Day 23: Halifax to Baddeck, NS
Tue 2 Jul 2024
Miles ridden today: 278
Back to touring mode: up the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia, lunch in Antigonish, overnight in Baddeck.
Left Halifax and went up route 7, dipping in and out of coves and up and down hills, small little fishing towns here and there, and no traffic at all. The weather was a high thin overcast and mild, and I enjoyed the roads, which were either pretty good or kinda poor, but mostly decent--though even the decent roads had potholes every ten minutes or so that you could hide a softball in, though I dodged all of them. I rode through a brief section of odd forest, skinny shortish conifer trees, and realized it's either taiga or boreal forest, I'll learn the difference soon enough.
Lunch was in Antigonish just because it was time and why does this largish looking town exist in the midlands of northern Nova Scotia? Oh, it's a college town home to Xavier University, and my immature mind thought immediately of Xavier: Renegade Angel. I definitely needed to strip out of my wool underwear, it was already 26C and I was sweating, especially as the clouds gave way to bright blue skies and a UV index of something double-digits. Why is the sun so hot up here when it's so cool out?
Lunch: another donair, at the Waffle House Stop, which was a mistake. It was cloyingly sweet and served in a waffle, and as I was finishing a dim lightbulb went on in my head that said "uh, the sauce is evaporated milk, which probably isn't great for my semi-lactose intolerance". I was already feeling queasy from a "don't drink the water" warning slipped under my hotel door in Halifax (water treatment plant lost power and things got messy)... so just thinking about the E. coli and the lactose made me queasy.
North on what I'd call the Transcanada Freeway (again: is there that much need?) and down to the Canso Causeway that connects the mainland with Cape Breton Island, then left to the western shore, and oh my bilingual signs in English/Gaelic, and not French.
Road once again good, but I wanted a nap so I turned off early for Baddeck. My lodgings had a sign in reception that said "sixth generation innkeepers!" and the floral prints and heavy brown furniture certainly looked like ggggrandmas, along with the terms and conditions on carefully cut half a sheet of paper with various DO NOT phrases highlighted like DO NOT SMOKE and such. So welcoming.
Dinner was an ill-advised pizza slice, just the one. And then I paid for it all just after I got to bed, and slept soundly until daybreak without any more issues. Man was I relieved that this little bout of tummy troubles passed quickly because the Cabot Trail is on tap for tomorrow.