States & Provinces visited on this segment: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Maine
Dates: Tuesday, July 24 to Thursday, July 26
Miles driven: 671 (6852 total to date)
Summary: On Tuesday, July 24 we took a day trip to Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia. Other than a brief stop at the visitor center, we spent the day down by the waterfront in Halifax. We started at the Pier 21 National Historic Site. Pier 21 is where the vast majority of immigrants to Canada first entered the country and it was actively used as a processing center for immigrants up until 1971. Pier 21 is the Canadian equivalent to Ellis Island in the US where millions of immigrants first entered the United States. The Pier 21 museum has interesting displays, artifacts, and movies on the people who immigrated to Canada. It describes the reasons that many immigrants choose to come to Canada, the process that the immigrants went through, what the immigrants experienced once they arrived in Canada. The part I found most interesting were the first hand audio and video interviews with immigrants. Once we finished at Pier 21 we walked along the boardwalk by the waterfront to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. The maritime museum has many interesting exhibits, including a large exhibit on the Titanic, and a pirate exhibit that the kids found especially interesting. Canada’s first hydrographic vessel, CSS Acadia, is docked at the museum’s wharf and we toured as part of the museum admission. After dinner and some shopping along the waterfront we headed back to our campsite in New Brunswick.
Wednesday marked the half way mark of our trip – 5 ½ weeks into the trip, 5 ½ weeks to go. Fittingly, this is the day we started to head west. We packed up, but decided before we truly headed west that we wanted to spend a little more time in Nova Scotia. So, with the trailer in tow, we headed back into Nova Scotia. After entering Nova Scotia at Amherst we turned SW and drove down to Parrsboro for lunch. We then drove the rest of the way around the peninsula, stopping at some beaches and lighthouses. We then reentered New Brunswick late in the afternoon. A couple of days before Karen started to have sciatica pain. Karen has this same problem ~3 years ago due to a ruptured disc in her back. The pain got increasingly worse, and by the time we were ready to stop for the day Karen was in severe pain, so we decided to find a medical facility. We drove to the town of Sussex where we found a hospital. They gave Karen a shot, some painkillers, and a prescription for some drugs that “would get rid of the pain” as well as eliminate the inflammation in her vertebrae that was likely causing the nerve irritation. By the time we left the hospital it was ~11:30 at night. We decided it was too late to check into a campground, so we tried to find a motel where we could park the trailer and get a room for the night. We couldn’t find anything in Sussex so we decided to continue on to Saint John which is a much larger town. We arrived in Saint. John sometime after 1 AM and found that all the motel rooms were full, We were told that our best bet for finding a room was to continue another hour or so to St. George. So, we headed on down the road. Before we got to St. George we saw a sign for a provincial park, and thought we would drive in and see if we could find an empty site or even just a safe place to park for the night. I stopped at the registration booth to see if there was a map of the campground or any information about what to do for late arrivals. Much to my surprise someone inside turned the lights on and opened the door. A park ranger invited me inside, found us a suitable site, and got us registered. He then followed us down to our site and helped us get backed in and hooked up. The campground at New River Beach was heavily wooded, had a maze of unmarked roads, and it was pitch black. It would have been virtually impossible to find a campsite without his help and very challenging to get into the site as the roads and site were narrow. Note sure what he was doing up at 2 am when we arrived, but we thanked him several times before he departed off into the darkness. We considered him our guardian angle that was looking after us.
When Karen left the hospital Wednesday night she was feeling a little better. However, after a couple of hours the drugs started to wear off and she was in as much pain as before. They had given here one dose of the prescription medicine to take in the morning before she could get to a pharmacy, so she took that but it had no affect. We packed up as quickly as we could Thursday morning and headed into St. George and found a pharmacy. The pharmacist told Karen that the prescription was just for Alieve (a slightly higher dose that the over-the-counter pills) and that was not going to help her problem. The pharmacist recommended that Karen find another hospital, and she gave us directions to the hospital in Calais Maine, which was only about an hour away. We spent the middle half of the day at the hospital in Calais, and the doctor there was more understanding of the problem that Karen was having and gave her a couple of prescriptions that were more appropriate in addition to treatments that were administered in the hospital. Note: It took a few days for the pain to gradually subside (which the doctor said it would), but she is doing better now.
Other notes: I finally got into a situation where I needed to use the sliding feature of the hitch. On our second day in Nova Scotia we were looking for a specific beach outside of Parrsboro. After a few km the road turned to gravel but it was still a wide, well maintained road. After a few more km the road narrowed and there was a dead end sign. There was a turn around, but if was not very large. On the one side of the road there was a ditch, and the other side had a drop off. There was no way I could get the trailer turned around with the hitch in the standard position. After sliding the hitch to the rear position I was able to maneuver back and forth to get turned around and headed back into town. The sliding hitch saved the day. We never did find the beach that we were looking for.
Next up: Maine
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