THURSDAY 21 July

I was up at 7 AM, a little late for me on this trip, and fixed a cup of coffee.  I put the finishing touches on the blog post for yesterday and then created it in WordPress.  I really like WordPress.  I had my laptop hot-spotted off my phone since I was unable to stay connected to the Elm River RV Park Wi-Fi.  When Linda got up, she played here usual morning games.  About the time I was done working, I got a text message indicating that I had used my 0.5 GB of high-speed data and would be slowed down until midnight EDT.  Linda has gotten this message several times, but this was a first for me.  The slow down is to 3G speeds, which are unusable even for simple e-mail.  We knew going into this trip that we would have to manage data usage, the same way we would have to manage electrical power usage when on a 30A RV service.

We moved the trailer today from the Elm River RV Park in Debert (Truro area) Nova Scotia to the North Sydney / Cabot Trail KOA in New Harris (North Sydney area), Nova Scotia.  It was one of our longest legs of the trip so far at 303 kilometers (182 miles), so we pulled out at 9:30 AM.  The travel time, however, was our typical 3-1/2 hours.  That was due to all but a few kilometers of the route being on the limited access Trans-Canada Highway (104 E and 105 E).

Somewhere along the Trans-Canada Highway in Nova Scotia (photo by Linda).

Hwy 104 was excellent, even in an 18 km construction zone, and usually posted at 100 km/h or 110 km/h, which meant I could sustain 62 to 65 mph over long stretches of road.  A lot of it was also 4-lane divided, so it was easy to get around the occasional slow-poke (which was usually an RV).  Hwy 105 was a bit rougher, but we often had the road to ourselves.  It was a beautiful drive, the good road enhanced by blue skies and amazing views.  There were a lot of up/down grades, and it was warm outside, so we ran with the a-c on and averaged 11.1 mpg for the leg.

Our sites at the North Sydney / Cabot Trail KOA overlooking Great Bras d’Or Lake and the Seal Islands Bridge.

We arrived at the North Sydney / Cabot Trail (NSCT) KOA at 1 PM, with Paul and Nancy about 2 minutes behind us.  Once again, we have adjacent 3-way (50A) pull-through sites.  The NSCT KOA is terraced into a steep hillside overlooking the Great Bras d’Or Lake with a massive red rock cliff behind.  We are parked facing east towards the lake.  Of all the RV parks we’ve stayed in so far, this is the most dramatic setting, and one of the best views.

We each had a banana for breakfast, so we were hungry by the time we finished setting up camp at 2:30 PM.  Paul and Nancy had gone in search of a fish/seafood restaurant to have lunch, which meant we would not be having a communal dinner this evening.  Linda fixed scrambled eggs (Just Egg) with vegan bacon and toast (with vegan butter and fruit spread) for our main meal of the day.  Yum.

A view of the front of the barn showing two vehicle door openings with the entrance door in-between (photo by Mike G).

NSCT KOA provides password protected Wi-Fi with a strong signal, so we had no problem connecting our various devices.  It’s still a public network, so we had appropriate settings enabled for dealing with that.  It occurred to Linda last night that we should contact our insurance agent (Kim) and let her know that we are having a pole barn built and need it insured.  I e-mailed her late last night and heard back from her early this morning.  She put one of her associates on it (Eric) and he e-mailed us while we were traveling.  Once I was online, I was able to reply to him.

As a bonus, I received another nice photo of the barn project from our neighbor Mike, who is keeping an eye on the house for us.  Thanks, Mike!

This part of Nova Scotia is in for a serious heat wave while we are here, so we are very glad to have 50A electrical service.  We ran both heat pumps in cooling mode this afternoon with only minor voltage drops starting from a respectable 121 – 123 VAC.  We also left the strong winds behind, which allowed us to deploy our awnings and partially shade the trailer from the sun.

There is a lot to see and do during our seven days in this part of Nova Scotia.  Things on our list include: Cape Breton Highlands, Cabot Trail, and Cabot Trail National Park, Edison and Marconi National Historic Sites and preparations for the Marine Atlantic Ferry crossing to Newfoundland.  With regards to the later, we made a trip into North Sydney to buy a Styrofoam cooler as we have to turn on the propane for the ferry crossing.  Walmart did not have any, but Canadian Tire did.  But first on our list was a boat trip out to Bird Island to see the Atlantic Puffins.  Paul made the reservations for tomorrow morning while we were enjoying a propane campfire.

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