An adventure for Thanksgiving 2010

Thanksgiving this year, was very different than any other Thanksgiving in the past. Last year, was my first year without Stephanie being home. Therefore, we changed everything about the weekend so we wouldn't notice all the traditions were gone!

This Thanksgiving was the first holiday without either of my kids, or their spouses. Originally, I wanted to go away somewhere for the weekend... like Cape Breton, or Yarmouth. But Terry wasn't really up for it, and actually once the weekend drew closer, I was really looking forward to being home for 3 days.

Saturday was filled with yard work, errands and a bit of housework. We did groceries in preparation for making Salsa. Sunday was Salsa day, as well as Church, in which we made a very cool Thanksgiving Grace house shaped thing for hanging on your fridge. It was covered in seeds and glue .. and the kids really enjoyed this fun and messy craft. The rest of Sunday was chopping, simmering, etc.. which I wrote about already. During the chopping process, we discussed what we would do on Thanksgiving Monday. I was not cooking a turkey... just didn't feel like doing all the work for 2 of us... and I wanted to go on a little drive. The weather was amazing.... and looked really great for Monday. Terry said he has something in mind, but he wouldn't tell me. He did say, he was going to take me out to lunch at a place I had never eaten at!

Monday was gorgeous and we hit the road about 10am and headed in the direction of Digby. I was thinking... hum Annapolis Royal... Keji?, Digby... Clare... Yarmouth. It was no use guessing, because Terry wouldn't even give me a clue...

Once we got to Digby, I was confused by the turns we were taking... having never been in the direction we were heading. I soon realized we were heading to Brier Island.! If you don't know where that is, please look on the map below. You will see it, at the very tip of the long skinny finger beyond Digby. You can read "Freeport" on the map.... its just past there.

This was so fun, as it was uncharted Territory for us... and it involved two ferries and some pretty cool island views along the way. The first ferry was fairly small, holding about 20 cars. The second ferry, even smaller, holding no more than 12 cars. What a blast. It reminded me so much of the old days when I was little and we had to cross the St. John River near Burton, on the Ferry.

We arrived at Brier Island around 1:15.. and decided, before we explored the island we would have a nice lunch. This sweet little island has a total of one restaurant ... and it was closed. We drove the entire length of "town" and found the corner store. We took all the side roads (2 of them) and found nothing.... so, back to the corner store.... where we were told that all eating establishments were closed for the season.! So... we bought a large bag of chips... two bottles of drink, some tootsie rolls and off we went exploring. The island is shown below. To give you an idea of the size of the island.. the red road running though the island.. is 2 km long.

We drove that and found the most western end of Nova Scotia.. and the lighthouse that marks this.. below.

We drove to the most eastern part of the island, and found another lighthouse... not nearly as fun looking but the view was spectacular. We were up on a cliff... at eye height to several soaring seagulls.

This light house was in another corner of the island... and had tons of communication equipment, satellite things and a big building behind it.. with offices. Very cool.

This last light house was at the mouth of Grand Passage which is the churning waters between Long Island and Brier Island.

Waiting for the return ferry.... we fed the seagulls some chips....

The rocks on this island were very unique.. not something I have ever seen before... very very cool.

What a great day, and a great Thanksgiving weekend. I knew it would be different, and I enjoyed every minute...