Pretty as a Postcard

Mahone Bay, a charming, postcard-perfect fishing town in Nova Scotia is our eastern-most destination. It's also my birthday present from Patrick: two nights in a bed and breakfast, which seems oh-so Nova Scotia and storybook to me.

We arrive at the Fairmont House soggy and sniffly after camping in the rain at Fundy National Park, looking forward to a roof, warm bed and a jet tub. (The home-made chutneys and quiche will be an added perk.)

Our room overlooks the harbor, a gritty, industrial shipyard that's endearing for it's metal and usefulness and purpose in an otherwise fairy tale place. We clean up, continuously dissuade Ophie from claiming the king-size bed (it gets worse when we try to sleep. She figures she can wait us out and then overtake the giant mattress.), and then head across the street to the pub for a dinner of seafood chowder.

It's cold and misty outside and I bundle up in a sweater, scarf, hat and furry coat. This prompts the first of many entertaining moments for the Canadian innkeeper and guests, who seem to never tire or mocking the poor, cold California girl and wonder out loud what she would do should she visit in the winter when down coats and wool hats are actually needed. Patrick likes this game, too.

The seafood stew—and any mussels, clams, fresh fish—tastes hot, fresh and amazing. The IPAs, on the other hand, taste like Pilsners, something we've noticed throughout Canada and inspires our next potential business venture: Canadian IPA brewers.

The Great Scarecrow Festival

Every year, around the beginning of October, strange visitors flock to Mahone Bay, Novia Scotia. They are pirates and bellydancers, mermaids, queens and musicians. Michael Jackson, Harry Potter, Sarah Palin and Barack Obama are popular guests among the not-quite-human crowd.

The Great Scarecrow Festival has come to town, and with it comes an old fashioned pie-baking contest, a magical pumpkin path, car show and antique fair.

This year, two road trippers from Santa Cruz and one pampered pup named Ophie Jane join the hundreds of scarecrows for a few days of treats and tricks, fish stories and fishing boats and a romantic waterfront bed and breakfast. But before those stories, the scarecrows: decorated by locals, they stand in front of nearly every home and business along the main street, and one pirate scarecrow even has his own boat in the bay. Some are spooky, others clever, all a festive way to welcome the fall.

Bellydancing scarecrows?! Where's my coin belt?

As expected, the King of Pop was popular in Mahone Bay this year.

Patrick bowing to the Queen outside of our B&B.

More Michael. Can you tell the scarecrow from the tourist?

A Real Maverick.

This proves it. Ophie's a yellow dog Democrat.

Two Geniuses.

Harry Potter and the Hogwarts Gang.

Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.

The Rolling Stones.

We quickly realize many Nova Scotians don't realize that they aren't British.

Walk the Plank!

Founding Families of Mahone Bay.

Viva la Scarecrow Festival!

High Tide or Low Tide

Fundy National Park of Canada encompasses some of the last remaining wilderness in southern New Brunswick. Here, the conifer-dominated Caledonia Highlands roll down to meet the fog-generating Bay of Fundy, with the highest tidal fluctuation in the world. At its most extreme, the tide rises and falls more than 70 feet!

Our longest driving adventure of the trip so far had us pulling into the Chignecto North Campground just before 2am. To our surprise two rangers were still manning the check-in/information booth. They told us they were just about to leave for the night (morning?), but before their own national budget crisis, park rangers were available 24/7. Interesting in comparison to our own park service where, after peak-season, rangers are rarely around after 5pm.

We awoke to what would turn out to be our warmest day in Canada, with bright blue skies and a relatively empty park. We fell back into our camping routine and studied the map over our morning coffee. We discovered that Fundy is a very bike-friendly park much like Yellowstone and Grand Teton, and decided on a 10-mile ride that would take us north along the coast to Goose River Beach. Within the first 100 yards, the trail showed us its teeth! A long and very steep 1.5 or so mile climb greeted us. We had expected more of a leisure ride based on the park terrain we had seen already, but we were up for the challenge. The rest of the ride continued in the same pattern; five major uphill battles followed by a fast and technical desent. Everywhere along the trail were huge deposits of moose poo. These guys can take some serious dumps! We managed to keep Ophie from rolling in them and unfortunately never saw one. Actually I'm going to stray for a second and once again say we must have seen 300 Moose X-ing/danger signs in Canada and didn't see squawt!! Seriously, did they all head to Florida for the winter?? If anyone has a picture of a moose in Canada, I'd love to see it!!

OK, back on track now, after a few creek crossings we came upon several bands of hikers. They were prep school teens from Prince Edward Island participating in what is Canada's equivilent to Boy/Girl Scouts. Although there were slight differences, it was open to all students and they also included skills such as firearm training. At the beach many of their classmates were still camping on great ocean over looks, one for boys and one for girls. We talked with the boys for a while after Ophie invited herself into their camp. They were so full of that funny teenage spirit it was a welcome encounter at the end of a hard ride. I think some had a little crush on Jessica, they couldn't believe a girl road a mountain bike all the that way!



The beach was great and it was very evident to see where the high extended up to. We threw some sticks for Ophie into the river that was running into the ocean, took some photos, did some rock collecting, and each enjoyed an IPA that we had packed out with. We made the long ride back and made a yummy dinner. That night we had a few drinks around the fire and laughed at some roudy neighbors who pulled in late and proceeded to blare Bon Jovi and Guns n Roses even later! We almost went to join them but a storm pulled in and we were both fighting a cold so we decided to close the book on that chapter for the night.