because it's there

You will have to excuse my typing.  It is a little shaky, I know, but I have a good excuse for that.   It is called the Cabot trail.   For most of you the Cabot trail would be a beautiful drive with breath-taking scenery, vast expanses and huge amazing vistas, yadda yadda yadda.  I am sure that is true as far as it goes.  For someone like me who has a fear of heights it is a terrifying, heart-pounding, roller-coaster ride.  The only  vistas I saw were the side of road and the dashboard of the car.  Breath-taking indeed - breath-releasing not so much.

There were three areas that kicked in my primal, falling out of the tree, self-preservation instincts.  The first was French mountain, the second was Mackenzie mountain and the third was Cape Smokey (I knew that damned cat was going to come back to haunt me! - Telen had a cat named Smokey who hated me)  The rest of the trip was actually very interesting and picturesque.   Those three spots,however, almost did me in.   

Why would you build a road that goes straight up a mountain with sheer cliffs dropping down to the ocean on one side and sheer cliffs going straight up on the other?  Then why would you twist that road like a politician's promise?  Then why would you suddenly drop the road straight down toward the edge of cliff that falls 1600 meters to the crashing rocks of the ocean below and at the last minute put in a ninety degree left turn?  Who thinks like that?

We did French and Mackenzie mountains yesterday.  They were on the western side of the cape which is supposedly the most rugged with the Atlantic side being the more gentle side.  Last night we stayed at a nice B&B in North Cape where I spent the evening shaking, sweating and snivelling.

We did Cape Smokey today and, of course, Telen was driving.   I think she was getting impatient with me and my phobia.  

"Stop your whimpering, sit up straight and take your thumb out of your mouth I can't understand a word you are screaming.  And open the window.  What is that god-awful smell?"   

I think she was just touchy about having to drive again.

My favourite place on the Cabot trail was a town called Chetticamp on the western side of the island.   It is an Acadian town that sits right on the ocean.  It has a unique appearance in that the houses look like they are just popping up out the ground with nothing else around them.  The accent of the people there is much softer than the Quebecois and very gentle on the ear.  We had lunch there and had Acadian meat pies with home-made vegetable soup while a fiddler played in the background.  It was an extremely pleasant experience.

Interestingly enough, this morning at the B&B when we had breakfast we were the only ones who spoke English.  Everyone else at the table spoke a version of French.  One family was from France, one family was from Quebec City and one man was from Germany but spoke French.  It was strange to be the lingual minority.  Normally most people have some English. I know that sounds arrogant, but English is fast becoming the lingua franca of the world. English is a pidgin of many other languages and so it becomes the common language for people who wish to communicate.  The English-speakers have managed to alienate so many other people in the world that they have learned the language just to be able to curse us out.  It is not that I haven't a desire to learn another language but there is a gap between my desire and my ability.  Weirdly enough I could read the Gaelic on the signs and posters in the B&B better than I could understand the French spoken at the table.  How sad is that? 

Tonight we are staying at a little cottage in Wreck Cove.  After going over Cape Smokey the name of the town seems singularly appropriate. I am not sure if there is anything in Wreck Cove other than this cottage.  I have noticed in Cape Breton that a small community of five or six hundred people will have an enormous church and a huge cemetery.  I guess Bretons go to church and die a lot.    

Praying is probably important to people who have to drive those roads all the time.

Telen writes:

Rand deserves a T-shirt that says "I survived the cliffs of Cabot Trail".  I feel empathy for him as I have a strong phobia towards spiders and snakes.  I know he feels this is a major attack to his moral character but I see this as a rather sweet human trait.  After completing the first day on the Cabot Trail traversing 3 mountain passes yesterday, Rand started asking a number of people about the degree of steepness of Cape Smokey which we would need to traverse the next day.  He asked our B&B host Hansell.  He asked the chef who greeted us last night at dinner.  He asked the lady at the front desk of the restaurant.  The cliffs and the steepness of Cape Smokey became worse and worse with each consecutive description.  I had to stop Rand from asking any more people as I felt that this action was not helping to reassure him :)  Rand coped very well during the drive.  He was unusually quiet and did not try to give me any driving instructions like he normally would do.  The only thing he said as we were going through numerous mountainous hairpin turns was "Telen, it is still 30 (km/hr)" i.e. "don't speed up".

I enjoy the Celtic and Acadian culture on Cape Breton Island.  A large number of people can trace several family generations all the way back to the early 1800's.  Although the villages are small, I see the presence of young people and children walking around.  These villages are alive and thriving.

Cape Breton

We have arrived back on the mainland.  We thought that we had seen the last of the sculptured lawns and the considerate, friendly people.   Nope.  They exist here on Cape Breton Island too.   We need to take a quintessential essence of the people of the Maritimes and, using a huge fleet of crop dusters, spray it over the rest of Canada.  It is not that we have found the rest of Canada unfriendly, far from it, it is just that you think Yohan Blake is fast and then Usain Bolt shows up.

As far as the sculpted lawns go; the Maritimes can keep that bit.  Mowing lawns to me is like putting lettuce in salad.  Everyone does it and it makes the salad look good but there always seems to be a lot of it and it takes a lot of time.  I have similar feelings about lawn mowing and lettuce.

The ride into Baddeck today was refreshing.  It was quite a bit cooler than it has been with a few rain showers now and again.  Since we have been existing in a heat wave since late June it was nice to have the cool showers.   I didn't even put my rain jacket on, I just enjoyed the sprinkles.  Luckily it wasn't until I arrived here in Baddeck that the rain began to get down to business.  Since it was raining and cool we had to have another Lobster dinner.  Sigh.

This morning I got a phone call from the Ferry service that runs to Newfoundland.  Apparently the Newfies heard Telen was coming and are scurrying to hide all their mussels.  Prince Edward Island talked. The Newfies came up with the excuse that one of their ferries is malfunctioning to give themselves more time.  So, our reservation to get to Newfoundland has been delayed by two days.  That set us to scurrying because we are now arriving in Newfie on the labour day weekend.  Accommodation is going to be scarce.  Fortunately the place that we had booked already was able to accommodate us.  Whew!

We have two days to kill.  I have been reluctant to do the Cabot trail because I have a fear of heights.  Every time Telen mentions it I squirm and whine but she has been supportive by suggesting that I was being childish and cowardly.  So I hid under the bed and stuck my tongue out at her. She won, of course, and so tomorrow we start on the Cabot trail.  I can hardly wait...

Cape Breton has a very Celtic flavour.  A lot the road signs are in both English and Gaelic.  Almost every face here is pale with lots of freckles.  It almost feels like we are back in Ireland again, including the rain.  The area was colonized by mostly Scottish immigrants, though, not Irish.  (Hence the name Nova Scotia) Since there is such a huge Scottish influence here I thought the lake here needed a monster.  I can fix that. I will go for a swim...

Today we went for lunch at Wong's Bras D'Or chinese restaurant and were served by a young lady with red hair and freckles.  Served our food by a celtic lady in Chinese restaurant with a french name.  Only in Canada, you say?

Cape Breton is really mix of Scottish and French.  A lot of the Acadians that were expelled from New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and parts of Nova Scotia by the Brits ended up here in Cape Breton.  This is creating a new mix that is unique to this area.  It should be interesting to explore.

By the way - the Cabot trail is mis-named.  John Cabot's real name was Giovanni Caboto.  He was from Italy.  It should be the Giovanni trail and they should serve Spaghetti.

In my world they would.