So I’m back and thought I’d finally post about our road trip this year. If you remember, we did a similar road trip last year. We had a great time on the trip and got to see a lot of random things – most we discovered as we drove.
But first, the obligatory stats.
4,732 miles driven
22 days
1 “Exit 0″ (yes, zero) passed (this time in Canada)
Next, the cities we stayed in during the trip.
- Greensboro, NC
- Washington, D.C.
- Newark, NJ
- Boston, MA
- Bangor, ME
- Halifax, Nova Scotia
- Badeck, Nova Scotia
- Moncton, New Brunswick
Also, we visited (but did not stay in):
And we saw:
- National Zoo (Washington, D.C.)
- National Museum of Natural History (Washington, D.C.)
- John F Kennedy Library and Museum (Boston, MA)
- world’s largest Paul Bunyan statue (Bangor, ME)
- world’s largest axe (Nackawic, New Brunswick)
- Magnetic Hill (Moncton, New Brunswick)
- Peggy’s Cove (near Halifax, Nova Scotia)
- Halifax Citadel (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
- Cabot Trail (Cape Breton, Nova Scotia)
- Hopewell Rocks (Moncton, New Brunswick)
- Potato World (Florenceville, New Brunswick)
- Hartland Bridge (Hartland, New Brunswick)
Our original plan had us also going to Quebec, Montreal, Niagra Falls, and Lake Placid. But after talking to a lot of folks we decided, during our stop in Halifax, to change around our entire itinerary. We dropped those stops in favor of going up to Cape Brenton and hitting Hopewell Rocks.
We had done the National Zoo in the past and the National Museum of Natural History is nice but like other Smithsonian museums and attractions, it’s large, crowded, and pretty static from year to year (or like the Air and Space Museum, static from decade to decade it seems). So all in all, interesting but not very exciting.
The John F Kennedy Museum in Boston was pretty cool. Not many people realize how much JFK impacted the U.S. even though his presidency was cut short. From the Peace Corp to the Apollo program to dealing with the Cuban missile crisis.
Our stop in Bangor, Maine was just meant to be a stopping point on our way to Canada. But while we were there we decided to stop at and take pictures of the world’s largest Paul Bunyan statue. Interestingly, there was no statue of Babe, Paul Bunyan’s blue ox. Not sure why. Maybe they ran out of money.
When we crossed over into Canada (by the way, the folks at the border crossings going both into Canada and the U.S. were absolutely great folks to deal with) we decided to stop at the visitor’s center. For the entire trip we were using the Dash Express GPS device (review on that soon) which, unfortunately, doesn’t work in Canada. So we thought we’d get together maps and see if there were other things we should see.
The visitor’s center was in New Brunswick and they were a little disappointed that our plan was to just head straight to Nova Scotia and Halifax. But they still gave us a good pitch and told us about stuff we could see in New Brunswick while going to Halifax.
Well, it worked. We ended up seeing the world’s largest axe and Magnetic Hill on the drive to Halifax. The axe was pretty cool and was made with seven tons of stainless steel. You would think something like this would have been installed a long time ago but in fact, it was placed in 1991. Given that we had just seen Paul Bunyan, seeing what should have been his axe was pretty appropriate.
After leaving Nackawic, we continued on towards Halifax but made a slight detour to see Magnetic Hill. I was skeptical of this whole “attraction” but given that it only cost $5 to experience it, I didn’t voice my skepticism too highly. Apparently this is the third largest tourist attraction in Canada. So if you don’t know, Magnetic Hill is a spot where you can supposedly drive your car to the bottom of a hill, put your car in neutral, and then your car will seemingly roll uphill. Everyone in the car was amazed. All the while though, I kept saying it was probably an optical illusion. Later we were reading about the place and sure enough, it is an optical illusion. Given the way the hill slopes and the foliage grows, it seems like you’re rolling uphill when in fact you’re rolling downhill. Probably the reason why you’re allowed to experience the attraction as many times as you like. It doesn’t really cost them much to allow you to let your car roll down a hill. If you’re interested, I’m sure you can find an optical illusion hill near you.
We then got to Halifax and stayed at the absolutely wonderful Westin Nova Scotian. A nice location feature is that there is a really good Indian restaurant and a really good Italian restaurant right across the street from the hotel. One day during our stay in Halifax we drove to Peggy’s Cove (about a 1.5-2 hour drive south of Halifax). Peggy’s Cove has a wonderful lighthouse situated on top of some pretty treacherous rocks. Given the wind speed out there you need to be pretty careful but the photos and view you get from here are amazing.
Another day we went to the Halifax Citadel. The day we went the wind was gusting pretty hard (40 mph sustained wind gusting up to 57 mph). This made for a somewhat unpleasant trip to the Citadel since the inside is dirt and gravel and that speed of wind picked up dirt/dust and flung it around. That made it kind of hard to see anything and the kids didn’t really enjoy it. Still though, a great view of Halifax from the citadel.
From here we headed up to Badeck. Badeck is on the southern part of the Cabot Trail and we’ve been told most people stay in Badeck while driving the Cabot Trail. The wonderful thing about this part of Nova Scotia is that a number of the settlers here are of Scottish descent. From our road trip in England many years ago, we had a great experience with the people in Scotland – they were both kind and generous. One dinner in Badeck really stood out too – we went to Tom’s Pizza and it was absolutely fantastic. If you go to Badeck, make sure you have lunch or dinner at Tom’s Pizza.
After Badeck, we headed over to Moncton. Our stop in Moncton was really to see the world’s largest tidal cycle. Unfortunately, we only had time to see low tide at Hopewell Rocks. Still, that was pretty cool. Also, note that we ate at a fantastic Indian restaurant in Moncton – Taj Mahal Flavor of India. If you’re in Moncton and want good Indian food this is the place to go.
After Moncton, it was a mad rush to get to Boston but we still made a few stops along the way. First up was Potato World. I know what you’re thinking “who would go to a potato museum?!?”. Well, I wasn’t sure it would be good either but this place ROCKED. The museum itself was pretty interesting and since we were the only ones there, we got a guided tour of the place.
But more important is the cafe at Potato World. They are usually only open from 11am until 2pm but I kept calling them trying to get us there in time (we got a little lost on the way – no Dash Express to help us). We were close to the 2pm time and they asked us if we were trying to have lunch there. We told them we were trying to and they told us they would keep the cafe open for us. When we got there they moved us right into the cafe and we were the only people eating there. Talk about hospitality. Now, the food too was pretty darn good. The salads (yes, salads at Potato World) were extremely fresh and tasty. But given their title of the french fry capital of the world (neighboring McCain Foods is the number one producer of frozen french fried world wide), we had to have some fries. We ate the Thai Sweet Potato fries and the Garlic and Herb fries. Yeah, these were awesome. I can’t even describe them. Just go and have some. They rule.
After Potato World, we headed over to Hartland to see the world’s longest covered bridge. Unfortunately, the bridge is currently closed for repairs and although we saw it, we didn’t get to drive on it. The bridge is 1,282 feet long and was officially opened 107 years ago today (July 4, 1901).
After doing all that, we headed to Boston and then Washington, D.C. on our way back home to Atlanta.
Oh yeah, one final and important note if you like to drink Crush (I’m an Orange Crush drinker myself). Canada is for Crush lovers. Every place we went to stocked Crush. And I’m not just talking in cans or just Orange Crush. They had Crush on tap as well as in glass bottles. They also had other flavors of Crush as well. That right there, makes Canada awesome.
Note: photos from the trip coming soon.