Pictou, Nova Scotia

It came up one winter night at a bar, that we should take a trip out east in the summer. Like many things that are discussed over a few rounds of drinks, I never really expected that it would come to pass. But lo and behold, Amanda came through for us.

A quick call back home to the folks ensured that we had a place to stay, an afternoon searching online turned up the plane tickets and a few days of deliberation with Warren resulted in the itinerary.

Thank goodness for the two of them, I'm terrible at that sort of thing. If it were up to me, we would have been splitting our time evenly between McDonald's, seafood restaurants and the beach. Instead, we had this:

• June 29th: Pictou / Tidal Bore Rafting
• June 30th: Louisburg / Cape Breton
• July 1st: Charlottetown for Festival of Lights
• July 2nd: Cavendish (PEI) / Confederation Bridge
• July 3rd: Dover Island (bouldering)
• July 4th-6th: Pictou Lobster Carnival

My contribution to the trip planning was the suggestion that we all try to put on 10 lbs before coming back to Toronto. Mike and Warren readily agreed, Amanda was horrified.

And so it was settled.

The Friendly Skies

Amanda went a few days early to spend some quality time with her family, without having to babysit the three of us.

We flew out on Porter. It was the first time I'd ever flown with them and I have to say that I was really impressed. They have a great lounge with free refreshments and internet access on new iMacs to pass the time. The plane was clean, the cabin crew friendly and free, unlimited premium beer (Stella and Keith's)! I'll definitely be doing more domestic travel from now on.

While the three of us were hanging out and waiting for our flight, a middle-aged man plopped himself down in the seat next to me and proceeded to stare across the table at Mike. After a few awkward minutes of trying to ignore him, Mike finally made eye contact and the guy asked him for a beer. Mike told him there wasn't any and he went away. It took a few moments before we realized what just happened...the guy thought Mike was a bartender. WTF? People like that are the reason I need to get away from this place.

We touched down in Halifax, rented a Yaris sedan and started on the 1.5 hour drive north to Pictou. I was a little disappointed when we landed, as it didn't feel like I was a different place. Even when we were driving out to Amanda's place, the scenery outside the car looked an awful lot like the drive north on the 400 to Barrie.

It wasn't until we were about 20 minutes away that the landscape changed from low, boring grass-covered hills to a small town with trees, water and...something else. I think it might have been quaintness.

The Town of Pictou

Pictou is a small town consisting of vast tracts of farm land, rural roads and a population of less than 4,000. Amanda told us to pull into the local Sobey's plaza to wait for her and Marion (Amanda's mom), so that we wouldn't get lost trying to navigate small dirt roads. Even though I spent about a week and a half in this place, I never knew where we were, or where we were going in the car. All the roads looked the same to me, but Amanda could drive through the town with her eyes closed.

It was a short trip from Sobey's to the MacDonald household, where we met Gregg and had an incredible dinner of beef, venison and rabbit stew (a particularly cruel person pointed out that I had eaten Bambi and Thumper for dinner, but I am convinced that that comment was borne of jealousy). If you've never eaten rabbit, you've never really lived.

After dinner, Gregg took us out to his work shed where he had rigged up an impromptu lobster aquarium with a styrofoam cooler, a water pump and some tubing (we soon discovered that Gregg is Pictou's version of McGyver, Batman and Mr. Plow, rolled up in one).

It was a little weird, looking at something I knew I was going to be having for dinner within the next few days, but in retrospect, that was nothing compared to what I was going to see over the course of this trip.

We capped off the night with some Oland ale and chit chat in the living room. Oland ale is good.