Late Summer Fishing Trip

It seems summer just left Cape Breton without any notice.  One day it was hot and sunny and every day since it has been chilly and damp.  I'm hoping for another hot summery spell later in September but for now, I've traded my ocean swimming days for fishing, biking and hiking days and the weather is just right for these activities. On Friday, the forecast called for warm temperatures and mostly sun so Dad and I headed to Framboise to do some fishing and hiking.  

We took our time getting there, stopping for coffee and breakfast along the way and stopping at all the brooks between Forchu and Grand River to try our luck at catching some trout.  It took most of the day, but we got five good-size ones and a few smaller ones that we released.  

When we reached the road to Ferguson Beach, we took our chances on the gravel road that, fortunately, wasn't washed out after the big rain storm we had last weekend. The beach was covered in tonnes of seaweed but we managed to get a walk in by walking on the grass above the beach until we reached an area that wasn't covered in seaweed.  We walked all the way to the brook but it was too full of water to cross so we turned back and headed back to the main road where we fished some more brooks. 

Eventually, we reached grand river and kept driving until we reached route 4 and headed to St. Peters. We stopped at Battery Park to have lunch by the canal and drove up the main street of the little village to see if anything was going on for Pirate Days. There wasn't much going on at that time so we grabbed some coffees to go and headed back to Grand River. This time we took the long way through L'Ardoise and onto Point Michaud Beach, where we stopped and took a little walk.  It was a long drive along the old gravel road back to Grand River but we finally made it back with plenty of daylight to spare.

We fished the brooks some more until we reached our limit and went for a drive through Sterling looking for deer and other wildlife that come out at that time of day.  We didn't see anything but it was a nice drive through the country before heading home.  

There's Nothing like a Morning Drive Through the Mountains

I knew my time with my sister would be limited as she had to return to work while I was still there. She allowed me to use her car while she was gone as long as I drove her to work in the morning and picked her up again in the afternoon.  I didn't mind that at all!  It was an excuse for me to go for a drive through the mountains with my morning coffee. 

Although I was sick with a cold, I still managed to get up at 6 AM, take some cold medicine and get an early start to the adventures of the day.  For three mornings, we left the house at 7:30, I dropped her off at work and than kept driving towards the Trans Canada Highway.  I didn't turn off onto the highway but instead pulled into the Gas Station / Tim Hortons that was located right before it.  I grabbed my breakfast and some coffee, gassed up and headed back the way I came from.  Instead of going back to homebase, I kept driving to Peter Lougheed Provincial Park.  After June 15th, you can keep driving further into the backcountry but that section of highway was closed during my visit so that was as far as I could go. 

Every morning, I'd see so much wildlife along the road.  Black bears, deer, bighorn sheep.  It wasn't until the second day that I finally saw what I had wanting to see since I got there; a grizzly bear.

I saw a grizzly on the Kananaskis Golf Course a few days earlier but it was so far away, I couldn't even get a picture of it.  This bear on this day was so close, I didn't feel safe wandering any more than a foot away from my car.  And I made sure to leave the door open too!  

The bear was wandering in a field close to the entrance of the provincial park.  Several other people were already stopped to take pictures.  The bear looked calm and content as it sniffed the ground and inched towards some trees at the edge of the field. For a few seconds, the bear sprinted and I had a chance to see just how fast these huge, powerful animals can run.  I was glad I met him like this and not on a remote trail in the forest.  

I made this drive every morning for three days but I stopped at different points-of-interest every day.  Once I stopped at Barrier Lake to sit by the water and drink my coffee, another time I drove up a road to see where it went and another time I just sat and admired the beauty of the area.  I always made it back to homebase by noon where I spent the afternoons relaxing in the backyard hammock or catching up on emails.  At 3 PM, I left to pick up my sister and from there we would head home to have supper and relax for the evening.  

 

The May Long Weekend means Summer is Here....Even if it is Unofficial!

I'm not used to having vacation time from work.  For the first time in my life, I have a job that comes with such a luxury and despite feeling a tad guilty for requesting a day off even though I wasn't sick, I went ahead and took one of those days that my managing team has assured me are there for me to use and not waste!  I'm just not used to not being at the office when I'm feeling completely fine.  I took that day which made my long weekend extra long this year; 5 glorious days just relaxing, doing things I enjoy and spending time with the people I just don't get to spend enough time with as of late. 

