On the road again, we headed into the province of Nova Scotia. We left the campground at 9:15 but by the time we fueled and hooked up our car (I had to run up to McDonalds for sodas), it was 9:45. Gas here was $1.079/L ($3.268). We left Shediac and New Brunswick behind, and crossed into Nova Scotia about 10:30. We took Highway 11 until we reached Hwy 2, and took it on the backroads through some pretty country.
We started seeing "pickers" on hillsides along the road, but we didn't know what they were picking. And we even saw a tractor-like piece of equipment in the fields.
Finally, Collins couldn't stand it so he stopped at a house to see if he could find out what they were picking. Unfortunately (or fortunately), no one was home, so he didn't get any answers there.
But we just went a few miles down the road and came upon a big building with some people working, so we all pulled in there. And got the scoop!
This is a coop packaging plant for BLUEBERRIES. That's what everyone is picking, wild blueberries. The town of Oxford, just a few miles from us here, is the Blueberry Capital of the World! Who knew??? The farmers in the area bring in their berries and they are packaged here and then shipped to Prince Edward Island or Maine for sorting and selling. The guys gave us a little tour and a lot of information.
There was a field right behind the building that hadn't been picked yet, so we got to see the bushes still loaded.
Joe even picked one. And they were loading a semi so he got some pictures of that (brings back memories of his youth, only these berries don't weigh nearly as much as those watermelons he loaded).
We continued on our way (after Collins bought a 5-lb box of the blueberries, to share with us). We saw the muddy banks of every river and inlet we passed, so we could tell that the tide was out.
We are still on the Bay of Fundy, just on the opposite side now. We found a nice seafood restaurant for lunch, and I was excited because they had 4 of those big beach chairs just waiting for us to enjoy.
Joe and I have been seeing these big chairs all summer, all the way from Florida to Canada, but this is the first chance we ever had to try them out!!! And lunch was very good. Collins was happy as a clam with his clam strips.
And Joe thought his flounder plate lunch was picture-perfect.
We all had a very nice lunch, which was a "going away" lunch because we are splitting this afternoon, the Brundiges to Halifax and us to Pictou.
We made one more stop together, at Masstown Market, a fruit/vegetable and craft market just on the edge of Truro. So we said our goodbyes here and headed our separate ways. After one missed turn, we found our way to Highway 104 (northeast) and made it to Pictou, a small town on the Northumberland Strait where the ferry goes to and from Prince Edward Island. After we get situated and had dinner, we walked down to the beach and got our feet wet in this new body of water.
Some snorkelers found a lobster, and a fisherman caught a mackerel while we walked the beach/water edge, but our catch was a handful of seashells and 2 rocks.
Oh, Joe did find a dead crab, but thankfully we left it in the water.
We drove 186 miles today, but we had a lot of bumpy roads again. The roads in this part of the country are awful. Joe told Collins he thought if anyone up here ran a political campaign promising to get the roads repaired, that person would win by a landslide. It sure is rough on our RVs -- Joe is pretty sure he will have to tighten every nut and bolt when we get home. And the cracks in our front windshield keep growing.
We heard from the Johnsons today, and they are in Virginia, traveling the Bluegrass Parkway. They seem to be making good time. Eventually, we will need to head that direction too.
It was warm and muggy today, we had a couple of brief showers during our drive, and it had rained here at the Harbor Light campground before we got here. But it's nothing like Arizona heat right now, so I guess we will just consider ourselves fortunate to be here and not there.
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