We were told by Daisy's uncle, before we left Omaha, "bring your winter coat."
We were later told, by Daisy's other uncle, that the beaches weren't exactly "open" yet in Nova Scotia because they -- as a province -- were only "about a week and a half past seeing snow" on a fairly regular basis.
We had checked the weather for the area numerous times on almost a daily basis for the week or two up until the day we left. Highs in the 50s-60s, with one or two days maybe hitting 70 or higher, and lows in the 40s at night (Fahrenheit, of course, as we Americans don't do the Celsius thing).
We had tried to pack our suitcases accordingly for this weather -- I'd packed my boonie hat, a few sweatshirts, some sweatpants, some actual pants (in the event I'd need them), and a zip-up hoodie -- and Daisy had packed similar garb, including leggings and a hoodie and her old, beat up military-style jacket.
It was supposed to be 85 or higher in Omaha every day we were gone.
When we left the hotel on that Sunday morning, May 21 -- and actually got outside to breathe the fresh air of the Maritimes, it was 43 degrees in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was also dark, dull grey and overcast. I am sure I made a joke about it always sort of looking like that in Nova Scotia when we were there, because more often than not, it does. On our first trip up there together in 2015, the family joked that we brought the heat with us, because when we'd expected it to be in the 60s-70s most days, Nova Scotia underwent an unexpected heat wave of temps in the high 80s and 90s, and heavy thunderstorms followed almost every day in the evening and overnight.
Last summer when we were there, it was cool, rainy and misty more often than it was not, and on the day of Daisy's grandfather's funeral/burial, it was the kind of cold/wet weather you see for funerals in movies...followed by a thunderstorm in the afternoon and evening that turned the entire day into a washout. And that was in mid-August.
Our drive from Halifax to the homestead -- about two and a half hours, roughly, via the Trans-Canada highway -- was crisp and gray. Early spring weather in Nova Scotia. We stopped in a town called Antigonish on the way there in order to get some groceries and other necessities from Walmart and one of the two big food store chains in the area, Atlantic Superstore. We called Daisy's grandmother to let her know our rough ETA and to ask her if she needed us to pick up anything.
By the time we got to Walmart, where we went first, it was simply overcast and dark. By the time we finished there and went to the Superstore next door, it was pouring cold rain and a very cold wind was whipping. Daisy's grandmother told us we'd likely be driving through storms between Antigonish and the house. I thought about how in Omaha, it was likely in the 80s and perfectly sunny.
We didn't need to get a lot of groceries; we just needed the minimums for survival for a few days as we knew we'd have plenty of opportunities to go out and pick up other items from various places. Daisy had also gone to Whole Foods and had gotten multiple containers of vegan croissants and muffins that she had wrapped in clothing to protect them and had packed in her suitcase for the family to enjoy. To my knowledge, Canada does not have Whole Foods or any equivalent chain (well, they may, but in mainland Nova Scotia, they absolutely don't). My goal overall was to get some snack stuff, some sandwich materials, some nuts, etc -- stuff I could subsist on, even if it wasn't completely ideal, throughout most of the trip. I'd long eschewed any sort of "stick to a healthier diet" sort of mentality for the trip because I knew that wouldn't exactly be feasible. I knew from day one that most of my diet for the trip was going to consist of sandwiches of various types, Canadian candy bars and chips of various types, and seltzer water.
Daisy, however, wanted to cook for her grandmother as much as possible while we were there, not only to make her life easier but also because she loves to cook and she wanted to make sure her grandmother actually ate something. The woman is 89 and is very tiny, has some consistent health issues, and eats like a bird. So, Daisy focused on getting essentials for cooking meals, and I focused on getting essentials for my own survival, basically.
We eventually got to the house in the late afternoon/evening hours, after taking our time getting there driving through, yes, rain and storms. We set up shop in the spare/guest room upstairs and were finally able to stop moving and relax. I also realized, very quickly, that we were the only ones there with grandma.
