The Adventures of Sunsette! (Nova Scotia again, May 8)

"Hi again!

"We had a little expedition on Wednesday.  Mum had a meeting on the mainland and decided to explore up the Bay of Fundy coast a bit too.  This qualifies as another of our BFE Backroads Tours, thanks to the horrendous chipseal on the road back inland in the dark.  At least it was paved (sorta).  In Nova Scotia it would be gravel."


Mum drove past "Duck Pond Road" and then on a whim decided to turn back and go see where that went.  We found this beach, and met a lovely senior lady, and she and Mum yakked like they'd known each other for ages.  Scarlett and I met her too, and she seemed to think it was cool that we had adventures."



"New Brunswick has a bunch of old covered bridges.  This one at Tynemouth Creek was built in 1927 and is 94 feet long."



Here we are at St. Martins, which has a lot of tourists in the summer.  All the touristy things were closed.  This bridge is NB's first two-lane one and was opened in 2022 replacing the old one."



"We found BOATS!  Yay!!  As you can see, the tide range here leaves them high and dry."






"The St. Martins sea caves draw tons of summer tourists.  On a February day, it was almost deserted.  There was just one person at the end with an annoying dog that curtailed our picture-taking."



"There was a constant pitter-patter -- and occasional crash! -- of falling rocks, so we stayed away from the overhangs and did not go in the cave."



"Yeah, it's a bad photo.  I was looking for falling rocks, okay?"



"This is the cave.  Where you can see the last icicles in the shadow is pretty much the back of it.   Would've been fun to go in, but -- did I mention falling rocks?  
"The ice chunks are broken off by high tides from shallower shorelines that freeze, then carried elsewhere and left.  The Bay of Fundy itself is too cold to freeze in the winter *cough*    "



"Behind me you can see the highest tide line (where the icicles cut off) and the most recent tide line (the thin white line).  The tide range here is an average of 25 feet between high and low water, which leaves many of these beaches and shallow harbours with wide stretches exposed."



"We didn't get a lot of pictures because the little camera battery wasn't happy in the cold (Mum said she should have brought the big camera), and by this point she couldn't feel her fingers anymore.  Despite this warm light, it was minus-minus with wind chill!  Maybe we'll go back sometime on a warmer day."



"Thanks for reading!"

"Love, Sunsette  "

Teehee, I always love reading about their mini adventures! This area looks so gorgeous, maybe even moreso because it was deserted. I love a good covered bridge, but caves totally freak me out - I wouldn't have gone in, either!

I would never have guessed that it was so cold in these pictures. The sun really does make it look warm!

Oh this looks like a lovely trip. The cave is particularly spectacular especially with the icicles- you really do still have it cold there! Meeting random people to chat to always makes an adventure memorable too. Plus boats must have made your nautical girls happy. Its also cool to see pictures of those kind of tunnels over the road because we have nothing like that here.

Welll... these captions answer most of the questions I posed on the Flickr posts of these pictures! About the tide range that leaves the boats grounded, about the depth of the caves, and about the "spring-like" sunshine!

Not exactly "spring-like" temperatures... yet... it sounds like!

So the 2-lane covered bridge is a new one? Did they build it like that to emulate the style of an original bridge on the site, or is there a reason to still build covered bridges in that area?

Annoying dogs on the beach -- yeah. Sucks.

So cool that you turned around and back-tracked just to see where "Duck Pond Road" led. You and I could "road trip" together, no problem... except that we'd never get to where we were going because of getting side-tracked!

Too cold to freeze? Is that a thing? Well, on the bright side, your blood probably won't freeze, then, either!

adreamingdollie wrote:This area looks so gorgeous, maybe even moreso because it was deserted....The sun really does make it look warm!

Yeah, I prefer to enjoy nature and natural phenomena in places that are not peopley.
The "magic light" of late afternoon always looks warm, and the red sandstone helped too.  But it was probably -5 to -10ish with wind chill.  

CatDragonStorm wrote: Meeting random people to chat to always makes an adventure memorable too.  

The funny thing was, she knows someone who knows someone who has a summer house just a couple km from my house.  She started describing who he was and I knew who she meant!  --And davidd, it was the house you sent me the realtor's listing link for, that was for sale but I didn't know it was because it has no sign.  Talk about small world/six degrees and all that!!

davidd wrote:
So the 2-lane covered bridge is a new one?

