I was chatting with my mother last week, and she had mentioned how she and Dad were out caching a few weeks ago and managed to scratch the BBT up a little bit.  That reminded me of the 3 province geocaching trip that Gwen, Aidan, and I took while we were back east in the spring.  Not because we scratched the truck up, but because we certainly took it places of the like it hadn’t been too much.

According to my geocaching logs, it was May 30th, 2008.  It was a nice sunny day and our plan was to drive to PEI via the Confederation Bridge.  We were going to cache along the way, making sure that we got caches in each province.  We made the decision that we weren’t going to try for any caches until we got north of Truro, and so the first one that Gwen picked out (we had a Pocket Query that found all the caches along our route within 100m of the highway) was GC16EQC Blueberry Fields.  The cache description, though brief, sounded alright and so we went for it.

The directions on the cache page are simply:

Do not stop or park on highway 104 to access this cache. You can get to this cache by exiting at exits 8 or 10, depending on the direction you are coming from. This way you will see the beautiful scenery and also avoid the toll on the Highway.

As we were heading north, we took Exit 10.  This was the Bass River Road, leading into Londonderry.  A typical Nova Scotia rural road.  The GPS then routed us north again … and then most unexpectantly the pavement disappeared.

In fact, we were driving on a dirt road for the next 25 km or so.  As dirt roads go, it was in very good shape, probably having been repaired after the winter.  In fact, it was in better shape than some of the paved roads up around Amherst (Hi Buffy!  She’s the engineer at NSDOT responsible for roads in Cumberland County.  It was a tough winter apparently).

I’ve got a fair bit of experience driving dirt roads now (Gwen and I drove up to Iqaluit – and back —  on the Dempster Highway in 2004 and it’s 99% unpaved) so it was a fun drive.  Well, other than the fact we really didn’t know where we were going.  OK, so we had the GPS with us, but still.

Anyway, after some time of driving along the dirt road, we came to a nice overpass crossing the TransCanada.  The bridge was paved, but the approaches weren’t.  Weird.  I guess that’s what happens when you have a private company build and operate the Cobequid Bypass.

A short time after that, we arrived at the “Pioneer Graveyard” that served as parking for the cache.

Westchester Mountain Pioneer Cemetery

Westchester Mountain Pioneer Graves

We hoofed it up into the graveyard and happened upon a snowmobile trail.  The cache itself seemed to be directly ahead of us, but the trail ran perpendicular to that.  After a short walk in the wrong direction, we turned around and followed the trail to the cache.

Which was up quite a hill.

Snowmobile Trails Leading to Blueberry Fields

Within spitting distance of the TCH.

Aidan Retrieves the Blueberry Fields Cache

 

Having cleverly located and signed the cache, we went back to the truck and tried to figure out how to get back to the highway.  The easiest thing seemed to be to go to the overpass and see if there was any way to get on the highway from there.  After rolling back and forth across the bridge a few times, it was pretty clear that we weren’t going to be able to do that — at least not with the truck we had.  So, the only options were to retrace our path or to continue along the same dirt road (which was the route the GPS suggested).

Onward!

In actuality, the trip out was much shorter and we soon regained pavement.  After that, it was a short drive to Exit 8 to get back on the highway and continue to New Brunswick.

All totalled, we probably spent in the neighbourhood of 3 hours getting to and finding that one cache.  Not a great start to our tri-province caching adventure in terms of efficiency, but we had fun finding it.  You can read my log here.  I’ve provided a handy map below too, detailing the excursion.

View Larger Map

Dear blog,

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to abandon you. Really, I want to write about all the things we did while we were in Nova Scotia. Visiting family (mostly) and friends (briefly). Driving down dirt roads somewhere between Truro and Amherst…. more or less intentionally. Geocaching in PEI. Watching Aidan fall four feet off a trampoline. Flying back to Vancouver, with Aidan getting airsick again.

And then we’ve been back for a little over a week. Partying it up with the Girl Guides and parents on Saturday, riding the miniature train in Stanley Park followed by partying it up with the hippies on Main Street for the Car Free Festival on Sunday.

Plus, driving like crazy through Paradise City and trying to escape the crime of Liberty City.

Oh my.

Well, I still hope to cover all those things. We have pictures!

But for now, I’ll leave you with this… We were taking some pictures of Gwen for a project that she’s working on and this was the runner-up photo to the one she chose.

We’re back! Back in Halifax that is. I’ve managed to swing a deal with work to telecommute for three weeks and I’m taking a week vacation so that all adds up to a month in Nova Scotia.

We got another good deal (relatively speaking) with WestJet about a month ago, and before we knew it we were landing in Halifax for Mother’s Day. This time, it was a jump from YVR to Calgary, a short layover in the terminal there and then direct from Calgary to Halifax.

The boy was quite excited to get on the airplane, and the trip to Calgary was … I dare say … great.

In Calgary, Aidan puttered around the various play areas (which I’ve blogged about before) and the time flew. Then we got on the flight to Halifax and taxied forever. The pilot remarked that although it seemed like we were driving to Halifax, we would in fact be airborne eventually.

Unfortunately, Aidan got airsick on that leg. Not violently, but we did go through more than a few airsickness bags. He also slept for over two hours. He was sick again on the descent into Halifax. I don’t know how many transcontinental flights he’s had and he’s never been sick before, so we didn’t anticipate it. You can be sure that on the return trip we will be pumping him with Gravol well before getting on the plane.

And once again, I have want to give kudos to WestJet. The bags all arrived, the stroller was waiting for us, set-up, by the time we walked off the airplane, the staff was helpful, friendly, and so understanding with the airsickness incident. The flight attendants in particular were super helpful. The seats are comfortable, and we love having the separate entertainment screens.

Why does anyone fly Air Canada?

So, we’re in Halifax. Aidan perked up immediately after we landed. He’s been super excited to spend time (so far) with Grandma, Grandpa, Nana, Aunt Mary, Granny, and of course all of my parents’ animals. And he’s old enough now that we can literally throw him in the backyard and he will entertain himself for hours. >Sigh< He’s never going to have a yard in Vancouver.

With the extended stay, hopefully we can get some relaxed visiting in, do some serious toddler-less geocaching, and help out around the house a bit while my mother recovers from some ongoing health concerns. Posting frequency is likely going to be pretty low, but hopefully we can make up for quantity with quality!

OK, we made it to Halifax.

The flights weren’t that bad, but The Day After wasn’t great.

First, let me plug WestJet. Woo-hoo! Although the seats seem a little narrower than on Air Canada, the service is so much better. Plus, having the TVs in each headrest facing you is *so* much better when travelling with a toddler. Further, our gate checked stroller was at the door to the airplane well before we were each time we deplaned (compare to AC where we’ve had to wait until the whole flight crew has left before we’ve had the stroller given to us).

Aidan travelled well. The first leg was to Edmonton, just a bit over an hour from YVR, and not enough time for anything to happen. We had around 2 hours in the Edmonton airport (which desperately needs a reno) and then boarded the over-night flight to Halifax. Aidan went to sleep about a half hour after we left Edmonton (right according to plan, but without the children’s Gravol we tried to give him). He slept for a little over two hours (not according to plan), waking up just before we crossed over Quebec City (yes, the GPS worked great in the plane). By my reckoning, that meant that he woke around 7:30 AM the day we left, slept for an almost 2 hour nap that afternoon, and then was awake until about 10pm. Another 2 hour nap (the one on the plane) and he was awake until noon-ish Halifax time after we arrived (8am Vancouver time). He had *another* 2 hour nap, and then was awake until 8ish Halifax time. *ANOTHER* two hour nap, and then he was ready to go again. We finally got him down around midnight Halifax time. Summing it all up, over 36 hours he had 4 two hour naps. We were a little ragged, especially since we really didn’t get any sleep on the plane, and Gwen had a 2 or 3 hour nap the morning we arrived.

As we bounced into Edmonton, we were coming up behind some thunderstorms. It must have still been raining, because there were some brilliant rainbows evident as we were landing.

The flight was pretty uneventful, but I saw the most spectacular lightning storm I’ve ever seen somewhere over north-eastern Alberta or northern Saskatchewan (couldn’t get to the GPS). Orange lightning flashed several times per second for a good twenty minutes or more in a huge storm that was probably a hundred kilometres away from us. It was pretty dark, so the whole storm was quite visible. I’ve never seen lightning so intense and frequent, and I can’t imagine what kind of racket it must have been making. Not so much rolling thunder as a fully artillery barrage, I imagine. Fortunately we were far enough away from the storm that it wasn’t affecting the flight.

It was a bit of a blur, but we arrived in Halifax without incident. The fog was so thick when we landed that we could barely see the plane at the next gate over. The boy was really well behaved on the plane. The luggage was out so fast that it seemed like it was there before we were.

The day was spent trying to get our bodies adjusted without melting in the stifling heat and humidity. Oy, we’ve become real West Coasters.

Today was much better. We got up around 10am, and the boy slept through until noon! Gwen’s sister Mary came over for a visit, and Grampa John came home (he had been at sea when we arrived). Between these visitors, and being outside running around in the park-like backyard that my parents have, the boy was in Nirvana. The boy went quite willingly to bed around 8pm, and has only had one brief waking spell, so hopefully we’ve rounded the corner.

More later…