Daisy had started a group text the month before we left, letting the family know when we'd be in. Our arrival was during a holiday weekend in Canada (Victoria Day), and I'd assumed that since we'd been able to garner excitement about our arrival, there would be people there in town when we got there. Well, that was not the case. Daisy's aunt and uncle who lived next door were away at the lake for the holiday weekend, camping. One of his daughters (Daisy's cousin) and her family, who adore us, let us know that one of the kids was sick and they wouldn't be coming into town. Daisy's other aunt and uncle who lived in the Halifax area would be coming in to see us, but wouldn't get there until the following weekend. Most of the other family was scattered around the country or province somewhere and either didn't know we were going to be there or weren't exactly able to hop in the car and drive for hours to see the Americans (which, honestly, I completely understand and don't hold against any of them).
So we were there alone. When I was under the assumption that we would not be.
I suddenly felt very dissatisfied and bored. I felt indignant and like an entitled American to an extent -- all that travel time, all the money spent, all of the running we'd been doing to get there and suddenly we were just there and nobody was there to greet us or spend time with us but grandma. It was a holiday weekend and nobody could come see us? Internally I was very frustrated because I'd assumed that people would be in town. Daisy knew there wouldn't be anyone there and thought that I'd known that as well. I had not.
I could not vent my frustrations with Grams around. Grams was, to be fair, very happy to see us and was glad we had made it in safely, which was very sweet of her and much appreciated, because it's not like she's a party animal or particularly social. But aside from that, everything stopped. Daisy was in the mindset of finally, vacation! and I was very much well, we're here, nobody else is, what can we do? Where can we go?
It is very difficult for me to, as they say, turn myself off. I don't have the ability to just shut down and do nothing most of the time. I always have to be kept occupied in one way or another, always must be entertained, have a plan of action, or be executing a plan of action -- especially when it comes to vacations. Nebraska is fucking boring; if I wanted to sleep long hours, or play on my phone or bum around the house, I could take the time off work and do that at home for free. On a vacation that I'm putting time, money, and a lot of social effort into...I expect events. I expect places to go, people to see, planned activities, and other things of that nature. Otherwise, I very quickly get frustrated and incredibly bored.
Daisy is the exact opposite. Vacation to her is when everything stops and she can be a bum with no responsibilities and no real cares for the duration of the vacation. I envy that mindset in her but don't (and likely, physically/mentally can't) have it myself. It's just not who I am as a person; I'm not wired that way at all. It's why the idea of a vacation to Vegas (which yes, we will be doing soon-ish) thrills me because of all the things to do there, places to see, lights, sound, shows, etc. -- and the thought of it overwhelms her -- to an extent, at least.
I also admit that when I'm out of my element, so to speak, I don't function well. I don't like not having anyone's rules but my own, I don't like having schedules made for me instead of making them myself, and I don't like responsibilities and expectations except for ones of my own design. I also don't function well when I'm intensely physically uncomfortable or feel like I'm being boxed in.
Grams is very old-fashioned and conditioned to her own lifestyle, and expects people to follow it when they're in her house -- because it's what you should do, it's the only right way to do things. She is set in her patterns, and if you don't do things her way, she'll get cross and cantankerous (her words, not mine). This includes:
1. You sleep at night and get up early in the morning, and when you do get up you are expected to sit at the table and immediately eat breakfast.
2. You have all meals together at the table as a family -- no exceptions, you don't eat meals away from the table, and you must wait until everyone sits down at the table with their food before you begin eating. Supper is anywhere between 3-5pm at the latest, and if you're not at the table she'll make something and eat it herself and will not wait for you.
3. The bed must be made every day, as soon as you're up for the day.
4. A new towel must be used for every shower and laundered quickly thereafter.
5. Things are not to be left on counters anywhere, including the bathroom, no matter if what's being left there belongs in that room/the bathroom.
