Location: Digby, Nova Scotia, Canada
We last left you just south of Punxsatawny, Pennsylvania, home of Punxsatawny Phil, the world's most famous weather predicting groundhog. We had a lot of fun there, visiting all the places made famous by the movie "Groundhog Day". We even re-watched the movie that night.
We also were surprised to find some lonely, disused oil field pump jacks alongside the road where we camped at a forest service dispersed site for the night.
Kinzua Bridge State Park boasted the world's longest and tallest railroad bridge until it was nearly destroyed by a tornado in 2003 that took out two thirds of it. The remaining third is now open to walk out on (with a glass floor at the end - we didn't go all the way!!)
From there, we worked our way further north for a visit with Mark's cousin Gratia and her husband Bill. We'd been craving pizza, but didn't want to stop just anywhere – who wants to waste their semi-annual pizza fix on a frozen pizza? As luck would have it, they have a place named "Kay's Pizza" nearby. Apparently it is famous in the area for having the best pizza ever. It was really, really good!!!
We then hopped across town to visit old cruising buddies in Troy, New York. We told them about the pizza and Kate said "Kay's?" Apparently she took her first steps there as a child. See, we told you it was good!
Lock 2 on the Erie canal
Our next hop was up to Mark's brother, Pete and his wife Sandy in Peru, Maine for July 4th celebrations. We were treated to a wonderful cookout and an awesome fireworks display in Rumford. OK enough of this dawdling we need to get to Canada or it will be time to head south before we get to Nova Scotia!
Our first stop was St John, New Brunswick. Located on the north shore of the Bay of Fundy, it is famous for its reversing falls. We'd heard of them but didn't really understand exactly what it was. We arrived at low tide and it was amazing, water churning, swirling whirlpools, cormorants riding the currents.
The information suggested that we should view it 3 times, at low tide, slack tide and high tide. We decided to do that and were so glad we did. They were all so different and we really got the feeling of what was going on.
In between the reversing falls viewings we found a delightful spot - Irving Nature Preserve - on an island via an isthmus with lovely trails and a couple of Cedar Mazes, which were really fun.
Due to the massive tides the incoming tide actually pushes the water backwards up the river over the waterfalls. At slack tide (and you really don't want to misstime it) there's a 20 minute window of calm water during which you can actually traverse the falls on your boat!
You may have heard of the huge tides at the Bay of Fundy. We drove up the northern shore then entered Nova Scotia and drove down the southern shore.
Known for having the highest tides in the world (some in excess of 55 feet!!), the water is in a near constant state of flow, reversing every 6 hours or so.
This causes some pretty amazing erosion and keeps the bottom pretty churned up, resulting in some very red colored sea due to the predominance of red sandstone that surrounds the Bay. The farther up the bay and it's tributaries, the redder the water, the rocks, the soil, and the roads.
We got to see a tidal bore in Truro. The tide comes in so fast, a standing wave moves upstream against the river's current. At our viewing point, a small, low bar separated the river. As the bore passed, we could actually see the bar disappearing over the next few minutes. Amazing to see.
