The Nova Scotia Tour
The 5 seconds it wasn’t raining.
Some notes - I’m trying out posting this kind of time delayed on the trip. This means, photos may or may not come right away. I’ll be updating the posts as that becomes possible, but right now I have limited data, so feel free to come back later to see them. Of course, if I get any gallery worthy shots those will also be updated there later.
Day 1, May 19, 2025
I've been waiting for this one all year so far, thinking on it, prepping food, looking and optimizing my route, etc, since March. I wanted to go in the early season, take advantage of the 'may 24' long weekend, and go for 2 weeks. Finally, destination Cape Breton Highlands National park. Unfortunately, things are proposing challenges right out of the gate. Yesterday, it rained. a lot. And me, myself and I, had said 'oh, well I've taken care of the leaks, heck, lake superior threw quite a bit at me and there were no leaks. How one winter can destroy everything (especially Lexan, apparently. A massive crack like a grimacing evil smile opened up and water dripped down inside. leaving a nasty brown patch on my mattress while my trailer was outside in the rain. great. wet, and I haven't even left yet. Well, I got the seal tape and slapped it on the half moon crack and sealed it up. End of story right? well.. lets not go into the future. It did, indeed, fix the issue for now. For now. Anyhow, we'll get back to that. Back in the present, or at least the present day, I got up at 5am after a chilly night with Cola curled up by my head leeching every last bit of warmth she could, and headed over to the house. For the last two days I'd been packing, getting groceries, etc. And now, now I had a quick breakfast with the parents, hooked up the trailer, and headed out. It was snowing when I left, just lightly. I Traveled to Eganville with a quarter tank of gas, with the aim to hit the shell station and get that sweet 5c off a liter. I arrived just before 7am. The place was supposed to be open at 6:30 according to Google maps, and it was now 6:40 I pulled up to the pump, stuck my card in, did the usual bonus card stuff, and put the hose in my gas tank, and pushed the button. I pulled the handle to start filling, and nothing. click. the pump didn't come on. so I tried again, and no.. well dang, so I backed up and tried the pump behind. same thing. It was then I noticed that the sign wasn't showing the price of fuel, and the store was dark. so now about 6:50 and I'm at 2 of 3 pips left on my last quarter tank. it doesn't look like I'm getting fuel. Not a great start to a 10 - 12 hour trip. At least it isn't raining (HAH!). So I think, well, I have to go through Renfrew, and so I keep going. There's a big Petro Canada there, and it HAS to be open, right? I was so nervous for the next ~60 kilometers that when I finally saw that Petrocan sign I completely blew through a red light. Thankfully it was early and a T intersection so I didn't cause an issue. Pulling in, I paid my 1.40c a Liter and was happy to do so. Panic averted, off to the border of Quebec. My great nemesis, French seems to spread - like really spread, I'm about 1 hour out from the crossing, and already English has been banished from the signage. I'll be passing sort of through and around Ottawa, then Montreal, and hopefully missing much of both, but the water crossing should be near Montreal, under - not over. Most of today will be soldiering through Quebec, and hopefully I'll not have to make a fool of myself too much. Most gas stations are attendant free nowadays, unlike the last time I came this way when credit card purchases were done on one of those machines where you stuck in the card in with 3 pieces of carbon copy and they ran it over the carbon with a slider twice to get an impression of the card. But at least it isn't raining.
The bad thing about these long drives is a lot of the time, especially when you have to pass through urban areas, you're stuck between concrete guides, and highways have them a lot. So, even when you pass over some interesting river, you can't see because 'for your safety comrade'. You can't see because the barrier is too high, so people can't just.. I don't know sit on them and fall into the torrent below, or easily crash their car through. I can imagine what sort of horror drowning in your car is, and considering the whole seatbelt cutter and window breaker industry - I guess I'm not the only one. But let me see damn it.
It is getting towards 9:00 - 10:00 am and now it is raining. I'm sticking to the highway for most of this trip since rural Quebec is like a gas station no-go zone based on previous experience. So far I havent had to interact but my tummy is starting to get grumbly and at the next stop I picked up a sandwich and a peach tea.. and flubbed by way through an interaction with an Indian man who's accent made french into an alien language. I wonder now if all my convenience store interactions are going to be with foreigners. I find it amusing that the Quebecois are so worried about their identity and losing it, yet here they are losing their very flesh and blood, just like the rest of the country. Seeing a teenager running the till of Acadian, french, or even native American descent is something that is rare. Seeing a freshly minted pre-adult learning about the horrors of customer service first hand which prepares them for the drudgery of adult life feels like a loss. Navigating this conversation which is basically 'bonjour' (hello) and 'something something $14' 'something receipt' 'something bag' and my responses are just 'bonjour, non, non' actually worked, and I was out of there while the Indian man gave me a knowing smirk. Whatever man, I bet the Quebecois around here look down their noses at you too for butchering the French language. A quick check of the trailer shows no water intrusion of yet. I mean, lake Superior couldn't get it right? surely we're good? Right?