6. The shower must be wiped down/scrubbed down and dried after each use.
7. Laundry cannot be left in the washer or dryer, finished or otherwise -- it must be promptly removed and switched from one machine to the other as soon as it finishes, and once it's done it must immediately be brought upstairs and put away.
8. All shoes must be removed and sat in a specific place on specific old newspapers next to the door.
9. It is okay for Grams to nap or go to bed at pretty much any time, but if you do so you're laughed at like you're a bum (not in a mean way, a joking way, but still).
10. Snacking of any sort is frowned upon, if not outright chastized.
11. A sandwich is not a meal.
12. Broadcast TV time in the evenings to watch the news, Jeopardy/Wheel of Fortune, and then newsmagazine programs like Dateline is practically mandatory.
None of these are things I do at home. I don't eat breakfasts. I don't eat at the table, ever, and there's never a set timeframe for "supper." Our bed is never made. I wash/change out my bath towel about once a week and never wipe down the shower. Our kitchen counters and bathroom counters are lined with -- you guessed it -- kitchen and bathroom things. I sometimes leave laundry in the dryer for days, and I almost always have shoes or flip-flops on in my own home unless I am asleep, as I hate walking barefoot. Naps and snacks exist for reasons. Sandwiches are sometimes the only thing I'll eat on any given day, and I can't remember the last time I watched broadcast television outside of a football game.
A lot of this is traditional, relics-of-the-past stuff, and a lot of it is Grams being set in her ways. My own grandmother, when she was still alive, had a lot of her own patterns and quirks like this as well, though I don't think she necessarily expected others to follow them when they visited.
Now I love Grams, and she knows it, but I wasn't down for any of this. I need a lot of personal space and quiet time in a comfortable environment, or I'll go goddamned batty. And the family house, though I like its quaint charms, is incredibly small and incredibly hot and stuffy. I'm not kidding about that last part. 40 degrees outside? Doesn't matter, it's 80 in the house whether you want it to be or not. When it was actually summer-like weather outside one of the days we were there, Daisy found the wall thermometer to read 83.2 degrees (translated from Celsius). The spare room that Daisy and were staying in is on the opposite wall of the dining room and was one of the tiniest bedrooms I've ever been in, but its best feature was that the window could be opened wide and the ceiling fan above the bed had a really good motor.
So, over the course of our ten days in Canada, I would spend a lot of time in that room, reading, playing on my phone, and vaping -- always breathing right out the open window four feet to the right of me. Because, of course, Grams also frowns on vaping.
I want to state for the record that I made it sound miserable based on the above, and it really wasn't at all. I just have a predisposition to bitch and moan about anything and everything I can, and I feel lost and frazzled when I'm completely out of my comfort zone. Rest assured that I had a wonderful time on the trip and was, fairly quickly, able to relax and settle in without issue -- but the first 24-36 hours were really rough on me -- and I wanted to fully explain my mindset in order to be transparent about this entire experience.
Anyway. Onward.
The one thing I always have to get used to when visiting Nova Scotia is that time there seems to stand still. It sometimes feels as if I've hopped in the Delorean and set the time circuits for the late 80s or early 90s at best (while I was there, I pinpointed 1991, 1992ish as the timeframe it felt like we were staying in for ten days). Life there is far slower and more simple. People go to work at factories, fisheries, or quarrys, come home, eat dinner, and do it all over again for forty years until they retire, buy a boat, and spend weekends at one of the many lake campgrounds around the area. This is the same environment every time I've been there. It always feels as if I've just left when I return, because time has no real meaning there.
As an aside, why camping at a lake would be appealing when the literal ocean can be seen from the backyard of the family home is beyond me.
The family home is on the very eastern tip of mainland Nova Scotia, because there are indeed two parts of the province -- the mainland, and Cape Breton Island. Cape Breton Island is truly an island; it is only connected to the mainland by a man-made, half-mile long, narrow two-lane causeway built in the 50s, with a bridge at one end that opens (a swing bridge, at that) so ships can go through. That is, yes, open ocean on each side, even though it's wrapped a bit by some land.
