here are a couple of pictures from today:
http://picasaweb.google.com/GeorgeandGeri/AlexanderGrahamBellSite

After a short side trip to Englishtown Harbour (not much there but a few working boats and a C$5 ferry that goes less than 100 metres), we headed home before the next wave of rain (we could see it in the distance, across the channel) moved in.

Tonight’s dinner will be rack of lamb, and Geri made a request for mushroom risotto with peas. We picked up the lamb at Costco in Moncton, NB, on the way to Nova Scotia, and I could tell as soon as I opened the package that it was much more like mutton than we’re used to. I trimmed and frenched the rack as usual, and it was OK but still more “gamey” than we might have liked. I suspect that it’s a timing thing, since it’s just not “spring lamb” time anywhere in the world.

We had a wonderful LaFond Pinot Noir from the Santa Rita Hills area in Santa Barbara County, California. We’ve really begun seeking these wines out lately, as the whole area is making some terrific wines over the last few years.

Geri also make her “famous” fried zucchini slices, since she’d bought a couple of them a few days ago and we had to use them up. Fortunately, our next door neighbors were out by their fire ring waiting for the weather to clear (it is), so she was able to bring some “to share”. This always works out well, as people get a treat and we get to use up the food in one batch. They’re from Baton Rouge, LA, and they’d never had the fried squash slices before. In fact, they’d never heard of the Cholula’s hot sauce that she serves them with!

We spent a little time talking with them after dinner until it got dark and cool out. They have a good little West Highland White Terrier (Westie) that was playing with Maya Lynn and even Merlin got in on the fun. We were able to let them off-leash, because there weren’t any other people around. It was good to see them all get some exercise.

Tomorrow (yeah, I know – don’t make too many plans), we’re not planning a full day because there’s pre-departure work to do, but I think we can squeeze a trip to the Louisbourg historical site in late-morning. I’m hoping we can stop by the local C@P site for a quick Internet session on the way, so this post will actually see the light of day!

No comments: