We drove east from our house to where the roads ended; after 20 years of waiting, I’ve been to Nova Scotia.

The back story is rather complicated, but let’s see if I can whittle it down a bit. In 1991, my best friend and I said goodbye at the Salt Lake airport. I was going home for the summer, and he would soon leave to serve a church mission in the Canadian Atlantic provinces. During the next two years I sent letters about college life, boxes of homemade cookies, and pseudo-artsy photographs of Provo. In return, I received news of life in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, sea shells, and Canadian folk music.

Fast-forward to 2004 and we’re married, have 2 kids and have just moved to Vermont. We notice how “close” we are now to Nova Scotia and make some vague plans to go there someday. Seven years (and 2 more kids) later, we solidify those plans and invite my mother-in-law to join us. We rent a house through VRBO, pack the minivan, and head out.

Day 1: Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine. A lovely drive this time of year. We happened to make a side-trip to the Dog Chapel, which I had just re-read about in Helen Husher‘s book A View From Vermont (my oldest daughter and I are reading it as a “bedtime story”). What a quirky, great destination- the chapel, I mean… well, and Vermont. There was a classic fair going on in Gorham, NH, for Independence Day, and we saw fireworks from the highway as we passed Bangor. We drove to the northern end of Interstate 95 and spent the night in Houlton, ME.

Day 2: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia. The tall trees of Maine gave way to low open forests in New Brunswick. We didn’t stop much (there being no official rest stops), and by mid-day we entered the gently rolling landscape of Nova Scotia. We stopped at a nice welcome center where the wind was strong and there was a perfect hill for running, which the kids did over and over. The thoughtful child then sat down in a patch of buttercups and picked them to his heart’s content.

We crossed the province from the northwest to the central southeast, and drove from highway to main road to small route to little back road until we drove across a narrow neck of beach, then over two tiny islands and made our way down a dubious gravel driveway to the end of the land. And it was amazing.

The full image gallery will be on flickr, and the rest of the story will be forthcoming. As soon as I’m done with all this laundry.