I did try to find a better picture, but it isn't easy. This is from the mainland side, looking out towards the island. Likely taken in the 70s or 80s.
The causeway, and gateway to Cape Breton, is about a mile or two from the family home (technically in "Port Hastings"). The very little town where all of Daisy's mother's family is from, that the causeway is at the end of, is called Mulgrave. It is a former industry town. A port town. Once upon a time, it was a big railway town. To be fair, there is still industry there -- there is a gigantic quarry on the cliffside and there are at least two factories of some sort or another on the winding back roads that take you into Mulgrave proper. It is, really, a seaside village steeped in history, most of which has been slowly forgotten and left behind since the causeway was put in. Mulgrave had, as of 2021, a population of 627 people. I'm not sure many, if any of them, are under sixty years old. Daisy and I stick out like sore thumbs when we're out in public there because a.) it is very clear we're not locals, and b.) we're not senior citizens.
Mulgrave could be a hell of a great tourist town if it wanted to be. It's the last real town on the way up to Cape Breton -- the town that stands between the rest of the mainland and the island, or if you're coming down south off the island, the first real town you'll hit. However, you do have to aim for it, so to speak. The highway comes across the causeway and down through Port Hastings, Auld's Cove, and onward through the mainland towards Antigonish and New Glasgow. There's a blink-and-you'll miss it turn (right across the street from where I get my truckstop poutines, in fact) that takes you into Mulgrave proper...so it's highway-adjacent but not on the highway itself.
Across the causeway from the mainland, once you're up onto Cape Breton Island, you run into two things almost immediately -- an amazing little souvenir shop, and the town of Port Hawkesbury. Port Hawkesbury isn't large, but it is spread out pretty widely, and has a population of over 6,000. It is very much a port city, but is also an actual city -- it has the area's closest Walmart, Canadian Tire, two different Tim Hortons locations (one a sit-down restaurant and the other basically a kiosk drive-thru), multiple banks, churches, hotels/motels, drugstores, and the two big grocery store chains -- Sobey's and Atlantic Superstore. It also contains a mostly defunct mall next to the Walmart (previously connected to the Walmart, but they closed off the interior mall entrance years ago) with a Giant Tiger and a Dollarama. In Atlantic Canada, that's all you really need to classify yourself as a city.
For those of you who are uninitiated, Giant Tiger is basically Canada's version of Kmart. It's not Walmart or Target, it's solidly Kmart. Most stores aren't gigantic (ironically given the name) but they have clothing, housewares, dry goods, and refrigerator/freezer groceries. It's not exactly what Kmart was in the states, but that's really the closest reasonable facsimile I can provide -- Kmart without an electronics section or garden center. Dollarama, on the other hand, is like Big Lots, Dollar General, and the Dollar Tree all had a drunken orgy and the child produced from it was Dollarama. Everything in the store ranges from $1 to $5 maximum, and the amount of items they cram into their stores is stunning -- everything from food to clothing/shoes to housewares, seasonal decorations, lighting, batteries, books, etc.
I became a fan of Giant Tiger last summer when we were up there; it wasn't there in 2015 on our first trip. During the course of our trip we'd visit two different Giant Tiger stores, one of them (the one in Port Hawksbury, of course) multiple times. Over the ten days we were there, we easily spent over $500 total in those stores alone, most of it on clothing.
You see, Canadian clothing is...different. I don't know what it is and I've never been able to explain it, but whatever Canada's standard sizes are, they're bigger and more comfortable than the same sizes in the states. 2XL shorts, in Canada, fall off me unless I tie the drawstring as tight as possible and cinch it closed. In the states, 2XL anything is generally tighter on me than spandex. Dresses, skirts, and leggings for Daisy fit so much better than in the states, the fabric quality is higher, and they have expanded sizes to be all-inclusive when stores in the states do not. Shirt sizes, with button-ups being no exception, are more accurate to the size I'd expect them to be, and also fit better. All of this extends to pretty much every place we went that sold clothing -- we had no concerns about whether stuff would fit, because if anything, it might be a little too big, not too small. Trips to Canada let us update and refresh our wardrobe as much as our suitcases will allow, and we planned for this.