You and I could "road trip" together, no problem... except that we'd never get to where we were going because of getting side-tracked!

Too cold to freeze? Is that a thing?
... Well, on the bright side, your blood probably won't freeze, then, either!

There should be a link on the description under that photo where you can read about it.

Heeheehee... Yep, that's me all over: let's see what's down that road, or around that bend, or over just one more hill, plus all the stopping to take pictures...!

HA, you noticed.  Too cold to freeze was something I heard someone told some tourists, and they believed him. I thought it was a hoot and have kept it in mind in case anyone ever asks me
...um, what dost thou imply herewith.....?

“We’re on a plaaaaaane!  Woohoo!  Apparently Air Canada realized that VIPPs* were traveling, because we got our own seat again.”

*Very Important Plastic People


“The sun is always out above the clouds. You just gotta keep climbing.”

Oh more travels. I wonder what adventures you will all get up to this time?

So excited for more adventures!!

“Frig, Mum! This is not what we signed up for!!”

Oh no!! Stay safe in this weather! It's bad in lots of parts of the country right now

“Here we are again! Things have not been going particularly swimmingly… Aside from the bad weather forecast, there was a racket with baggage claim — the suitcase came this time but they were unloaded at a different terminal like 20 miles away — and then at the hotel, and then with getting a working phone. Then we had the aforementioned tornado warning. And yesterday Mum found the poison ivy in the backyard so we lost an entire day hunting for stuff to decontaminate shoes. (BRAND NEW shoes, of COURSE.)
“We were also warned about some little stinging nettle-y thing but we haven’t seen that [yet].”

“Today we planned to go to a dinosaur-track park but thanks to all the recent rain, the tracks are not visible. So we went to Cleburne State Park instead.
“Texas Hiking Lesson Number One: stay in the middle of the trail, keep your elbows in, and DON’T EFFING TOUCH ANYTHING!! Especially if it’s green!!!”





“This is a spillway from a lake.”



“The trails were lined with poison ivy – ugh! Mum was very, very, very careful.  Bluebonnets are tiny lupines, a fraction of the size of ours at home. They are really cute and incredibly fragrant.”

What a mess! The weather has been wild this week. I hope things get a little better! The hike looks gorgeous, poison ivy notwithstanding!

“It snowstormed at home, so we sure aren’t complaining down here. Shorts and T-shirts and 80° in April are such a novelty. But, the only day we care about the forecast, really, Monday – is not looking good.”  
“We’ve had two totally cloudless perfect hot days. WHYYYYY can’t the eclipse have been today???!?”  
“…OK – we are complaining.”

“Today we went to Dallas Arboretum, which was ranked as one of the best gardens in the world by Architectural Digest magazine. It was really lovely.”





“We found some wild orchids, and there were lovely little fern dells like this. All the plants are different here!”



“You can see where the architectural interest is. This fabulous deep sunken garden is called the ‘poetry garden’ – we didn’t see any poetry, but there were cool tile murals on the walls, and this neat fountain.”



“Look who we found! This amazing statue looks right at you. It’s beautifully done.”



“Bless your adventurous heart, Amelia. We agree!”    

“Thanks for reading!
“Love, Sunsette    ”

Oooh, I've never seen a sunken garden before except in Animal Crossing!! That's gorgeous. I hope the weather is clear for you all for the eclipse!!

That Amelia statue is beautiful. She's such an inspiration. (Just finished a book about her! The theory is she was helping us spy on the Japanese in WWII.)

“Sunken gardens are really cool. Mum says she should read more about Amelia. Did you read about the explorer who thinks he found her plane?”


“I guess everything really is bigger in Texas. Look what we found!”



“We went to Fossil Rim Wildlife Center. These were a little happier looking giraffes than the one that Scarlett got her picture taken with last October.”



“Mum said we might get eaten by mistake so we didn’t get to feed them. She did though. They are very gentle.”



“These are scimitar-horned oryx. Just like at the previous wildlife tour last October, we were the last car out ”

“Thanks for reading.
“Love, Sunsette  ”

Wow you got to see real life dinosaurs? The picture of the big giraffe face is my favourite. The littles are really getting some good adventuring done.

