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colorful Nova Scotia

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Our hopes of finding colorful landscapes have been realized - we spent the day driving just ahead of a nasty front that kept us under a mix of sunny and dark skies.

I still had black and white film in my camera, unfortunately, and was driving, so I couldn't really document any of it. At one point we came upon a broad valley full of mixed 'Acadian' forest, with green conifers and warm deciduous leaves. The highway wended its way down the valley, and a rainbow even crossed the scene. By the time I'd pulled over and switched film, it was too late for me: the others got a couple of pics, I think. I can assure you it was something.

For a late lunch, we stopped in the town of Antiguinish, which has both a beautiful University campus (St. Xavier) and a really run-down Chinese restaurant that serves great food. I'm blanking on the name of the place, but it was something like "Moon River" or "Mystic Moon".

We wound up at Baddeck, as hoped. We found a decent hotel in the town's center, and spent the evening downing some drinks and watching "The Halifax Explosion" in the room that "Kate" and I shared. The movie was about a factual event that wiped out much of the city during WWI. A barge and a munitions ship collided and exploded. Charlie lives on 'Anchor drive', so named for being the landing spot of a fragment of the ship's anchor - the thing flew right over town proper, a distance of two miles.

I've been to Baddeck on Cape Breton island before, and find it a decent little place.