Excessive

We went to sleep right away and I don't even remember falling asleep really. We slept straight through to about 10am the next day, to which I got up and Bekki opened the curtains to reveal the beautiful water and scenery! It was wonderful, and there was a nice breeze coming in the window, and it was just the perfect way to wake up. I went to bed with a bit of a headache and woke up with it still there in the right side of my head, so Bekki amazingly just rubbed that part of my neck and it helped a bit (she's awesome).

We had decided before leaving that our first day would be spent going to get food and planning the weeks meals out, so that's what we stuck to. We had some breakfast sitting on the porch (mini mini mini mini-wheats) and eventually got ready and left for town, which is about a twenty minute drive. We went to the liquor store and got two bottles of wine, and then to Wal-mart and bought a coffee maker for $12, and some bathroom stuff like deoderant, small mouthwash and whatever... all the stuff that we couldn't really take on the plane. Oh yeah, and we went to Tim's for a coffee because her parents don't have a coffee maker or anything, and I needed my coffee pretty badly, especially with the headache. From there, we went to Superstore to get the groceries for the week, and it was a lot of fun, and very relaxing. We kind of planned meals as we walked around. The meals we bought stuff for were: Chicken breast with a white wine sauce, mini-red potatoes and asparagus, beef tenderloin with mashed potatoes and portabello mushrooms, seared salmon served on Capelli with spinach and cherry tomatoes and meatloaf... I think that's it. Oh, and we were going to have Ribs ala Bekki's Mom that night, and I had to cook everything else, so I decided to get some fresh corn on the cob and make a potato pave (like the one from work but better). We ended up spending about $100 and got a lot of good food, and packed it up in the car and drove home.

Once home, Bekki's Mom had made pizza for us to put toppings on, so I put mushrooms and red onion on my half, and Bekki put red onion and pineapple on her half and that's what we ate for lunch, while watching some TV.

After lunch we got pretty sleepy, but didn't want to just lay down in bed inside, so we thought we'd go down to the water and set up the hammock and try to nap. We walked down and laid in it for a bit, took some pictures, but I kinda stopped being sleepy and so did Bekki, so we started exploring the water a bit, and we walked out up to our knees and looked for crabs and nice stones and shells and what not. We walked down the beach and found this old abandonded half destroyed tree house with an old animal trap and matress and stuff... it was pretty cool but kind of weird too, but it was fun to explore.

We eventually came back in and started to get dinner ready. I made the potatoes and boiled the corn and eventually it was all ready to eat, so we sat down and enjoyed the meal and talked. We enjoyed a glass of wine and ate some ribs and had some chocolate cherry cheesecake for dessert, a good meal all around.

After dinner Bekki and I helped bring recently purchased Kayaks down to the beach to store them for the night, and at some point in the week we're going to take them out.

It started to get dark pretty fast and the moon looked really nice on the water and I wanted to take some pictures. I took a few pictures from the porch but it was hard to capture the right feel, so we decided to go down to the beach with flashlights, but sadly none of the pictures really turned out because I don't have a tripod or know how to take good pictures. Bekki was super scared of being down there at night as well, so we just turned around and came back up.

After we were in for the night, they couldn't find their cat Peanut, but after a lot of calling and clapping, the cat appeared in the front drive-way with a present for everyone, a recently killed star-nosed mole! I had never seen a mole, and I certaintly had never seen a star-nosed mole, but it was super crazy. I took an upclose picture of it... it was weird. After the excitment for the night, we settled in the living room, I wrote a bit, uploaded some pictures, and watched TV until about midnight, at which point we gave up and went to sleep, quickly falling asleep again.

End of Monday events!

We woke up again around the same time, around 9:30am and stumbled to the kitchen to make breakfast. I had bought light-rye bread freshly baked in the superstore, and had four pieces of that and a coffee for breakfast, and Bekki had honey nut cheereos and a tea. Breakfast was good, and we decided that we'd spend the day hiking and stopping in at a museum. All four of us were going to go; Bekki's Mom was planning on going to a wool store, and Bekki, myself and her Dad would go on the falls hike (which lead to a cool waterfall) and we'd hit up the Alexander Garham Bell museum all together.