Thursday wasn't all that exciting. My car broke down earlier in the week so it spend that whole day in the shop.  I spent the day catching up on housecleaning bill-paying. Friday morning I got some troubling news; the part I needed for the car repairs still hadn't come in.  All good.  I ended up going with Dad to Framboise for the day and was reassured by my mechanic that it would be fixed time I got back that evening! 

Framboise with Dad is a long-weekend tradition since I moved back home. The weather can be hit or miss on that side of the island.  It was mostly nice but very windy and cool that day...good for keeping the flies away while fishing...bad for casting in little roadside brooks.  After getting massively tangled in branches and rocks, I did manage to reel in a few decent-sized trout. 

After a day of fishing, hiking and exploring, we rested on Ferguson Beach by the river that meets the sea.  Sometimes at low tide, we can cross there but on this day, the tide was fairly high and the river had the passage completely blocked.  Being too cold to remove our shoes and wade across, we sat on some driftwood on the sandy banks where we were sheltered from the wind and cracked open a beer each. I don't normally drink, but I do like a beer on the beach from time to time!  As per normal on these trips, we drove up to St. Peter's, got a coffee and drove back...except this time, we went the other way through L'Ardoise and Point Michaud rather than taking the way we came. 

I had planned to get my bike out of storage and go for a ride followed by an afternoon spent cleaning my car and sorting my camping gear.  That evening when I got back from Framboise, I checked the weather and saw that it would be too windy for a bike ride. I also decided that I didn't feel like cleaning my car.  That could wait.  My friend who sets up her travel trailer in Englishtown every May long weekend invited me to take a drive there and pay her a visit. I only live once right?  Why spend the first unofficial weekend of summer cleaning?  

So Saturday morning, I went for morning coffee with Dad, paid a quick visit to my sister and her family, got some snacks ready and hit the road.  It's not that far to Englishtown, about an hour and a half.  But it's the just getting out of town and heading out into the country that made it sound so appealing.  I don't do enough mini road trips anymore and the driving conditions were perfect!  Sunny and warm enough to cruise with the sunroof and windows open and the music up loud! 

I arrived at my friend's trailer late in the afternoon but it was still warm enough to sit outside and enjoy the natural surroundings and take in that fresh ocean air.  After some catching up, we took a drive to a nearby hiking trail and set out to check it out.  We had been saying for years we would check out this trail but never did.  It was too long to do the whole thing but we hiked about 4 kilometers in until we reached a scenic outlook and turned back.  It was nice to get out in nature and hear birds and sit by a babbling brook.  I almost fell asleep listening to the sound of that brook as I sat beside it just taking it all in.  

Instead of going straight home that evening, I made a little detour to Dominion Beach. I didn't intend to walk that night but I ended up walking the entire beach and back.  Maybe it was out of habit as I walk it so much or maybe it was just because it was such a nice evening. I also think I was secretly hoping to catch a glimpse of some baby foxes I suspected were born further up the beach earlier in the spring.  They usually come out around this time but, despite keeping an eye for them, I saw no foxes at all.

I was about ten feet away from my car when I spotted something small run at top speed under the boardwalk.  I walked over to the spot where I saw whatever it was a second earlier and a little head popped out then a little fox kit appeared at my feet!  What a surprise! But where was his mom? And his siblings?  Surely there couldn't be just one kit alone so close to the road.  Sure enough, mom appeared and sat about 30 feet away as her kit checked me out.  She wasn't at all threatened by my presence or at her little one inching so close to me.  No other kits appeared so I suspect he may be an only child.  It was a nice experience to have a wild animal take such an interest in me but I'm concerned about Mom keeping her young one so close to people and cars. 

By Sunday morning, my job feels like a distant memory.  I'm just not used to having this much time off! Instead of getting up and getting ready for work, I got up and got ready for another day of hiking!  Of course, I went for coffee with Dad first. After all, this has been a morning tradition since I moved back to Cape Breton! Before I met my friends at the trailhead in the Gardiner, I stopped off at the beach to check on the little fox kit.  He was still there playing with a stick all by himself with mom watching a little ways away. 

I hike the road where the wind turbines are in the Gardiner all the time but always wondered where the trail on the other side of the highway went.  So I recruited a couple of friends to come check it out. We started out, us and an adorable little beagle pup, and walked into the unknown.  It was a warm day but very windy.  Not that I should complain about the wind because it kept the flies away! For a trail in the middle of a residential area, it certainly didn't seem that way! It was quiet with lots of trees, some streams and hardly any other people...just the I like my hikes. It was nice to be able to get out in nature without having to drive a few hours to get there!