I did get a number of new pairs of shorts, both sweatpant-like shorts and of the cargo variety. I got multiple Canadian souvenir shirts that had "Canada" written on them somewhere. I got a really nice, button up white shirt with little blue palm trees all over it. I got a giant, discounted pack of boxers that once I got them back to the house, I realized I'd misread and they were actually briefs (I haven't worn briefs in 25+ years; guess who's wearing briefs again?). I got a souvenir mug, some keychains and stickers, a full-size Nova Scotia provincial flag, a metal Moose Crossing sign, and some other Canada-specific items, like a Cape Breton "CAPERS" shirt that the painted letters washed off of the first time I washed it.
Daisy, on the other hand, I'm not sure got any of the more souvenir-y clothing as she had in the past, but she did get a number of dresses and skirts/shorts/skorts, a few different tops, and even picked up some extra stuff for her mother. Daisy, perhaps not surprisingly, got far more clothing on this trip than I did, and I was even trying to get stuff I wanted, even if it was more expensive in some cases than others.
That's really what we did for a lot of the trip -- shopping. Little adventures while we waited for the family who would be coming in to town to see us to arrive. Sometimes we had a goal in mind and a place we wanted to go -- for example, Grams asked us to pick up a bottle of salad dressing for her, as well as her medications, so we drove up to the island to do that. We briefly considered getting matching tattoos, but decided against it. One day we went to Antigonish (during a nasty rainstorm) and went to a very specific general store/souvenir shop so that Daisy could get stuff there to give to a family friend in the area, as well as to bring back home. Daisy also stopped while we were in Antigonish at the public library, where boxes upon boxes of Covid tests were still freely available for anyone to take.
We went to visit the 101-year-old sister of Daisy's grandfather one day, and she allowed me to use my voice recorder for the visit (I believe her answer to whether I could record her was something along the lines of "I'm 101, why would I care?"). I got about 20 minutes of us talking to her and talking with her son and her live-in caretaker, but have not yet reviewed the audio file. It's likely not that great of a recording, but it is a recording. It's the only time I'd get to use the recorder while I was there.
We generally had a pattern of what would happen every day, and it roughly went as such:
1. We'd be in bed relatively early (for us) the night before; Nova Scotia operates on Atlantic Time, whatever it's called -- it's two hours later than the Central Time we have here in Nebraska. Our watches/phones adjust automatically but our bodies generally have a harder time doing so -- yet most nights we were in bed or asleep by 10-11pm -- which would be 8-9pm back home.
2. I would generally fall asleep first, and wake up in the middle of the night either a) sweating like a pig because Daisy is a living furnace and the bed/bedroom is small, or b) wake up alone because Daisy was too hot and had gone downstairs to the basement to sleep the rest of the night, and I'd never noticed.
3. When I would wake up for the day, Daisy would usually have been up far longer than me and had already had breakfast with Grams, who herself would always be up by 6 or 7 at the latest -- usually long before.
4. I'd get dressed, make the bed, and sit at the table with them for a bit -- sometimes I would eat something but more often than not, I wouldn't.
5. If Daisy's uncle was home (again, he lives next door) he'd come over and spend some time with us.
6. Around 11 or 12, we'd make our plans for the day -- where we wanted to go, what we wanted to do. Sometimes this would be little to nothing, sometimes it was a grand adventure (depending on the weather and the time we had), but when we left the house, always -- and I mean, always, every day -- started with....
7. A trip to Tim Hortons in Auld's Cove to get giant coffees and (more often than not) a donut or pastry of some sort for me. The donuts and pastries aren't vegan, so Daisy sadly could not partake. Sometimes we'd sit there in the restaurant and just take it in, sometimes we'd grab it and go shortly thereafter, sometimes we'd hit the drive-thru.
