Travel

Driving East

Day One - Ontario to New Brunswick

Easter weekend 2015. After a last minute decision and a flurry of activity, we were off to Nova Scotia, or NS, as we like to call it. The little house by the ocean had a special place in our hearts. So many wonderful memories of times spent there with family and friends. Now, however, it was time to say goodbye as Mom and Dad had sold the property.

The sun rises over a sleepy Toronto (photo credit: Lillian)

There were three of us in the car. Others had gone the week before and were eagerly awaiting our arrival. At the start of the trip we had agreed to play a game - one iPhone photo per person per hour on the road - a picture that showed where we were or what was happening at that moment. 

Day One iPhone Pics

Driving through Quebec was incredible. The sun shone and we rolled down the windows - it was that warm.

There is a spot along the St. Lawrence river where we always take a quick break and it did not disappoint. The scenery was as epic as ever but the lighting took our breath away. Dark blue storm clouds with sunshine peeking through turned the grasses to gold. 

Day Two - New Brunswick to Nova Scotia

We woke up the next morning to an unpleasant sight - a snowstorm had moved in overnight.  The positively spring-like weather of the previous day had been replaced with frigid winds and thickly falling snow. Oh Canada.

The highway was empty except for a few random cars and a single snowplow. Having worried incessantly the previous day about keeping the winter tires on for such a long trip, we were increasingly grateful for them.

Day Two iPhone Pics

We knew the East Coast was still under a mountain of snow. The first sign of the sheer amount of it was first evident at the Nova Scotia Welcome Centre - the snow banks were huge! 

Do not enter (photo credit: Laurence)

As we continued east, the snowbanks grew in size and encroached on the roads. Three times we turned right and ended up in random parking lots because we couldn't see the signs for the piles of snow.  The people of NS, the entire east coast for that matter, had been experiencing a brutal winter. One for the books, in fact, and it didn't look like the snow was going anywhere fast.