Monday felt like Sunday but it was Monday and that meant come Tuesday, I'll only have a 4-day work week! I was tired but refreshed and ready to go back but I had every intention of making good use of my last day.  After morning coffee and a drive, I cleaned my car and got my bike out for the first time this year.  I didn't go for a long ride but one long enough to get my legs used to riding again.  It was nice to have that cool ocean air hitting my face again as I sped down the highway. I have to say, I made good use of my time off and got a lot done....both things I had to get done and things I wanted to do for a long time but didn't have the chance.  The next long one will be Canada Day which hopefully will bring some warmer temperatures and conditions ideal for more outdoor adventures!

Getting Lost While on the Road - An Opportunity to See New Places or Just a Hassle?

I will never understand why some people make such a big fuss when they get lost on the road. I mean, I understand getting lost on your way to work or to an important appointment isn't an option but when you're on a road trip and you have a window of time available to do as you please and the open road in front of you, why wouldn't you want to go off course and see things you otherwise would never get to see? Some of my best travel memories started with a wrong turn, misguided directions, a malfunctioning GPS, a map read upside down in the dark or my innate sense of curiosity getting the better of me so my car instinctively veers off into unknown territory waiting to be explored.

I rarely read maps. They're too much of a hassle, they take up space in my car, its too much work to fold and unfold them and most times, it is either too dark to read a map or I don't feel like pulling over to read the small print of a map that is probably not even updated anyway. I do have a GPS. It's a nifty little tool for when I have to find a specific place in a hurry. I have tried to use it on road trips to disastrous proportions that had me more lost than I was before I turned it on.

If I have time to kill, sometimes I "forget" my GPS at home and set out in search of a specific destination and get lost in the process. This is all part of the adventure, right? Like the time I wanted to find Cape Clear in the Cape Breton Highlands. The road system up there is confusing at best, with wood roads going off into every direction with more roads going off those roads that turn into ATV trails or foot paths. There are no signs and everything looks the same; trees, trees and more trees...until I finally found Cape Clear and one of the most spectacular views I have ever seen!



I like to drink coffee but, for some strange reason, I can only enjoy it if I'm in a moving vehicle. So in order to avoid that withdrawal headache that comes in the mid-afternoon if I don't get my fix, I have to jump in the car, fill up a thermos of some home-brewed coffee or hit up a local coffee shop. I can't bring the coffee home to drink and I can't just sit in the coffee shop or park the car and drink it; it just doesn't taste the same unless the car is moving and I am going somewhere. Sometimes I drive around town a few times or to a nearby town and just go home once my cup is empty. More times than not, I pick a street I have never been on before and drive until I can't drive anymore. I wouldn't know about some of the beautiful beaches, parks, rest areas and scenic places to watch a sunset or moonrise if it had not been for this innate curiosity I have to explore the unknown.

My map and GPS-free travels have taken me to many memorable places I would never have known existed if I had followed strict paths to my intended destinations. I'd heard there was a monastery in Cape Breton but no one ever seemed to know where it was whenever I asked. I was driving through Pleasant Bay along the Cabot Trail one summer afternoon when I decided to turn onto a road I'd never been down before. When the pavement ended, I thought about turning around but, as it always does, curiosity got the better of me and I kept driving along that road that wrapped around the rocky coast of Northern Cape Breton until...I happened upon the monastery I had heard about. Gambo Abbey, tucked away in a remote corner of the island I thought I knew like the back of my hand!

