Sunday, A day of rest

So we are taking a day of rest. We are in Antigonish, Nova Scotia which is a college town. As we entered town yesterday afternoon, St. Francis Xavier University was the first thing to greet us. Red brick buildings with portico and columns (that may be redundant) spread across a manicured green campus gave an instant impression of university. This morning we took a walk around downtown. Unlike what we have become accustom to in CA, the stores are closed on Sunday, or don’t open until noon. We considered ducking into a Tim Horton’s for a donut or pastry, but the church across the street had just let out and the congregation moved to TH ahead of us and the line was out the door with both congregants and students.

There was a smattering of rain this morning. We needed umbrellas for about 5 minutes; the rest of the time was more like a heavy mist. I think Spice enjoyed the change of pace. She was dry by the time we were back at the RV.

When we first entered Nova Scotia yesterday at Amherst, we had choice to either take the main road or go north along the coast. We chose the coast road. Not necessarily the best decision. The road was two lanes, which most roads have been, with only a 12-24 inch berm. When it was smooth, it was fine, but a lot of the road was in disrepair with asphalt patches and no berm. A rough road does several things, none of them pleasant. First, the RV becomes a rolling earthquake. Your ears are assaulted by the sounds of everything you own bouncing on some shelf or in some cabinet. The second is, I become fixated on my driving as I move to avoid rougher sections, slow to absorb others and just grit my teeth through the rest. Third, sitting high in the RV is nice on a smooth road, but when you’re being pitched right and left by rough pavement, the lateral swing in significant. I do “ok” as I have the steering wheel to hang onto. Carol on the other hand, just has to ride it out, occasionally advising me there is no road on her side and she would appreciate me moving back towards the middle. A couple hours of this type of driving, we are both feeling the effects. So we stopped at a winery.

The Jost Winery is known for it Icewine. But we tried some of the others. They have quite a variety of wines. The labeling is quite different from what I’m used to: different grapes and different processes. I bought a non-oak Noir and a Leon Millot. Both are a bit unique. I also got an icewine for Carol.

Carol called and booked our passage on the ferry from Yarmouth to Bar Harbor. It is pretty pricey but saves us approximately 550 miles of driving. It also gives us a date that we will be back in the good old U.S.A. For now, we are enjoying having the internet and catching up on mail, banking, columns and blogs.