This article reflects the joy that I experience in taking the time as a retired person to meander through the less travelled rural roads, and soak up the experiences that are there.
Today I enjoyed chatting with the local “coffee club” people in a rural coffee shop that I happened to venture into. The purpose of today’s rural road trip was to visit the 20 foot deep hole in the road that occurred recently from a torrential downpour.
Two huge excavators are preparing to re-install a new road culvert after 200 mm (8″) of rain fell overnight and washed out the whole roadway. The adjacent home escaped by just a foot or so.
The Mud Slide Cafe makes tribute to chocolate brown mud of the Cobequid bay where the worlds highest tides (50′) occur near Maitland, Nova Scotia, Canada. The attached general store (Frieze and Roy) is the oldest in all of CANADA! and is full of local antiques and memorabilia.
When I decided to wait 5 minutes for a fresh pot of coffee, I took some time to start chatting with the locals who were in the coffee shop. It turns out they meet there regularly for a “coffee club” chat to keep up to date with what’s going on on their community. The first thing I learned is that they take their community boundaries seriously. The people who live in SOUTH Maitland (where the road pot hole is) are distinctly different from the people of the small village of Maitland.
Aside from the general chit chat about the “liars club” members, and such, we diverted into the important topics like the difference between the French’s Ketchup (Canadian), and Heinz Ketchup. One guy with a prominent grey mustache has a passion for his two horses. He used to ride one by saddle to the town until recently. He reminisced about the way he used to run the farm, pulling hay wagons and such with horses. One of the local ladies has lived here for over 80 years, and remembered the poor indigenous couple who used in the adjacent community of Selma back in the 60’s. Just down the road there was a nice Art Gallery filled with lots of local art, mostly paintings of the province. It was set in an old School house.
today’s “coffee club” gang.
The Selma Museum was full of interesting historical pieces including this model of THE largest wooden ship that was ever built in Canada, that was built in this area.
The worlds highest tides are accompanied by a “tidal bore” water wave, which occurs when the tide swings from rising to falling. So you can actually follow the wall of water in 8 person rubber boats as it glides up the Shubenacadie river. Several local companies run the tours to chase the bore up stream with tourists.
Multiple boats chasing the tidal bore “wall of water”
This bald eagle seems pretty intent on finishing his lunch as I drove slowly past him.
Stooped to chat with a guy who put this windmill up over 10 years ago. Its just a lawn ornament now, because he can’t get parts for it any more, but in the mean time the solar panels on his home reduce his power bill to zero.