“WE SAW IT!!!!!!!!!
“It’s impossible to describe the nerve-wracking obsessing Mum did over forecasts for days and days; we couldn’t dictate it all on this tiny phone. But wow – it was crazy.
“We woke up to mostly clear, then solid cloud and some fog within an hour, and Mum pretty much gave up. With some holes in the clouds a bit later she decided to go to the park, and although there were some clouds off and on, there were enough holes to see most of the partial phases and then it cleared for totality. There are no words.”








“This is a bad phone snapshot of Mum’s camera screen. A proper look will have to wait until we get home and download them.”

“Love, Sunsette    ”

I am really impressed with your dedication and it looks like it paid off with that last picture! It was too cloudy to see anything impressive here. The girls hair looks so red and shiny in that first picture!

Congrats on seeing another total eclipse! Things are too crazy at work for me to get away this time, but I enjoyed watching the partial eclipse through glasses. We had a beautiful sunny day.

YAY!! I was thinking of you all during the eclipse and hoping you had nice enough weather to see it after traveling all that way! I'm not near the path of totality but it was still cool to see the light getting all weird outside.

“Thanks, everyone!
“We’re not too clear on the endpoints of eclipse diagrams, but didn’t it start right around sunset in Scotland?”

“We went to the Dallas Aquarium. It was pouring rain so therefore, so did everyone else.”


“Look at these cool little critters! They posed with me!”



“Scarlett liked the flamingoes because she said they were a great colour.”



“Mum really likes botanical gardens. We went to the one in Fort Worth. There was a butterfly conservatory.”



“The Japanese garden was very nice.”



“The light was too difficult to get a good picture of this very cool we-sized tree.”



“After that we went to the Fort Worth ‘Water Gardens’, which was more interesting than it looked like it would be at first glance. Not really a garden, but an installation of very large bricks and blocks with some pools and running water, and this cool pool.”



“And today we went to the Chisholm Trail museum, which we should have left a little more time for. Some local history.”



“While we are not generally fans of pointy plants, it is quite a novelty to see things growing outside that you would only ever find in indoor pots at home. And this little one was so neat!!”



“Finally, this is our housesit buddy, Sir Tipsy Hustle.  OK, Mum added the ‘sir’, because he’s so beautiful she said he needed a title.”




“Thanks for reading!
“Love, Sunsette  ”

Wow so many different places to visit and all of them beautiful. I am especially jealous of the aquarium. I would like to have an aquatic adventure with you and Sunsette, and Scarlet. Tipsy is a brilliant name for a cat but I think Sir tipsy hustle would make an excellent cartoon character.

Oh and to your question about the Eclipse in Scotland. I think it was bout an hourish before sunset. We did try to look out the windows but it was too cloudy and cold for much And I don't think we would have seen much anyway. I always find it really crazy to think of the time differences between myself and you guys. Like how we can be in different days of the week at the same time or how its my kids bedtime at your lunch time.

CatDragonStorm wrote:I always find it really crazy to think of the time differences between myself and you guys. Like how we can be in different days of the week at the same time or how its my kids bedtime at your lunch time.

Heh. My funny thought about time zones is when I’m crossing them. We spend so much effort either trying to make more time for things, or sometimes wishing certain times would pass faster. Then when you cross a time zone you just turn your watch ahead or back — zip — just like that.  
Oh, a dolly photo adventure would be fun. I wish we all lived closer together.
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“We are on our way home again. We are not happy about it.
“Dallas has now solidly claimed second place for our most hated airport. When you have to take a bus back-and-forth two or three times between where you check in and where you get on the plane, or where the plane lands and where your bag ends up in different terminals like 20 miles away… And then Air Canada sends you bogus notifications that your flight is boarding two terminals away while you are in the right place because you actually looked at your boarding pass. Ugh!”



“Got our own seat again! It’s nice to be recognized for being fabulous.”



“Made it to Toronto. So far Mum has had two hours’ sleep in the past 24 and it will be another 8+ before we get home.
“We love flying. We hate airports. ”



“We’ll have a few more pictures once Mum gets them all sorted out.”

“Love, Sunsette   ”

Glad you all made it home safely! I think I'm the opposite.- I love the hustle and bustle of airports, but I hate flying!! It looks like it was a very successful trip!