I was both excited and nervous at the prospect of driving in a large city in the United States for the first time. I picked up my rental car at McCarron International Airport in Las Vegas early on a Thursday morning with intentions of driving around aimlessly in the desert for three days, happening upon whatever came my way. A GPS did come with the car and I thought it might be a good idea to use it to at least get myself out of the city limits but I first had to return to The Luxur Hotel where I was staying to pick up my supplies for the weekend. The GPS already had an entry for "LAX" which was the name of the hotel bar at The Luxor. With the GPS set for "LAX", I set out into the morning rush hour traffic. It was only after my GPS took me onto a 16-lane highway heading west that I remembered the Los Angeles International Airport also went by the name LAX. After dodging lightning speed traffic and frightening lane changes that almost had me killed on the I-95, I did make it, in one piece back to my hotel and, again, set my GPS to take me outside the city limits. The nifty little gadget did its thing and soon I was cruising through The Mojave with nothing but wide open spaces for miles around me. Since I didn't want to get too lost out there in that unforgiving and sometimes dangerous landscape, I availed of the setting that would only take me on paved main roads. This is where the nifty little gadget epically failed. And where do you think I ended up with nightfall only a mere few hours away? After letting the GPS guide me down a few dozen paved roads that seemed like they would lead somewhere, the pavement ended and turned into a gravel road in the middle of the Mojave Desert. Now, if you have ever been out in that desert at sunset, you know the feeling that comes over you when you realize that soon, that sun will go down and darkness will come and you may not see another car for hours or days and there isn't a single house or streetlight anywhere for miles in some places. This was one of those places. And there are snakes, poisonous ones...and scorpions, serial killers and the odd UFO abduction. So what did I do? I took that GPS and tossed in the backseat and enjoyed the moment I found myself in. I will never forget that experience for as long as I live. There is not a sound out there in that vast, open space, barely a breath of wind and when the sun sets, its like the whole desert is on fire. At the time, I knew it would be a moment in my life that I would talk about and remember for many years to come!

I did find my way out of that maze of gravel roads and over the next few days, I found more off-the-beaten-track places that I would have missed if I'd used the GPS to take me straight to my final destination of Death Valley National Park. The Valley of Fire, Area 51, The Extraterrestrial Highway (where much of the UFO activity over the United States is reported) and a stretch of deserted two-lane highway surrounded by beautiful mountain ranges that led to the California state line.

When I approached Las Vegas a couple of days later on Saturday night, I reached for the GPS and set it to take me on a route that would have me skip driving down The Strip and take me straight to my hotel...and that nifty little gadget failed miserably once again. I followed the directions and ended up guess where? At the opposite end of The Strip on a Saturday night. I don't think I need to explain to you what Las Vegas Boulevard, AKA The Strip, the biggest party street in the world is like on a hot, Saturday night...I'm sure you get the idea. My hotel was at the complete other end and once I was locked into that chaotic gridlock, I had no choice but to continue down that entire strip of flashing neon lights, drunken pedestrians coming out of everywhere, climbing on roofs of cars, taxi drivers trying to push their way to their next paying customer while trying to figure out what lane I should be in to avoid making yet another wrong turn into the unknown. But you know what, when it was all said and done and I made it back to my hotel, kissed the ground and thanked my lucky stars that my unwanted detour down the Vegas Strip on a Saturday night didn't result in me or anyone else getting killed, I gave myself a little pat on the back; now I can say I drove down one of the most famous streets in the world. I wasn't a passenger in a stretch limo or taxi cab. I drove it myself and it was very interesting to say the least.

Over the years, I've had many mapless/GPSless adventures that took me to some of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. While driving through the Rocky Mountains of Banff National Park, I turned onto an interesting-looking road just outside of Canmore and discovered the beauty that is Kananaskis Country.

A trip to The Magdelan Islands in Quebec saw me venturing onto a country road lined with sand dunes that, upon walking over, revealed a beautiful stretch of sandy beach that went for miles.

In the days pre-911, when crossing into the United States from Canada didn't even require a passport, a last-minute decision to take the "scenic" route home from Montreal led me on a misguided but eventful journey through Upstate New York and Vermont at a time of year when the fall foliage was at its most colorful. A random drive up a gravel road in Framboise, Cape Breton led me to a abandoned Victorian-era house with the front door wide open. Looters had already ransacked the place years before but there were still some interesting things laying around like some newspapers from the 1930's and furniture and clothing that had been left there by the previous owners who, it seems, must have left in a hurry. On a trip to the Southern Shore of Nova Scotia, I made a wrong turn while trying to find the town of Lunenburg and accidentally ended up at Oak Island, also known as The Money Pit, the island made famous by repeated attempts to extract pirate treasure that is said to have been buried there by Captain Kidd.

Not all of my wrong turns were made in a car. One of the most beautiful beaches I had ever laid eyes on was found quite by accident after I jumped onto a public bus in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico and went in search of some Mayan Ruins to explore. I exited the bus just outside Tulum, found some ruins, explored them and than did what I usually do when I find myself in a new place. I found a road that looked interesting and walked down it until it came to an end...and revealed the beautiful Playa Santa Fe. Completely surrounded by giant sand dunes, completely covered in soft, white sand and completely deserted. Another slice of paradise found...quite by accident!