Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia

Day 39: Halifax, Nova Scotia was the turning point for our east coast road trip and we will start to head home soon! Soon, as in, however long it takes to drive ourselves back through the major Canadian cities and around the Great Lakes…

Sleeping Space: Wal-Mart. Park on the Home Depot side with all of the other campers – it feels cozy.

Now realizing the time zone changed epically to two hours ahead of Minnesota, we were awakened early in the morning (6 a.m. Minnesota, 8 a.m. Nova Scotia) by a landscaping crew unloading their gear to mow the grass right in front of our car. Ah!

Chad threw on a jacket, I threw all sleeping gear onto the back seat, and Chad drove us to the back of the lot no where near grass! We finished our morning routine of staring out the windows to wake up, cleaning and brushing teeth. The abrupt awakening always takes a little to come down from.

While driving into Halifax the day before, Chad researched their ‘specialty’ foods and mapped out our schedule to taste them all. Today’s adventure included:

• Two If By Sea (coffee)
• King of Doniars

Parking: street parking – use Canadian coins, 2 hours

We officially woke up in the coffee shop with a beautiful looking croissant thing filled with strawberries and topped with chocolate. Yes, amazing. Their drip coffee was delish with the pastry. At 11 a.m., the pizza place above the coffee shop opened and we were able to grab the very first slice of pizza! Very important, I know.

Splendidly happy with the morning’s events with coffee, we trudged to the car knowing we would have to cross the toll bridge again (last night was a little messy). Battle faces everyone!

Chad drove. I prepped exact change. We pulled up to the booth and Chad tossed in the $1 coin into the bin (very carefully…don’t miss…we aren’t good at basketball…). Green light, GO GO GO!!!! The lane access had changed from last night and there were now two lanes we could choose from instead of just one. Crazy! It’s a cool way to control the flow of traffic.

Parking: street – no pay meters

Apparently, a Donair is like a gyro except it’s been altered to have beef, a completely new set of spices and a different white sauce. I guess they didn’t like the original Greek version. Chad found the most popular place to grab this bite to eat - referenced as the Original Donair place.

The guy behind the counter was super friendly, had a reallyyyyy thick Italian accent and said he wanted to take a picture with us ‘Minnesotans’.

“We drove across the country for this food!” joked Chad, as we are finishing the East Coast Trip in this city.

The Italian guy started laughing and took our picture for us with our massive gyro.

Excited about the supreme gyro, Chad exclaimed “it’s like the size of a baby!”

Chuckling, he wished us well. We ate the sandwich in the restaurant and filled our bellies. It was a completely different flavor than the lamb gyros. The beef was spiced, still sliced thinly and topped with onions, tomatoes and their special white sauce. The sauce tasted like a sweet Italian dressing and it complimented the meat well. YUM.

While walking back to the car, we stopped inside a K-pop (South Korean pop music) and anime (Japanese animated characters) store for fun. We chatted with the college student working the shop and he happened to be from Chicago!

He was studying there in Halifax and gave us some tips about places to go, including Peggy’s Cove. He also talked about the legal weed in Canada and let us know where the best shops were. Thanks, but no thanks! But, learning about the Canadian policies on weed was fascinating since the U.S. is currently in a transition phase.

Driving 45 minutes south to the ocean boarder, we stopped at Peggy’s Cove to check out the large rocks. While on the drive out there, we watched the homes transition from city-feeling to being out-in-the-sticks buildings. This includes boat shacks, puddles of water your lawns (ponds), algae everywhere and siding that has seen better days (the salty air is a little harsh).

Parking: free at the visitors center within the town and at the top of the hill by the light house

The cove was a fun little stop because the rocks were super unique. Chad was a little bummed because now we were another couple hours out of the way back to Maine, making the drive over 9 hours to our sleeping destination (it’s like 1 p.m. lol……).

The wind was cold, the water seemed cold (it’s dangerous to touch the ocean on these rocks because the waves/tides are unpredictable), and we were cold. We played on the rocks, touched the lighthouse and climbed back into the car.

Hi-ho silver! Time to backtrack towards Maine!

After driving for a few hours, I exclaimed “Canada is like one big National Park!”

Tree after tree, lake, river, pond, salt marsh, etc. filled our day with very little town occurrences.

The car hit 22,200 miles!

Stretching our legs at a Tim Horton’s (first time on the Canadian trip), we tried their drip coffee and the apple London fog tea. YUM, the team was awesome. Coffee was kinda generic coffee. There was a giant blueberry statue that we took a selfie with from the within the car!

Drive, drive, drive. We drove all day and into the evening. At a gas station, I brought out the clementines, tried the smoked clams and waited on the sardines. The clams were actually really good!!

Towards sunset, we drove by a town that claimed to have the World’s Longest Covered Bridge. Why not see it quick? Turing off towards Hartland, New Brunswick we drove about 7 kilometers into the small town.

The bridge was REALLY long and still used by the town …… it’s one way only….so we quickly got in line with cars that were crossing the same direction as us. As soon as we were spit out on the other side, the waiting cars took their turn. Crazy!! Lots of potential for a head-on collision.

Thinking the highway road would pass through a few cute little towns along the river, Chad routed us on an alternate route which happened to take us into the back-country hills. It was still on a highway, but it wasn’t the main highway we had been traveling all day….. it was pitch black, there are moose and deer crossing signs everywhere and we had to travel slower to avoid potential suicidal animals.

It took over 40 kilometers to get out of there, but it took over and hour because of the slower speed limit and the choice of not totally our car on a massive moose going for a nightly stroll.

Eventually, we crossed onto the real highway 103 and booked it to the top of Maine for rest. Chad located a Wal-Mart in a French mountain town only 30 minutes away from the Highway 1 Mile Marker in Maine. That is our destination point for the East Coast! (we took a picture at highway 1 mile 0 in the Florida Key’s).

Three other van campers were there with us and we rested well in the cold air. Tomorrow, we will cross the border back into the U.S. Hopefully, we won’t have any issues!