Aug 28th

Another day to sleep in. I know, I know! Ain't vacation GREAT! heh

After breakfast we went back to Halifax and headed down to the harbour and went to the Historic Properties. A park, museum, restaurants, shopping, bars, tours both land and sea and great views all rolled into one! So yea, we took some pics...

...an old wharf...

...some traditional Scottish flinging...

...awww loo' A seagull...

The day was quickly passing and we were hungry, so we got a bite to eat... you guessed it, Fish n' Chips. This time in a more reasonable size, one that you could eat without feeling like Jabba...

Then off to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.

Seems where ever you go now in the Maritimes they're capitalizing on the whole 'Pirate's theme... Now in the museum it's acceptable since there was pirate activity in and around the Maritimes... ' in the day' at least...


The lens of an old lighthouse...

Naval Mines and Nazis and Didier... oh my!...

...yea, more pirate stuff...

Two other great displays they have here are of the Halifax Explosion, and of the Titanic Disasters. Here you will see me and the Mister on the lounge deck of the Titanic on a reproduction chaise lounge...

After the Museum, we took a little stroll, took some pics, you see a lot of boats... naturally. Sadly the Bluenose II was not in port....

THEODORE TUGBOAT!!!

Then, like the good tourists we were being, we took a tour called the Harbour Hopper. It's on one of those amphibious vehicles, (these from the US Military, Vietnam war. Refitted naturally)

Not the most informative tour, and it seemed I knew everything that was quizzed along the way. At one point the tour guide just started asking me directly heh ;-)

It was impossible to take a good picture on the land part because we were moving too quickly. The water part was more enjoyable. Seeing the harbour front FROM the harbour. That was very enjoyable indeed.

George's Island...

Next time we'll just take a straight boat tour, possibly to Peggy's Cove and back.... it would be interesting to see from the water for sure...

Then we stopped for an, wait for it.... Ice Cream! Didier's first COWS Ice Cream. It's damn good ice cream, even better than Ben and Jerry's if you ask us!

But all delicious things must come to an end, and so back to our visit... we walked around downtown a bit.

Saw the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (AGNS... pronounced Agnes)...

...then Province House...

...then Parade Square and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Paul) at one end...


... and City Hall at the other...

...And then on up the hill we climbed, to the base of the Citadel and took some pictures of the Town Clock...

Then on up the hill and did our Touristic duty...

...and then entered the hilltop fort...

I can remember many trips to the Hill as a kid. At one point Didier commented that "it's a shame that more was not marked out in the fort for people to see, as I took him in and out of open doors with next to no signage"... I commented that they were all on the provided map, but since I knew the fort so well we just seemed to weave in and out without direction... Basically if you see an open door or gate, go through it. I like this sort of under labelled discovery. Besides it's nice to take pictures without so many redundantly marked signs. We walked around for almost two hours soaking in the mid day sun, the history, and men in kilts! heh!

A view of the City, the Harbour and George's Island...



And then off home we went, with an appetite in tow.... Met the folks at home, Dad just back from another appointment at the Dr's (more on that in a separate post). Hunger taking hold of us, but all too tired to cook, we got Chinese take out... and not one piece of fish in the lot! lol

Hard to belive but our trip is already half over, and we've just begun to really feel relaxed... :-)

Aug 27th

Monday started like ALL Mondays should start... we slept in.

Got up around 9:30 and had another leisurely breakfast. Then we headed down to Alderney Landing on the Dartmouth waterfront to get some nice views of Halifax...

After that we headed across the MacDonald Bridge...

...and drove through downtown Halifax, destination...

...the Public Gardens. Beautiful gardens, in the center of the city over 150 years old.

These gardens suffered terribly due to Hurricane Juan, losing countless century old majestic trees. Thankfully to a very concentrated and energetic volunteer force the gardens have recovered, and a new gate and fountain were just inaugurated and dedicated to the volunteers...

From the Gardens, we took a longer then expected drive to Peggy's Cove (this was to prove to be one of many many many inconvenient drives due to highway construction. What should have taken only 45 minutes took over 90 minutes!!! A 5 minute stretch was 30 minutes alone!)

We stopped off at Shad Bay to take a few pics...

And finally we were at our MAIN destination...

Peggy's Cove.

We were here back in Dec of 2005 But as Didier said... "The ocean water was freezing!!!" so that was a brief visit! This time however we took our time. We walked around the rocks, took a few pics...

Then went into the Sou'Wester Restaurant for Chowder, Crab Cakes, and Gingerbread.

After filling our bellies we walked around the village took some more pics...

And then ended up back on the rocks to watch the tide come in...





After 3 and a 1/2 hours we decided to call it a day and headed back home.

Mom and Dad prepared Fish Cakes and then after dinner Didier and I went down to Lawrencetown Beach to watch the waves and look at the full moon. There was a guy practicing his Fire Spinning... here's some video but I'm afraid the quality is a bit low... (HEY! it was dark ya know! Trust me we could see a lot better... The sound is nice tho... heh)

We then took a little walk on the beach, passed a few families and I wrote in the sand...

All in all, another wonderful day!

Aug 26th

So this was our first totally stress free day of vacation. No getting up early. No long distance drive ahead of us...

Sleeping in was the first order of the day... We got up around 10am.

Breakfast with the parental units and then it was off to the Schubenacadie Wildlife Park.

Not quite a zoo, not quite a park. All the animals are native to Nova Scotia. Everything from the small: turtles and Martens ands Fishers and Ducks, to the large: Deer, Bear and Moose. Personally I would have preferred to see many of the pens to have been enlarged since the last time I was there (June 1980) and maybe a few were, but then seems still too small. I guess though for the animals it's better than nothing. All animals are those that were injured, attended to and recovered but not able to be returned to the wild, or were the offspring of other zoo without the ability to keep a growing population. At any rate all seemed well looked after and certainly happy to be there.

