It's nice to get away

Amanda and I spent the weekend in beautiful Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia.

We went there in the summer for part of our vacation, and Amanda rightly suggested we return for our "official" arbitrary anniversary in the fall. So ... we did!

Ahhh ... two nights in the luxurious King George Inn, with a two-person jacuzzi tub, genuine artificial fireplace, antiques, a newly-installed king-sized bed, and the meticulous hospitality of Faith McStravick, the "pancake queen" innkeeper.

Only problem was ... the town was pretty much closed. It's the off season. No farmer's market. Few shops. The Port Royal habitation across the bay was closed for the season.

And to my extreme disappointment, the First Computermuseum of Nova Scotia does not even exist any more. That's right. Their web site doesn't say so, but the storefront housing the museum is completely empty and for sale. The museum wasn't open in the summer, either, but it was clearly still there. Grr.

We managed to get some good food at Cafe Compose, an Austrian-themed restaurant by the water. And a delicious lunch at Leo's, a cafe in Adams-Ritchie House, the oldest documented building in English Canada. Omigod, a 12-grain homemade club sandwich so thick I could barely stretch my mouth around it, with a side of mushroom barley soup. Good eats.

We drove out to Kejimkujik National Park for a stroll through the woods. Ah, nature! We even saw two deer. (Two deers? Two deer.)

The drive home took us along the "scenic route" on Highway 1, through lots of small towns and colourful leaves (leafs? leaves). One town stood out as the most bizarre; there were as many pumpkin-people -- that is, scarecrow-type constructions with pumpkins for heads -- along the side of the road as there must have been actual inhabitants. Decidedly odd, but a helluva good effort by the townsfolk.

The drive also provided my first opportunity to listen to the CBC. Seriously, I've never really listened to CBC radio before. We listened to the tail end of Stuart McLean's Vinyl Cafe, and it was dead-on interesting. A show called Wiretap featured an entertaining guy calling his friends on the phone. A show called Tapestry in which the host interviewed a former businesswoman who became a Zen Buddhist monk. An in-depth interview with former WWF champion Brett "Hit Man" Hart. Really good stuff. Completely unlike the radio I do, which is perfectly fine. We serve different purposes. CBC is for people who have time to sit back and take in some good, long storytelling. My station is for people who have just a few minutes to get up to date. That's fine. One or the other isn't bad or good. They're just different.

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Pictures are up on Flickr.