8. After the coffee we'd go do whatever we'd planned for the day, and would return home around 4 or 5. More often than not, Grams had already eaten her "supper" by this time and did not want Daisy/us to cook for her.
9. Both of us would shower, sit in the sun room or in the living room while Grams watched the news, Jeopardy/Wheel of Fortune, or whatever else she wanted on the TV -- sometimes I'd join both her and Daisy, and other times I'd retreat back to the room to read.
10. Daisy would eventually join me in bed and the process would begin again from step 1.
There are some highlights I want to talk about here before we move forward, because they need some further explanation/exposition.
Tim Hortons (yes, no apostrophe, that's just how they have it) coffee is some of the greatest coffee available anywhere. I've talked about Timmies before and it's not a secret that I've been a fan of it for well over a decade -- for several years before I went to Canada for the first time, even. The ground coffee and K-cups are readily available in the states, and on Amazon, and if I'm buying a name-brand coffee for the house or for my Keurig, it's been my go-to for a long time. However, the stuff you can get at home is not the same as getting it fresh in-store. It's similar to how you can get the White Castle cheeseburgers from the freezer case in the grocery store, but actually going to a White Castle and getting it fresh and hot is so much better. That's what Tim Hortons is for me in Canada, as much as visiting actual White Castles were on road trips here in the states, it's as much as pilgrimage for me to visit Timmies in Canada.
The appeal of Tim Hortons is not a distinctly Canadian one; they do have stores in the states, mostly in the northeast/New England area (there's actually one in my hometown of Morgantown now, though it was put in long after my last visit back home). However, IN Canada it is a very distinctly Canadian thing -- as in, there's a sort of "Canada Pride" vibe when you're there. I wouldn't say, exactly, that Starbucks has a "American Pride" sort of vibe for any of them I've visited, for example. Maybe McDonald's or Walmart if we're talking about restaurants/institutions.
Anyway, I've gotten off track.
The best part about Tim Hortons is its regularity, and again I'll compare it briefly to McDonald's here -- you can go to McDonald's virtually anywhere and know what you're getting every time. You know it will be the same food every time, prepared the same way, and of the same expected quality and wait time. Prices may slightly differ from state to state or some locations may have local specialties -- i.e. the ones in Maine sell McLobster rolls and the one in WV a few miles from my high school sold baskets of cheese fries -- but generally you know what to expect in a broad sense from any McDonald's location. It's the same with Tim Hortons. You can order a large double double (translation: double cream, double sugar) and it'll be the same every single time from every location. Daisy, hilariously enough, did not have this experience every time she ordered an "Americano," as almost every time she ordered it, no matter which location we were visiting, it was different every time.
Also, #1 way to point out that you're an American when visiting Tim Hortons? Order an Americano and watch the looks they give you at the register.
The first day we went to Timmies I ordered the large, iced caramel toffee coffee that I was such a fan of last summer when we were there. It's still good. The second day I tried some other iced cappuccino, it was supposed to have chocolate chips or Oreo pieces in it or something, I can't remember. It wasn't memorable. Third day, I needed something strong to wake me up fully and keep me going, and I got a large Dark Roast (easily their best base coffee, honestly).
After that, and for every subsequent visit -- shop, kiosk, drive-thru, airport, etc -- I got a large double double. It very quickly became my go-to, precisely for the reasons I mentioned above: it's the same every time, and it's great. Daisy would experiment with a few variations of different things there, even ordering some sort of frozen lemonade one day from the drive-thru, but I stuck to my guns on the double double throughout the rest of the trip.
