Same Day - Different Adventures

I rented a car for Eileen and me to do some exploring of our own.  Our first stop was in a place called Marion Bridge to a little quilt shop and when we opened the door we were aware of the humming of the ceiling fans as well as the computerised sewing machines.  There was a class going on. 

The shop owner was very friendly and it was a pleasant place to stop and have a chat.  I was able to get them all to pause for a picture depicting our very girlie day.  Time to push on to the next place on our list.

Rita’s Tea Room – celebrating the late Rita McNeil who came from Cape Breton.  It is truly out in the middle of nowhere.  Big Pond is not much of a dot on the map and there as you are driving down the road, it springs up on the left hand side.  It was not at all busy – in face only 4 other people were in the tea room.  Eileen’s stomach was still not feeling great, so we opted to just look around. Eileen bought a few things from the highly overpriced gift shop for a friend or two back home.  A single serving porcelain tea pot (I thought it was a lidded creamer) was $58.00 and a cup and saucer was $28.  I think Royal Doulton is nicer and you could probably get one cheaper!  So the bits and pieces of memorabilia around was nice but overall I think a bit of a disappointment that it was more like a shrine than a tasteful tea room and gift shop. 

Moving onto…Glace Bay – well let me tell you about Glace Bay – there I just did.  We drove around quite a few streets hoping to find a little gift shop or somewhere to poke around.  No luck – so then I started going up random streets and ended up at a dead end down by a fishery.  Got out to take a picture of the little bay with a seagull studded beach when a fellow tourist who was also taking pictures pointed out an “easy to navigate” path to get down to the rocky little beach. 

 

In my mind, I thought this looked like the perfect place to find sea glass.  It wasn’t long before I had several pieces of different sizes and colours to take home with me - I even found a piece of the coveted turquoise blue glass.  None were very large, and some of them were tiny, but I was so glad to be able to find some to take home with me.  Just as an aside...I learned that the locals call the brown sea glass the Labatts line - made me chuckle.  So Glace Bay I now say that you are an amazing place for sea glass!

Then we came back to the Holiday Inn to wait for Tom and Shannon to come home and tell us of their adventure in Louisbourg.  We hadn't  been back in the room for very long when the phone rang and it was Shannon.  She had a big misadventure as soon as they got into the park – she fell and gouged both knees on the gravel and sprained her ankle.  Tom and Shannon were able to take in the park as much as the pain would admit and then they stopped in at the hospital for 4 hours to get cleaned up and an xray (showed nothing thank goodness).  So they didn’t get back to the hotel until about 7:30

We stayed in the hotel for the evening watched the opening of the Commonwealth Games and the Toronto Boston baseball game on tv.  Quiet night and a good night to relax.  Something is telling Shannon and the rest of us that we needed to slow down.  Tomorrow is a driving day on the Cabot Trail.  So that will be good for Shannon to stay off her foot.  She will likely to be stiff and sore tomorrow.