Farewell to Nova Scotia

It has been a long time since I have been somewhere that was so peaceful and lovely. The southeastern corner of Nova Scotia is amazingly quiet and quite untouched.

Most of the time, we were the only ones on the beach. The water was colder than Delaware, but not intolerable.



There was one beach that had extremely shallow water that extended very far out, so the water there was warm and we could explore the whole bay floor.

The company was fabulous, too. Mr. Probert's family has the house on the water, and cousins, uncles and aunts from Toronto, England, and Arizona came out for a bit of a reunion.

I mentioned before that most of the family there were either engineers or work in the construction industry, so no family get together is complete without a tour of the local infrastructure.

We were saved from a visit to the sewage treatment plant by the presence of a wind farm near Pubnico. The wind farm was one part beautiful, one part awe inspiring, and one part weird as hell.

Being the nerds that we are, we clocked one revolution, wrote down the measurements of the blades, and took bets on velocity at the tip.

Then, we went back to the beach house and calc'ed it out.

Brother-in-law won. But I was pretty close.

Rainy days and quiet evenings were filled with Su Duko, crosswords, all too serious games of Whist, and for me, corridor modeling. I also brought a few back issues of POB, Urban Land, and the ASLA magazine which were passed around with great enthusiasm.

We managed to limit the NDP vs. Bush Redneck debates over dinner to one per evening by keeping the sherry glasses full, and at least once I purposely dropped a plate in the kitchen as a diversion when the subject of socialized medicine came up.

Before the final run to the border, I picked up a few things that are just better in Canada- yogurt, Mars Bars, Kinder Surprise, Fuzzy Peach, Toonies, good cheer, friendly smiles and a few lungfulls of sweet northern air.

I shall return, there is no doubt.

Farewell to Nova Scotia, you sea-bound coast
Let your mountains dark and dreary be
For when I am far away on the briny ocean tossed
Will you ever heave a sigh and a wish for me?