Tim Hortons is also an actual restaurant, similar to how Starbucks has actual food here in the states. At Timmies you can get sandwiches, wraps, soups, salads, etc. They all look great, too. I did not partake, but apparently their soup is so good/popular that they sell it in cans in stores too:
I did try their "savory pastries," which were cheese and herb stuffed scones, basically, and wasn't that impressed, but their donuts are on another level entirely. Tim Hortons may have perfected the mass-produced, fresh-baked, coffee-shop donut. When I say perfected I don't say it lightly -- I'm saying that I've had a lot of donuts over the years and have gone to many a specialty donut shop (including Voodoo Doughnut in Denver) and...sorry to say, Tim blows them all out of the water on price and taste.
If you have a Tim Hortons near you, or plan to be near or in one in the future, I strongly implore you to drop any preconceived notions and get at least two honey crullers. I say at least two because you'll eat one and be like holy shit, how can a coffee shop donut be that amazing? and you'll want another.
The other great thing about Timmies is that, well, coming from a Starbucks culture in the states, Tim Hortons is cheap for what is far superior product overall. Daisy and I would each get a large coffee (sometimes she got the medium, to be fair) and usually I got 1-2 donuts, and the total was always well under $10. Most of the time it was $6 to $8, depending on whether a specialty drink was involved. You'll spend $6 to $8 on one large (excuse me, venti) coffee at Starbucks here in the states. I think the most we ever spent on a single trip to Tim Hortons throughout the entire trip was $11, and that was with two large specialty coffees and two donuts/pastries. A normal large coffee at Timmies is under $2, tax included, cup-in-hand. It's mind-boggling to see that compared to Starbucks prices.
To be fair, there are Starbucks in Canada, but they're few and far between, which tells me they're nowhere near as popular or beloved as Tim Hortons. I saw a few of them when we were there. I'm also sure that Canadians likely don't want to pay $5-6 for a single cup of coffee, either, and they're getting business based solely on novelty or from traveling tourists.
The other highlight I wanted to mention before moving forward is the downtime that Daisy and I had together. Downtime in Canada is very different for us when we're in Nova Scotia versus what it is when we're home. At home, it generally involves cuddles, Netflix, comfort food, naps, lazy mornings and afternoons, laundry, and ahem...romantic time. In Canada it's very different for us because we're not always awake at the same time at home. There will be weekends where I am asleep when Daisy is awake, and vice versa. But in Canada, as we were staying in the spare room in Grams' house, it's not like we could effectively really operate on different schedules. So, the downtime we had, together and peacefully, was reading together in bed -- in the nighttime hours, after Grams had gone to sleep, we could break out the gummy candies and ketchup chips, and just sit there in each other's presence while reading. Daisy generally read books on her phone; over the course I was there, I read two novels cover-to-cover -- Stephen King's Pet Sematary and Michael Crichton's Timeline -- over the course of three days. Lounging together in bed and reading would be what Daisy later told me was her favorite part of the trip -- just us there, together, existing. And to be fair, it was good. It was very nice, peaceful, relaxing. It allowed me to finally loosen up and just be. I was at my most calm and stress-free in those times.
Anyway, onward.
Finally, around mid-week, the temperatures slowly began to climb out of the 40s and 50s, and the rain/mist finally lifted to show the beauty of Nova Scotia beneath it. Daisy had long told me that she'd wanted us to drive up to the island and visit Inverness Beach, which she said was one of the prettiest beaches in all of Nova Scotia, and that she would be getting into the water regardless of temperature. She picked the day that it was supposed to be the warmest while we were there (we would learn later that was not the case) and it was sunny, so we made our plans to go.
Here's the thing about Nova Scotia beaches -- while there are some really nice, sandy beaches with crashing waves and gorgeous views, they're not as prevalent as you would think. Most of Nova Scotia's coastline, including up on Cape Breton Island, are made up of rocky shores and aren't exactly conducive to long walks on the beach or sunbathing. Inverness, however, is one of the beautiful beaches of the area, with lots of sand on which you can, if so inclined, take walks on and sunbathe, work on your tan, etc. It is, though, about a 90 minute drive from the family homestead, basically right up and along the coast of the island on the way up to the Cape Breton Highlands.
