We spent a week at the KOA campground near Sackville, NS, which is about a half hour north of Halifax. The campground is right on the Sackville River, so on our only sunny day there we finally had a chance to use the kayaks we hauled from Ontario. It was so great to get out into Nature. Here are some photos of us and some waterfowl.

John Kayaking on Sackville River

Karen Kayaking on Sackville River

Families of Canada Geese, Sackville River

Five Black Ducks on the Sackville River
(One upright and four bums-up)

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Since we were camping in Five Islands, NS for two weeks, we spent some time exploring sideroads looking for scenic spots to photograph.

Down Blue Sac Road we found this lovely view of one of my favourite of the Five Islands, the one with the hole in it, sort of like Piercee Rock in the Gaspe.

Down Economy Point Road we found a lovely public park with several km of oceanfront trails and I took lots of photos including this one with a sea stack at high tide.

One day we walked along the shore from our campground at low tide and hiked a little ways up a river. Well at high tide it looks like a river (although very brown and muddy looking), but at low tide it is just a trickle. As I mentioned earlier, those folks with waterfront property on the Bay of Fundy should get a rebate on their property tax - look how far the boat on the left is down from the steps up to the house!

One day we went for a hike on Partridge Island, just outside of Parrsboro on the Bay of Fundy. The view was quite nice from the lookout at the top, but the most memorable part of our hike was meeting this partridge.

Partridge Making a Fashion Statement

Usually when we encounter a partridge it flies off but this one would not move out of our path. John stomped his feet to make it move (once I was done taking it's picture), but it ran right at us and went to attack our legs. So John made more aggressive gestures and noise and it flew a few feet off to the side. We hurried by and it came back after us from behind, so we ran like heck for about 50 feet before it left us alone. Of course, it was because it was protecting its territory or offspring that it behaved that way. We figured they named the darn island after it.

Parrsboro is a nice little town right on the Bay, although we had the sense it is struggling economically these days. We kept driving by this lovely red and white house at the main intersection in town. It's for sale if anyone is interested!

House in Parrsboro

One of the locals told us about a waterfall we could hike to, so we drove down a dirt road to find it and went past this commercial blueberry farm on the way. It just looks like a colourful pasture, but those little red and green bushes are full of blueberry blossoms and are only about 4 to 6 inches tall.

Blueberry Farm on Old York Road, Five Islands, NS

The waterfall ended up being fairly small but we had good exercise hiking down the valley to reach it. I took this photo of John and the waterfall and later noticed it looks like he is standing on a big rock. (Actually the rock is in the foreground and he is further back.)

John-on-a-rock

Since it is spring here, we are seeing lots of lupins and poppies. I already had gorgeous lupin photos from my home garden and from our trip to Newfoundland, so I didn't photograph them here until I saw this field where there must have been a thousand lupins or more! The field was about 3 times as wide as the photo shows. Truly memorable.

Lupins Growing Wild, Soley Cove, Bay of Fundy

I took tons of photos of red poppies (and am including them in my next painting) so here is one to share with you. This shot was at a local cheese farm.

Red Poppies at a Cheese Farm, Economy, NS

I took this colourful sunset photo in our campground one evening. That is our truck and trailer in the foreground.

Sunset at Five Islands Campground, Bay of Fundy[/caption]

While low tides revealed mud flats beside our campground, in other coastal areas low tide revealed some exciting rock features, as shown below. Most of the coast we saw was sandstone and is actively eroding. Will Nova Scotia disappear eventually?

Boulders at Economy Point, Bay of Fundy

Flower Pot Island, Soley Cove, Bay of Fundy

Rock Slab and Leaning Tree, Economy Point

The intrepid travellers, Five Islands, Bay of Fundy

Here we are on the beach at Five Islands when the tide is out. The sloping beach above the mud flats is made of gravel, with so many interesting colours and shapes. Of course I had to collect some for future painting ideas.

Colourful Pebbles on the Beach, Bay of Fundy

Hello everyone! I wasn't sure if I would blog during this trip or not, since we had no exciting plans, just R&R. But we have seen so many unexpectedly beautiful sights that I have to share some photos with you.

Above is our ocean view campground and you can see our truck and trailer on the right. What a spot for a 2 week stay. This is what it looks like when the tide is in, but since the Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world, much of the time the view is of reddish brown mud flats. Seems to me anyone who owns oceanfront property on the Bay of Fundy should get a rebate on their property taxes, since 'oceanfront' only applies to their place for a few hours each day!

We headed from Spokane to our next KOA campground in Leavenworth in the mountains of Washington, and spent a lovely few days walking and bicycling around this scenic tourist town that is modelled after a Swiss Alps village.

Then we headed up to Vancouver to spend the Canada Day long weekend with my family. It took us roughly a month to travel from Michigan to Washington, and we took another month to travel back to Ontario through the western Canadian provinces. Most of that return journey was spent visiting friends and relatives. What a great trip!

From Missoula, Montana we travelled due west for a few hours to stay a couple days in Spokane, Washington. We picked our campground because it was a KOA and the right travel distance and direction for us, but it didn't have a lot to recommend it. But we found this lovely bicycle path a half mile away and cycled about 8 km along it one day. There were so many wildflowers blooming and of course I had my camera with me, so here are some of the best shots.

While in Spokane we took in the new animated movie 'Cars 2' at the cinema. It was very good, but not quite as wonderful as the first 'Cars' movie, which is right up there in our top ten favourite movies of all time.