~12:00
I'm passing under the St.Lawrence river via Pont-tunnel Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine. But of course the whole place is under construction, and Its backed up for like 10 kilometers, the underwater tunnel is only a single lane heading under and two coming back. Checking now on Google maps there’s quite an array of very upset locals with one star reviews. They have those signs that can reassign the middle lane depending on density, but currently only one lane is available going my direction, and based on how the temporary concrete barriers are set up, it is going to be like this for some time. Of course, the entire place is laced with photo radar to pick up all that traffic ticket money. I thought we made that illegal in the 90s? At least it should be a bit better on the return trip. Passing through the tunnel there's warnings about how much fuel and propane you can carry. No more than 2x 46 lb canisters and 1 25L gas tank. I wonder how they figured that? There's chevrons on the floor and you're supposed to stay a certain distance from the car ahead, I guess that keeps only so many cars under the river at once. I wonder what will happen when the first electric car turns into Thermite under the river. That is going to be toxic as fuck, I bet the fans will have trouble keeping the air fresh. Burning horror aside, passing under the river was pretty uneventful, and once I reached the other side travel proceeded as normal. I only had to deal with lots and lots of police with arrows on the back of their cars... they were pulling over people, a lot. Not sure what was going on, but I managed to squeak through. So did that horrible burning smell, rubber burning.. oh no! is that me? no.. there's a white car in front of me that has its 4 ways on. and both back tires.. are flat.. and blue smoke... wow. how did the police miss that? I got passed that horror waiting to happen ASAP. The passage through Quebec went on and on, and it was worse because the rain was driving hard, and I couldn't barely see much more than the road, and when I finally came up beside the St.Lawrence I could just see farm fields, and white nothing where the river should have been. Maybe I'll see it on the way back. At one point, I did 'see' it but it was brown and rough, and I could barely see the far shore peaking under the clouds. Looking back at the satellite map, it must have been near Baie-Saint-Paul. What a disappointing trip so far, I just belted down, filled my tank when I could, and kept going. Hours and hours, rain, rain, gas, drink water, stop for coffee and gas.. more and more rain and bleak horror. 9 hours later, finally, finally, I crossed into new Brunswick. and I thought I was free of the French, but no, no.. I forgot. New Brunswick is basically Quebec. And its filled with black guys who speak french. Africaans? At least they speak proper french, and English. And they don't look at me like an insect when I speak English. I guess that is an improvement. I was tempted at that last stop by the pizza delight next door, but I didn’t - because, to my dismay, crossing the border also lost me an hour and now I only had about 45 minutes to make it to Mount Carleton. So I’m sorry Trailer, we’ve been driving hard.. mostly 100-110 Km/h all the way here, and you tow fine, but, you’re vibrating like crazy. I upped my speed the highways here were 90/100ish so I went 100-110ish depending on how comfortable it was.. this bought me about 5 minutes, and had to slow right down on the approach to the park. This park Closes at 8:00 pm on the dot, and they have a card lock to get in and out. This is to keep people from coming in and getting themselves killed, so I was told. Since the mountain is very remote, and very dangerous they don’t allow entry outside those hours, and generally turn daytrippers away around 6:00pm. The attendant was a very nice girl, and gave me two maps - something that doesn’t happen in ontario anymore. I was able to navigate to my site, very private. With the sun dipping low now, especially being in the shade of the mountains in this area, I just dumped the trailer and set up for the night. I didn’t bother having dinner, I just brushed my teeth and then ... shit.
Did I mention it has been pouring this entire time? The window I’ve patched has cracked all the way to the edge and now water is seeping in, regardless of any seal tape and dripping around the frame. I’m fucked. I’m too tired to do much about it. I didn’t even put the battery in. There’s also a small amount of water in the battery area as well, I still don’t have any idea where that water came from, since I patched those holes.. but it isn’t so bad. Screw it, I taped the crap out of the thing again, but it still drips. I got in my sleeping bag (the foot of which is wet..) shoved my feet down into the wet spot and rolled over on the side of the mattress that was just damp and not wet. I slept for 5.3 hours or so like this. ‘slept’ I say this, because the heavy rain on the roof kept me company through the night until it started to let off around midnight.