And it was closed.
Well, let me rephrase that, as you can't really "close" a beach -- all of the facilities were still locked up from the winter. The docks had not yet been put out or attached to the piers. All normal entrances to the beach area were roped off, so if you wanted to go down to the actual beach, you basically had to hop a fence or hop the ropes. But, if you did, well....
You will notice from these photos, taken on that gorgeous day, one thing that should immediately stick out.
No people. No vehicles. No intrusion from the outside world at all. It was just me, Daisy, our rental car in the parking lot behind us, and the ocean.
Now, mind you, remember what Daisy's uncle had told us earlier in the week -- that Nova Scotia was only about a week and a half out of seeing snow on a pretty regular basis.
It was wonderful in the sun, but the wind was whipping something fierce -- to the point where we'd shake sand out of our hair and pockets because it was being blown by the wind. The temperature, according to Daisy's smartwatch, said it was 45. I don't think that was entirely accurate, because to me it felt like it was at least 60, and the high for the day was predicted to be 70.
The ocean seen in the photos is indeed the open ocean, even though we were on the "inside" of the island facing mainland Canada. Inverness Beach is, to this point of my life, the furthest north I've ever been on this planet:
It was a beautiful, gorgeous experience. We found more sea glass than I've ever seen in my life, anywhere. Daisy scooped it up almost by the handfuls. Multiple clear jellyfish washed up on the shores in front of us -- a quick google search tells me that they were likely "skeletal remains" of dead moon jellyfish, though there was one that was clearly alive that Daisy helped get back into the ocean with a piece of driftwood.
As for the water itself, the weather was beautiful and warm in the sun but the water absolutely was not. Do you remember the ice-bucket challenge from a few years back? Yeah, imagine doing that feet-first. It felt like we were stepping into a tub filled with water from the refrigerator dispenser. As soon as I stepped in, up to my ankles, my toes began to ache with cold and then go numb. Daisy had a similar experience and got right the hell back out just as I did.
So, we could say that we successfully let the ocean touch our toes on this vacation...the ocean just didn't touch anything else. To be fair, even if it were super-warm and the water was warm, there were all of the jellyfish that were washing up, and the last thing either of us wanted to deal with was a jellyfish sting when we were 90 minutes from our home base (and who knows how far from a hospital or urgent-care/doctor's office, etc).
To be fair, we were at the beach for some time, and in that time some other people had come to have a beach day too. There were a few other couples, what looked like an older woman and her daughter that we had a brief conversation with (to warn them of the jellyfish scattered around, mostly) and a family of middle-eastern folks who were dancing to very middle-eastern music from their boombox(!) on the beach. In the parking lot, a car pulled up right next to our rental while we sat inside it eating picnic-packed sandwiches from home (my wife really does think of everything) and the wind caught their door, bashing it hard into our rental car's mirror.
"I am so sorry!" the driver, a young woman in her mid-twenties, told us as soon as we rolled down the window.
"Don't worry about it," I said. "It's a rental."
Their door slightly chipped the paint, very minimally, on our rented Elantra. Their car was fine. Daisy wasn't happy.
"We got the insurance," I said. "You can barely see it, and it's right on the very edge. I doubt the rental company will even notice."
They didn't, as far as I know. If they did, I/we never heard about it and never got any shit from them for it. All rental cars are supposed to be "smoke free" too, including vapes, and I've vaped in literally every rental car we've ever been in without us ever getting shit for it. The same goes for hotels, too. Down with the man and all that, I guess.
We came back to the house that evening and showered off. I shook all the sand out of my pockets and my hair, and washed it all off my flip-flops I'd worn to the beach. I don't really remember the rest of the evening as we were tired from our beach excursion, but I remember being stress-free and satisfied with the day.
During the rest of the week, the family that was coming would slowly filter into the town, and we'd finally get that familial social interaction I'd looked forward to since we touched down in Halifax. However, that is not the end of the story...
