View from the ferry, crossing from Prince Edward Island to Caribou, Nova Scotia . . . last week sometime.
We're back --- in every way. Got home around 10 last night to find a hysterically overjoyed Dora, who levitated and cried and let us know that she had thought for a week that we had abandoned her, despite the dog sitter who brought her pup cups and took her for long walks multiple times a day while we were gone. It seems to have rained here a good bit; the garden isn't totally dead, at any rate. There's a lot of dog hair to vacuum up, but otherwise the house is still standing, and it's very good to be in it again.
We were on the move a lot during this trip, spending only one night in any one place, a pace we agreed was a little much. It was fun, but the ratio of travel (as in getting somewhere) to time spent actually in the place we were trying to get to, was out of whack, with no real down time for writing, reading (except in the car when I got bored with driving), or --- too often --- really exploring places we wanted to see. On the upside, we did see a lot of Nova Scotia. But we could have used more time, or else essayed a less ambitious itinerary.
Still, it was good. Would absolutely go back. Halifax, especially, is a cool city, and I'm glad we spent time there on both ends of the trip. But I also enjoyed our brief evening in Charlottetown, PEI quite a lot. Everywhere we went, we had marvelous seafood: lobster, scallops, haddock, halibut, cod, salmon. We had intended this as a culinary trip, and it did not disappoint.
Here's a photo dump of highlights:
A little chapel dedicated to French Acadians who died in the winter of 1755, during their British-enforced exile from Nova Scotia.
Lighthouse in the little village of Annapolis Royal (where we both wished we'd planned to stay, but are glad we spent an hour en route to . . . somehwere, I forget now exactly where).
Shrine of Our Lady of Sorrows, somewhere along the road between Caribou and Cheticamp (we stopped and prayed in a lot of churches).
The harbor and boardwalk, plus the tiny yellow house we stayed in on said boardwalk, in Cheticamp, a village on Cape Breton Island.
Some glimpses of the Cape Breton Highlands:
Downtown Antigonish, seen from the roof of a pub:
They don't call it "Atlantic Canada" for nothing. Everywhere you go, there the Atlantic is, or its various fingers and toes.
I could say a lot more about this trip, and maybe I will in subsequent posts. Right now I'm pretty tired, and before I get on with my day of repair, recovery, and reconstruction of normal routines, I want to assess my travel capsule, with which I was very happy.
As you might remember, I took five dresses with me, all from Wool& --- knits are just good for travel, and I knew that these would stand up to the pace we set, as well as the changeable weather (we were there for a heat wave, though it was also often chilly-ish). The wool fabric spot-cleans readily (it also dries fast if you need to wash something, though I did not wash any my dresses on this trip) and doesn't hold odors, so no matter how many times I wore a given dress, I always felt fresh.
The dresses:
*Iris Blue Sierra
*Pacific Brooklyn
*Teal Fiona
*Marine Blue Fiona
*Black Heather Audrey
I also took the following layers:
*jean jacket
*teal cashmere cardigan
*pink silk-rayon cardigan
*green merino-cashmere-cotton-mohair-viscose-blend pullover
*2 pairs of Allbirds leggings (gray-blue/light green)
And three pairs of shoes:
*Xero Z-Trek sandals
*Crocs thong sandals
*Xero Mesa Trailrunners
Finally:
*4 pairs of Darn Tough ankle and no-show socks
*5 bike-short underwear (4 bamboo, 1 merino)
*1 Branwyn Busty merino bra with merino pads
Other than socks --- I wore one pair of socks with my hiking shoes for a short hike in the Cape Breton Highlands --- and 2 of my 5 pairs of underwear, I wore every item in my capsule at least once. I could have gotten by just fine with 3 pairs of underwear, washing and rotating. In fact, I did just wear the same 3 pairs in rotation, though the extra 2 didn't take up an appreciable amount of space in my pack, and it is good to be more prepared in that department. But underthings dried very fast. Fortunately we were driving a rental car, not taking public transport, so I could put damp things out in the back of the car, and they'd be dry by the end of the day. Things would have been different if I hadn't had that option, given how much we were on the move. Still, I was readily able to wash and re-wear items, and I've arrived home without a big lot of dirty laundry to contend with.
I didn't get an outfit picture absolutely every day, but here's how things broke down:
Day 1: travel to Halifax, Nova Scotia
*Iris Blue Sierra, jean jacket, Z-Trek sandals, green crossbody bag
Day 2: Halifax
*Teal Fiona, cashmere cardigan, Z-Trek sandals, the bag (a constant, so I'm going to stop listing it --- it's pretty much grafted onto my body by now)
Day 3: Sunday Mass in Halifax, travel to Lunenburg via Peggys Cove
I didn't take a photo of my Mass outfit, which was Audrey + the pink cardigan (the only time I wore that cardigan, and I might as well not have brought it, really)
After Mass:
At Peggys Cove: Audrey, jean jacket, Z-Trek sandals, the bag
And in the evening, to go out to dinner in Lunenburg (it had gotten chilly by this point):
Same outfit with the addition of the green pullover. I really love this, and will remember it for the winter, when I can wear the same ensemble with boots.
