It’s been a busy little while for me. The summer was generally pretty quiet – as I had been busy saving up money to get a house and the such like. I went exploring caves back in June 2014 and that was really scary for me to try but it was really, really cool to check out. The hike to the caves was really, really long, but then the caves part, going in and exploring was a bit scary. For one thing, I cannot hear, and the caves are very dark so you really, really needed a bright light to explore it. *laughs* It was really cool though. Once you got your nerves out of the way, exploring it was pretty cool, just seeing what it all looked like. It was wet in some areas, and full of water in others, but other parts were pretty dry but dark. I was nervous a lot of the hike through the caves. *laughs* I really needed Steve to help me out with the balance part because with me lacking my hearing and then my vision in some parts of the cave I really needed to hold on to someone to go along the caves. It was crazy! Haha… you can see the video here on Lusk Caves:
Lusk Cave from Steve Savage on Vimeo.
The tiredness that I had most of the beginning of 2014, I still have it. I can’t figure it out, honestly. It’s just hanging around like an annoying gnat. :/ When I exercise it helps, but the funny thing is a while back I injured my wrist doing burpees, and I haven’t been able to exercise for a while. My wrist had been driving me crazy, and I just figured out what it was – it was just a pinched nerve in my neck that was affecting my wrist. Steve is not much on massaging or anything like that, so I wasn’t able to figure it out until my mom tried massaging my neck when I visited her recently. It turned out to be a pinched nerve – it actually went away for 24 hours pretty much. It’s back again but Steve is unable to do it just right. He’s not really much of a masseuse. Heh. He keeps telling me I need to go to the doctor to get help for it. But I don’t think getting massage therapy is covered by the health card anymore, so it’d be ridiculous. I can’t afford to pay for massage therapy. Yikes!
Anyway, in the end of August, Steve and I were on vacation, and we decided to go camping and then to go out east. We weren’t planning on going out east until the last minute, but since we were taking our time in saving for houses, and stuff like that, Steve decided we should go before we actually had a house, as it would suck up all our savings once we had a house. So when Steve had his vacation banked, we went camping at Sharbot Lake for three or so days, and after that, we headed out east. It was crazy, but was pretty cool. We only planned to drive out to Nova Scotia, go around the Cabot Trail, then go to P.E.I. to check out Green Gables, and then drive back home. Easy trip, pretty much.
Camping was pretty good, it was pretty quiet and relaxing, as Steve was pretty exhausted from all the craziness from work so we just relaxed, swam, and the such like. We were talking about how we both had never gone kayaking before, and why didn’t we try it this time? So instead of a canoe, we rented two kayaks for both of us, and tried it. You really need to be able to keep your balance in it when you weren’t moving. *laughs* But once you went, you really, really went! It was very smooth and fast so it was a lot of fun. We both got really wet but it was pretty cool just checking the kayaks out. We reached one place in the lake – Black Lake – where it was covered with ivys and I even got to pick out some flowers. It was really pretty that’s for sure, but it sure got you all tangled up in it. We both really enjoyed it so we’d likely rent kayaks again or get our own later on. We did some night photography – one night there was a view of the Milky Way so clear it was pretty cool. It was a relaxing three days of camping.
When we came back from camping we unpacked, and packed up again, slept at home once, and then left the next morning. The first day out we drove through Quebec, which was pretty bad – full of crazy traffic and construction, and reached Grand Falls, New Brunswick that night. The second day we drove through the rest of New Brunswick and reached Nova Scotia, stopped at the border and took pictures with the Nova Scotia sign. (We stopped pretty much anywhere that looked cool and took pictures.) We ended up at a town called Whycocomagh – such a funny name – on Cape Breton Island. We had planned on stopping at Baddeck, NS, as that’s where the Cape Breton trail started, but Steve was tired of all the driving so we stopped just before that.