We got ready and got in the car and headed to our destination, which was just outside Baddeck, which is about a two hour drive, so we relaxed in the backseat and just lost track of time until we got to town. We dropped Bekki's Mom off at some wool store so she could look at wool and knitting related things, and from there Bekki, myself and her Dad drove to Usige Ban Falls. We stopped in at an outhouse at the start of the trail where I captured a wonderful picture of Bekki exiting the woman's bathroom, and after feeling more comfortable, we took our hike.

The hike was nice and it was inside a forest, covered by trees and the sides of cliffs, so even though it was raining a bit, we weren't really getting wet, and in fact it was quite humid and hot on the hike (probably due to some physical activity or something). The path was rocky and full of roots, but the scenery was amazing. The bridge leading to the falls was closed due to being unsafe, so we simply climbed down the side of the small drop, crossed the river (it wasn't much of a river) and climbed up the other side so we could continue on and make our way to the falls, which was the main attraction and purpose of the hike in the first place. We took tons of pictures along the way, and by the end we were in the middle of this tight valley, with giant rock walls on both sides of us for as high as we could see. We made it to the falls and it was pretty awesome, really nice to look at and hear and experience, and we took it in for a bit, turned around and made our way slowly back to the car.

We drove back to town and picked up Bekki's Mom and decided to get some lunch at a random restaurant, which turned out to be less than spectacular. It was the Yellow Cello or something, and I ordered a chicken caesar salad, and it was fake processed chicken, fake bacon bits and some gross tasting caesar dressing, and I just didn't enjoy it at all. In fact, getting up to leave, by the time I had got through the door, I already had a stomach ache from it, and it was just disappointing. Thankfully I wasn't the one that had to paid, because it wouldn't have been worth any of the money.

We drove just down the street and went to the Alexander Garaham Bell museum where we spent an hour or so walking around and reading about his life and what he did, looking at stuff that he invented or used in his house and stuff. It was interesting but it was kinda busy, and I felt pretty claustrophobic. I walked around with Bekki for awhile, not really enjoying it. I was really interested in the subject matter, but I just wasn't relaxed and felt really anxious. I mentioned that I would've preferred to just read a good, narrative-style biography on the guy and I'd probably get a lot more from the experience, and on the way out we went to the gift shop and sitting there was a good looking book, a decent length, narrative-style biography, so I got it, and I now own it, ready to read it when I get the chance!

Mark left a comment on my check-in at the museum and told me to go to the Big Red Barn, so on the way home, we saw it and stopped in, where I saw another book about the Cape Breton Coal Miners of 1900 to 1925, and I was immediately interested in the subject, because it was a brutal occupation, and I was interested in why people did it if it sucked so bad, and I know there were quite a few deaths in Cape Breton from it, so I wanted to read it, so Bekki talked me into getting it, and so that was what I got at the Big Red Barn. From there, we drove home, Bekki and I drifted in and out of sleep, and while I was awake, I read my new Cape Breton miner book "The Company Store" as much as I could.

I was in charge of dinner, and I decided to cook seared Salmon on capelli with spinach and cherry tomatoes, tossed in olive oil, served with asparagus and diced green olive and red onion on top of the salmon. It was really good in my opinion and everyone seemed to like it, so it went over well. I was worried it wouldn't turn out or be good, but it was worth the stress because it was good! For dessert we watched TV and ate ice cream, which everyone had, and it was pretty nice.

I read The Company Store for a while on the couch after dinner and a bit more in bed while Bekki had a shower, and after her shower, and after I had read about three chapters of the book, we decided to wind down for the night. We moved to the livingroom to go through the pictures from the day, and plan our next day. We wanted to go whale watching and go to the skyline trail, and wanted to go to the miners museum at some point, so we decided and/or were talked into finding a hotel to stay at up north so we could do it all without having to drive home. So we planned it out, book a hotel room and figured out all the details. I wrote a bit, watched some TV and then we crawled off to bed.

End of Tuesday events!

We woke up a bit earlier than we had been the first two days, at around 8:30am or so, crawled out of bed to see that the sky was a bit more blue than the day before, which was nice. We went to the dining room to eat some breakfast. I had some toast and coffee and Bekki had some cereal and we talked to her Dad about stuff, like birds and religion, you know, the standard stuff.

After breakfast we quickly packed for our trip... a trip within a trip... how odd! We were only going to be awake for one night, so we just packed one change of clothes basically, and I packed my computer stuff and a book and whatever, just a few things. It didn't take long, and after a double checking of stuff, we were on our way.