It even seemed to me that some KNEW they were there to be seen and would actually 'take the stage' only when someone stood in front of their pens and gave them attention. The Timber Wolves, Bob Cats and even the Otters were especially 'on' when you went to see them, coming up to the front to grant photo ops! Really makes you wonder just how intelligent they are and what they understand.

Others, like the Porcupine and raccoons couldn't have cared less! Granted it was like 32' when we were there, precious little breeze and no cloud to offer shade.

Anyhoo, here's some pics...

Dall's Sheep...

Moose...

A Peahen and her brood...

White Rabbit!...

One damn lazy ass Raccoon...



Two damn lazy ass Porcupines...

River Otters...

Black Bear...

After the Wildlife park, we were a little peckish and went to, now don't hate us, KFC/Taco Bell. It may not have been seafood, or gourmet, but it was good!

We then went to the Mastodon Ridge MiniPutt. Some local attraction near where a complete Mastodon Fossil skeleton was found, and not so coincidentally in Stewiake... Stewiake being exactly 1/2 way between the North Pole and the Equator. Aside from a Mastodon replica and some 'Flinstonesque' sculptures, and some other interesting sites, there was the aforementioned miniputt.


Didier thought he'd impress me with his MiniPutt prowess... All I can say is... Final Score: Didier74, Shawn 42. Granted it was Par 36, but nonetheless I was the winner...

Mom and Dad took us out to dinner on the Wharf at Eastern Passage. We ate at Wraps. Had some good Calimari and the biggest pieces of haddock ! Fish 'n chips like you've never seen before! Huge mothers! I took the two piece fish and was barely able eat one and 1/2 the fries on my plate! A doggie bag was created and I second meal was taken home for another day!

After dinner it was across the wharf to "What's the Scoop?" for our first official ice cream of the vacation. Here you will see Mom and Didier in the foreground trying to decide on what flavour(s) to get...



After a promenade along the boardwalk we sat for a few minutes watching the last fading glimmer of twilight...


...before making a hasty retreat from the mosquitos.

From there we went home, chatted a bit before we all succumbed to the fresh salt air and wen to go count sheep.

Aug 24th and 25th

Well the 24th and 25th was all about getting there.

On Friday the 24th, we shoved off right after work. The destination was just to get to Québec City. Exactly 2 hours and 30 minutes, 250 kilometers later we were there. We met our friends Jeff and Stef, and their pooch Bilbo. We had a great dinner at Le 48. Then after we took a stroll through the Petit Champlain area of the city and called it a night.

We woke up to thick fog over the city. Was this a omen of our days to come on the East Coast???

After some last minute shopping at a Farmer's Market we were soon on the road.

12 hours and 20 minutes, 1027 kilometers later we arrived at my parents home. It was a slow casual drive... (I think you tend to drive slower when there's two or more in the car, because you have company, you have someone to talk to (other than yourself) You stop more often and in a more relaxed fashion. My last drive home to my parents was done solo and completed in just 11 hours and 45 minutes. This trip with the two of us was 14 hours 20 mins...)

We sat in the Kitchen with my Mom and Dad. Had a bite to eat, got caught up on the latest news, gave them a few gifts from La Belle Province: home-made sugar free jams, Fairmount Bagels (2 1/2 dozen) a bottle of Ice Wine, a bottle of Rose and 1/2 a brisket from Rubens, (nothing says I love you like a heaping pile of food and alcohol!) and then hit the hay.

How I spent my Summer Vacation

Paying homage to all the thousands and thousands of kids that headed back to school, I will, over the next few posts recount Didier's and my Summer Vacation.

...so here goes....

PS...

So I read all of the posts for "Kitty Out", y'all really needed to get out just a little bit more while I was away! lol

To answer a few question...

-Had a great time on Vaycay.

-I don't mind at all that y'all kept my Blog warm while I was away.

-Jerome, heheh yup I read em all and no I'm not disturbed that you've been back reading my blog... hope you enjoyed...

-I actually didn't drink that much beer while I was away. Not even one Mojito! In fact I can recall all the booze I did drink! 2 portonics, 3 glasses of wine, 7 beer, 2 hot chocolate with baileys and 1 bloody caesar.

OK now onto the more important work... posting about vacation...

I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaack!

Greetings Blog-type peeps!

Misster-Kitty has returned...

He's not happy that he's returned.

He'd much rather still be on the Island, walking the beach, or sipping on a Frosty Schooner Beer, or eating Lobster for the umpteenth time...

But all good things must come to an end... and on that theme, here was how it looked at the end of our first day on the Island... (Aug 29th)

Now that is some Island Magic...
(As long as the sky is not completely full of clouds you have this sort of dreamy sunset every night at my family's summer home. If you can aim a camera you'll have a great sunset picture. Guaranteed. )

And speaking of 'things at an end' I've closed the last post 'Kitty Out' I've not even read it yet, but y'all are cra-zay-zee! (can't wait to read all TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY TWO posts! Blog much people? heh)

Much to blog about, pics to post (we took some 1500+ pics!!!), but that will have to wait til tomorrow...

..oh yea, speaking of 'tomorrow, when we arrived home and we checked the answering machine, there was a message from my boss telling me I have tomorrow off... to that I say, 'Suck it, Maria!' ... heh (you know I loves ya!). This also reminds me I should go to the Proctologist and have the horse-shoe removed from my ass!