The third day we reached the Cabot Trail and then started driving through it, so we got to explore, which was nice. It was a pretty cloudy and gloomy morning but the rain held off so it was pretty good. There were a lot of ponds, swamps and forests all around us. We encountered some strange spots along the Trail, a old church, and so on, and there were a lot of small shops all around us so we got to see nature, and got to stop at different places to pick up some souvenirs of the trip there. We actually got to check out the Atlantic Ocean coasts, which was beautiful. It was quite rocky, that I wasn’t expecting, but it was still beautiful. Steve kept having me go down to the coasts whereever we pulled over at. And it was unbelievable how high the roads were from the coasts. It drove me crazy! Heh…there was way too much climbing to do and too much stepping down to do. I was so afraid I’d fall right down and break my neck…it was nuts! Both Steve and I are not the biggest fans of heights but he kept taking me down. I have no idea why – but at the same time I did, he just wanted to film all the untouched land. It was his thing. Sigh…but the entire coast of the Atlantic Ocean was beautiful, we even reached a spot where all the rocks were red and that was pretty cool. You can see the video of the Eastern Cape Breton Island:
Eastern Cape Breton Island from Steve Savage on Vimeo.
We reached the tip (or the middle of) the Cabot Trail, and we had been talking about going whale watching before, both of us have never done that, but were interested in checking that out, so we booked a time in the evening to go whale watching with Oshan Whale Watch in Bay St. Lawrence. The sailor had told us that the time we had booked for, they didn’t usually get that many whales then. If it was morning or noon, they’d get a lot more variety, but the late afternoon/evenings tend to have a lot less variety of whales.
We were all, oh, that’s too bad. But we still set off with our group. We actually did to get to see one kind of whale – pilot whales. That was pretty cool actually. They were swimming all around us as the sailor used the whale calling whistle or whatever it was, so they were swimming all around so everyone was taking pictures. When you haven’t seen whales live it’s still really cool to see them all around you. They are massive – yes, they are smaller whales generally, but they were still pretty big. It was really cool. We also steered to Turtlehead Rock, where there are usually seals and otters hanging out at. I didn’t see many, just some seal heads popping out of the water and back in. That animal was hard to find. We also went to another area where there was a small waterfall at, and on top of a massive rock it was covered with birds – Great Cormorants, I believe. It was cool, they all were just sunbathing in the sun. Heh…the whale watching ride took us around 2 hours, so it was nice just checking out everything. It was just beautiful out there. You can see the video on the whale watching here:
To See Whales… from Steve Savage on Vimeo.
The fourth day we continued on through the Cabot Trail. We kept stopping at coasts and taking pictures, so it was funny. Some of them you really could explore the coasts forever, so it was cool. Really pretty and all that, so it was nice. The water was a touch cool, but not too bad. There was a lot of scenery to check out so it was nice. There was one spot while driving through the Trails, where you could see the road go on forever and ever along the water. That spot had that red chair there so you could just sit there and enjoy your view. It was just funny that there was a chair specially for that. Heh. You can see another video on the Western Cape Breton Island here:
Western Cape Breton Island from Steve Savage on Vimeo.
We drove through and decided to stop at a beach as I had wanted to relax at a beach somewhere along the ocean for a little bit and sunbathe. We found a small sandy beach so we just relaxed there for a hour or so, and then we headed out to catch the ferry to P.E.I., and got on it and then just headed out to Wood Islands, P.E.I. We had our dinner in the ferry and took some pictures and video, and then we took in a motel for the night in P.E.I.