Day 4: from Lunenburg to Yarmouth
*Marine Blue Fiona, green pullover, Allbirds leggings, Z-Trek sandals, jean jacket
It was chilly in the morning, warmed up during the day, and then was coolish, but not that chilly, again in the evening when we went out to dinner (when I also wanted to look sharper, hence the jean jacket). Layers on, layers off, layers back on.
Day 5: Yarmouth to Windsor
Day 6: Windsor to Prince Edward Island (with a ferry journey marked by delays)
Here I just repeated the previous day's outfit. It was hot, and my Brooklyn was the lightest, coolest dress I had packed.
I went Team Basic all day, but I'm fairly sure I put on my jean jacket to go out to dinner in Charlottetown that night.
Day 7: PEI to Cape Breton Island
One of the other things the husband, particularly, would choose not to do again, is come down with tonsillitis on a trip. Here I am sitting in the car outside a crowded walk-in clinic in a pharmacy in Charlottetown, PEI, waiting for him to see the doctor. It's good that he went --- he absolutely needed the antibiotics and steroids they gave him.
Anyway, I didn't get a good outfit pic that morning, because we were busy hustling out of the Airbnb bright and early, so that he could get in line at this clinic when it opened. But I was repeating my Iris Blue Sierra and Z-Trek sandals (and, that early in the morning, my jean jacket, too). This was another fairly hot day, but I was comfortable in my Sierra on the long ferry/car journey back down the coast to Cape Breton.
By evening we had arrived at Cheticamp and our tiny yellow house on the boardwalk:
I'm sure I put on the jean jacket again for dinner. That item, let me remind you, is the one thing I almost didn't take, and then at the last minute put on for the plane. AND it was my most-worn item of the entire trip, so hooray for last-minute impulses.
Day 8: Cape Breton Highlands to Antigonish
I repeated my Sierra once more, because we were going to be hiking a little. Here she is in the cool of the morning, with the green pullover, leaving the tiny house in Cheticamp:
And here she is putting her toes into the very cold Atlantic water off the Cape Breton Highlands:
And here she is going out to dinner in the little town of Antigonish:
Day 9: Antigonish to Dartmouth/Halifax (Dartmouth, NS, is just across the harbor from Halifax, a short, fun pedestrian ferry ride)
It was warm, and I wore Audrey again just as she comes, although in the evening, to go across to Halifax from Dartmouth for dinner, I did put on the jean jacket to spiff things up:
As you might have noticed, my transition-lens sunglasses got a lot of wear this trip as well.
Day 10: Halifax, Sunday Mass again
I don't think I got an outfit photo at all on Sunday. I wore my Teal Fiona and my cashmere cardigan again, with Crocs thongs (a tiny bit dressier than my Z-Treks, which needed a rest in any case). In the evening I did a poetry reading via Google Meeting, for which I wore Teal Fiona with the jean jacket for coolness, and after that we went out for a last late dinner and beer at a Celtic pub by the harbor, which was a lot of fun. Again, never did get a photo, but at least it's recorded. I am trying to stay on top of my wear count for my dresses.
Day 11: Travel Home
*Marine Blue Fiona, jean jacket, Crocs.
Anyway, that's a wrap. It was, again, a slightly frenetic but very good trip, and my clothing choices served me well. I wore every dress at least twice, every layering item at least once, through a variety of weather situations and tourist contexts (museums, restaurants, outdoor things, churches, ferries, city walking). I am going to wash my dresses, just because . . . I don't know that they need it, but a cold dip won't hurt any of them one bit.
And today I'm going to wear some linen.
*Secondhand Not Perfect Linen Smock dress (S/M) in Dark Blue-Gray, bought December 2023, last worn July 7. Wears in 2025: 13
*Xero Jessie sandals, year 3 of wear
Back in my total comfort zone. And on with the day.
AFTERNOON UPDATE
I really do feel tired and drained. Travel is great, but it wears on me, and I don't have quite the resilience that I used to.
Anyway. I have gotten some things done:
*swept and dust-mopped dog hair
*made the bed
*ran a load of towels and napkins and hung them
*hand-washed some underwear + my 5 travel dresses and hung them on the line to dry as well
*ordered in groceries
*read more of "Egil's Saga" in Sagas of Icelanders --- I really want to tap back into my course in the next day or two
*worked on a poem, not especially to my satisfaction, but progress is progress
*walked the dog twice --- once for about a mile and a quarter, the second time (in the heat) just long enough for her to have a potty break
*picked a lot of grape tomatoes and peppers
*watered the garden
*mended a split below the zipper in my red linen-blend skirt
Still comfortable in my soft linen dress today. The weather's not as hot as it has been, thanks to a rainstorm last night, but it's warm enough, and I'm glad to be wearing an unstructured, breathable dress. It's good for being tired in.