Oh Canada: The Maritimes

Sunday was quite a driving day.  We decided that Saint John wasn’t far enough from home and turned the steering wheel toward Prince Edward Island after a visit to the local ward. Trekking through New Brunswick was much like driving through Maine except with more evergreens, there was so much beautiful nature to see.

 

We took the back roads from Saint John to Saint Martins to see the caves.  The tide shifts in this area of the world are very severe, large enough to carve out caves.  I couldn’t walk very well on the rocky beach; I ripped up my flip flops and potentially my ankles trying though.  There was seaweed everywhere!

 

The caves weren’t as deep as Jacob had imagined but they were beautiful red rock all the way through.  There were little streams over the beach and plenty of people.  Anna loved playing and making piles of rocks.  The small town outside the caves reminded me of Smithfield, Virginia with the Victorian houses and all the little stores.

 

On our way north we got stuck in a tourist attraction called Magnetic Hill.  There is this small hill where after you park your car, put it in neutral, and take your foot off the brake your car magically rolls up hill.  It was pretty sweet, while asking the teenage attendants (who were bored at their deserted attraction job site) if we could go again, I also managed to pester them about how many times they had gone on the amazing hill.  Jacob was thoroughly embarrassed by his touristy wife, next time I’ll be sure to pack my calf-high socks to go with my sandals.  I also made him take a picture of the duck family.  They were completely adorable.

As we were going along, we realized just how close we were to Nova Scotia.  We really want to make a trip to Halifax too, one day, but there wasn’t enough time for it all on this trip.  Maybe next time we’ll take the ferry boat from NS to Prince Edward Island, but this time we only made it to the first town in the province.  They just installed a field of wind turbines earlier this year.  They were quite a sight, and so big!  Yep, we are total hicks, getting excited about the awesome web of antennas of the recently closed down short wave radio station, the large wind turbines, and taking pictures in front of the cows.

 

The bridge connecting Prince Edward Island to the Canada mainland was so impressive, we drove for miles, and the sun was starting to sink in the sky as it was 8ish.  Atlantic Time threw us for a loop, I definitely never imagined that Atlantic Time meant anything other than you were literally in the ocean. (Sorry for not knowing more about you, dear northerly neighbor!) It also had to do with being more north, but the sun setting around 9 pm was quite a change, I’m glad Anna doesn’t depend on it for her sleep schedule.

 

We fell in love with Prince Edward Island.  The reddish glow over the beautiful green farm land was unbelievably gorgeous.  Every green imaginable could be found in those fields, which were surrounded by beautiful homes, trees, waters.  I really can’t describe it, and we couldn’t capture it in a picture, especially the feeling of being surrounded by it, it wasn’t one little idyllic farm it was an island full of them!  What a little treat the Island was as a destination, and completely worth a visit, even if we did have to keep it short.