The fifth day we drove through P.E.I. to get to the Anne of Green Gables area. When I was a girl, I used to read the whole saga of the Anne of Green Gables books with my friend Veronica, and those books were based on the P.E.I. locale, so I really did want to see what the inspiration was all about. One funny thing about P.E.I. was that it was full of very colourful boats and boathouses so it was cool to see. It was a real country type of place to be in, I hadn’t realized that. The last time Steve went to P.E.I. with his ex-wife, they went to the tourist part of P.E.I. for Anne of Green Gables, where it was like a big park and a fair sort of thing; and he didn’t really enjoy himself. I really didn’t want to go to that, I wanted to go to the inspiration part, where the books were actually based on. So we went to the Anne of Green Gables Museum, and that was pretty cool just checking it out. It’s funny after we started touring the museum, a black cat came running to us to be petted. I thought it was really weird to find a cat running in a museum. *laughs* Steve got all excited and wanted to pet the kitty. It was pretty funny. The house was the place the author was using as her inspiration for the book. It was covered with her books, mementos and the such like so it was cool. We also checked out the yard, and even through the nature walk in the side of the house. It was very short but still nice just walking through it. Heh…funny. Before we got there we had driven past Lucy Maud Montgomery’s birthplace, and I was like, ooh, I would visit that too! So we went to the Gables first, and then when I was done there, we headed to the birthplace to check out. It was another museum of where the author was born at and where she lived in. I ended up buying the whole Anne of Green Gables book set, so I can read it all over again and go back to being a girl again. I used to borrow Veronica’s set as her family was big on the author’s stories, so I never had my own set. It was just handy to have then. Here’s a video of P.E.I. here:
Prince Edward Island from Steve Savage on Vimeo.
It was cool checking it all out. When that was all over, Steve and I headed out in search of a lighthouse to look at. We both wanted to check out lighthouses while we were out east, so we found one close to the museums, the Tryon Lighthouse. We got there, and saw that we had to walk some distance to the Tryon Lighthouse. We parked next to the trail, and we walked through a trail along fields and stuff like that, and reached the lighthouse. It was really, really pretty there. The paint on the lighthouse was pretty stripped from all the sea salt around it, but it was still cool to see. It was on top of a huge cliff to the ocean. One thing about the cliffs, they freak me out if I look over it… it’s so steep and scary. But it was also really pretty though. We then finished up checking out P.E.I., and then before we got on the bridge we stopped at a shore by the ocean, where there were all red rocks and sand, so we were just exploring the area and stretching out before we started driving again. Heh…It was quite nice there, the water was great, and it was warm and really pretty there. After we finished taking pictures and film, we got back in the car and headed out on the bridge to New Brunswick and just stopped at a hotel somewhere in New Brunswick. We ended up at a hotel where they had a German restaurant inside the hotel, so we stopped over there for the night and went to dinner at the hotel. It was late by the time we got there, and oh, my God, how good was that! Very tasty! The menu had small and large portion servings, so Steve decided to get the small portion serving of everything in the menu. He ended up with a massive plate of food. *laughs* It was crazy, it made me wonder what the large portion was like?! Haha…the food was amazing though. We crashed that night, and just headed out driving again the next day. We got back home on our sixth day. We didn’t stay overly long, but because I had never been out east I wanted to at least see what it was all like. So six days was good…I can always return if I want to. I know if I returned I would like to explore P.E.I. more, it was really, really pretty there.
When we finished our vacation we were very tired…heh! Steve returned to work after a few days of rest.
Oh yes, it’s funny – my mom told me earlier in the spring/summer that my ex called my mom to let her know that he was putting the divorce through (finally!) and that it would possibly be done by the end of the summer. So we had to wait for three months or so for it to be processed by the courts, and I just got the paper in the mail saying that the divorce order has been put through and I will officially be divorced as of October 18th! I’m so glad about that, it’s like a late birthday present for me! Hehe…kind of funny. Both my mom and Steve says I need to have a party when it’s through. Very funny. It’s just weird, I guess, but it’s a relief it’s over now.
It’s a bit funny because sometime in the beginning of September Steve had a woman come in his work and she was deaf like I am, and she was asking about getting internet, and of course it was the wrong place for that. So Steve had to help her out and let her know who to contact for getting her internet hooked up, and he actually could sign to her to help her out. She was totally surprised about that and he had to tell her that he had a girlfriend who was deaf. She had no idea about other deaf people living here, and he said that we could meet up and see if we get along. So the day that she came in, I heard about it, and I said I wouldn’t mind meeting her. So we met up and she was actually a pretty nice lady, who has two kids, so it was kind of different having someone to actually talk to here in Brockville. I have lived here for three or so years and I haven’t actually found anyone to talk to, another deaf person locally. So it was cool to meet someone else. I’ve met up with her twice so far just to get to know her and so on, so it’s been interesting that’s for sure. It’s been a pretty busy past little while, that’s for sure!