Our intial drive was a couple hours I think, and it was from Port Hawksbury to Cheticamp, a french coastal town about halfway up the west coast of Cape Breton. The drive up there was pretty much entirely right beside the ocean, at some points only being one guard rail away, and at other times being a plot of land away, but never really going out of sight. It was nice... rolling hills everywhere, tons of trees, the ocean, it was pretty amazing. We stopped at a restaurant in Cheticamp where we got some lunch, as we weren't sure where the next place we could eat would be, and we were going to be going on a bit of a long hike before being able to eat, so it made sense. We went to a respectable looking place and got some fish and chips. The food was decent and the service was quick, and we were in and out fairly quickly without issue, and beside the fact that everyone was french, it was a good experience.

The drive to the trail after was fucking amazing. We turned and started going into the national park, and mountains were just all around us and it was beautiful. We had to pay a small permit fee, and we made out drive up this giant mountain to the trail. It was curving and winding and steep, it was on the ocean, right beside us, just ocean, and then in towards the mountain... it's so difficult to describe but it was just crazy and amazing and hopefully some of my pictures do it justice. We eventually made it to the parking lot of the trail where we found a place to put the car, put on as much clothes as we could, as it was raining and cold, and then we started our walk.

The majority of the hike was uneventful and kind of all looked alike, but the purpose of the hike, or at least... the reason people take the hike is for what's at the end of the hike, which was the top of the highest peak overlooking the seemingly endless ocean with the most beautiful view, including the winding and curving road that brings you up and down the mountain. The entire walk was worth it just to see that stuff, and take pictures and experience it. Check my facebook album linked below for pictures of the hike (as well as others).

After we were finished our hike, we needed to get to Pleasant Bay by 5:00pm, and it was 3:00pm, so we had time but we didn't want to risk missing the whale watching, so we started driving again, and the roads from this point got preeeeetty crazy. They wound down and around, sharp turns and what not, and at one point we stopped to take pictures of this giant old river that's now just a forested valley. By the time we reached the bottom, we could see Pleasant Bay coming up. Sadly, all of the whale watching services were closed due to weather, so we were a bit upset, but had to keep on going because... well, there really isn't anything else there, so we just had to begin driving to our hotel, which was allegedly an hour away from where we were.

The road from Pleasant Bay was crazy, like... scary as fucking shit. Like.. a roller coaster but like, where you could actually really easily die. Like hundereds of feet drops with only a small guard rail blocking the way. Like... the steepest, craziest hills with curves that just drop off into valleys. Not only that, but it started to pour rain, making it even more difficult to drive. It was insane, and we were surrounded by mountains on all sides, so it was really... unique feeling. It was interesting, but very scary, so scary infact that I think I only took one or two pictures because I was too busy holding my breath.

We did make it to our hotel eventually, but it took twice as long as we were told it would take, but that was alright because we didn't really have anything else to do. We found our hotel, checked in, put our stuff in our room, made sure everything was okay, and then decided to get some dinner. We went and got seated in the hotel's restaraunt, but looked at the menu and couldn't find anything we liked, so we literally just got up and left. It was kinda awkard but everything was super overpriced and nothing looked good. We drove down the street to the first restaurant we saw, and pulled and went in. We sat down, put in our order... and....

We waited for 45 minutes for our food. I got the Big Lebowski, a 10oz burger stuffed with cheese and bacon and mushrooms, with lettuce and tomato on a bun (duh) served with fries. Bekki got chicken alfredo, which looked shockingly white... usually when you cook cream it turns a bit yellow, like a bit browned, but this was pure white and thick, so I've no idea what was in the sauce, but it wasn't heavy cream. Anyway, after the long ass wait, I was in a pretty bad mood, the dinner was good but made me feel mergh, and it was late, dark and time to go back to our room.

When we got back, Bekki had a shower and I started writing... we watched some TV (America's Got Talent!) and now it's 11:15pm, and we need to wake up around 7:30am to eat breakfast and get to the closest whale tour service, so I better go to sleep! I'm going to read for a few minutes and try to get sleepy. I've been on and off drinking red wine, so I'm starting to get sleepy, so it shouldn't be too difficult to fall asleep.

Tomorrow is the whale watching, then driving to Glace Bay to go to the coal miners museum, and then drive around the rest of Cape Breton to get back home! Hopefully in time to make dinner because I've got a nice one planned and can't afford to miss a day of cooking! I've already bought the food! More pictures coming tomorrow!

End of Wednesday events!

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