Brad and Taylor's

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Sept 19^th-20

Cruising to Cape Breton we encounter great roads with a 110 km speed limit, 4 lanes, rolling hills …..and a toll booth. The sign said toll road 22km, which I took to mean that the toll for $4.00 was only for the last 22km. Doing the quick math my brain said, That’s almost 20 cents a km, man is that expensive. As we rolled on past the toll booth, Vicki enlightened me to the fact that the toll was for basically the rest of the road we were on, which was about 200 km. That made me feel better. The views in Nova Scotia are incredible, with every turn in the road or crest of a hill giving you yet another eyeful of beauty to behold. Our gps, knowing we couldn’t get enough of that beauty decided on a curvy, half under construction coastal road for us to follow rather than the spiffy 4 lane that would have cut ½ hour off our time. In retrospect though, I think it was the right way because the scenery was incredible and we had time to enjoy the view and stop for DQ. Our destination was our friends, Brad and Taylor’s place in Sydney. Sydney is bigger than I thought it was, sporting at least 2 apartment highrises. Their place is a 2 ½ storey, century old home with original wood trim and many upgrades. The renovation kept with the era the home was built and it really gives you the feel of what it would have been like to be in a home from that time. It was originally a manse and is very close to the site where a historically significant steel plant had spewed pollutants on the residents for years.

Brad and Taylor took us on a scenic tour all around Cape Breton close to their house, then took us to the Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Baddeck. There we learned that Bell’s inventions also included Trapezoidal frameworks, propeller designs, hydrofoils and a written phonetic language for teaching deaf people to speak. Once back in Sydney, they picked up lobsters, took us back to the house and boiled them up in a pot outside. Brad showed us the finer points of how to eat a lobster and we had the best lobster feast ever.

Sadly, we had to leave early the next morning to continue our adventure on to PEI.

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