Nova Scotia 2004

The big day finally came, and we headed out for Nova Scotia. I didn't expect much more that some rocky coast, and man did it deliver. Check out THE PLAN to see the destinations and mileages each day, we stuck pretty close to that.

This trip had lots of photos and not so much story to tell so I will use a photo gallery format. Check out each day below, or you can go directly from day to day without returning.

• Friday July 2
• Saturday July 3
• Sunday July 4
• Monday July 5
• Tuesday July 6
• Wednesday July 7
• Thursday July 8
• Friday July 9
• Saturday July 10
• Sunday July 11

The Good, the Bad, and the Useless

What worked and what didn't? You can see the packing list on the plan above. Most of what I took worked well and will be picked next time with a few exceptions:

• CD burner: This was great. I burned my photos from CF and SD cards to CD each night or two. This works well to extend yor storage space or as backup for the unthinkable.
• D70: The Nikon camera worked great. I did not need the spare battery though. Also the 50mm fast lense proved to be dead weight. On a digital SLR it approximates a 75mm lens, too tight for use in the musem, with was the only place I needed the F1.8 aperture. I also used the dark polarizing filter on a few really cloudy days and basically slowed my lense way down, it hurt some of the photos.
• HG Kenya Jacket: My last trip with this jacket. Too big and bulky, too heavy. I've lost weight since I bought it which complicates a jacket that is heavy and bulky and floppy even when it fits snugly. I am sold on Cordura and will trade it for a smaller size or sell it and buy a newer HG Spin or something like it. The HG HT overpants worked well.
• KLR650: a really light bike for lots of hiway work. More wind protection and high speed stability would be less tiring. The KLR hung in there, burned 1/2 Q over 3800 miles, and got over 50mpg. It worked very well two up still loaded with luggage on the dirt road to Meat Cove.
• Garmin GPS V: Mixed results. Great to have NS roads on the base map. Bad that the TC104 location on the GPS was up to 10km off. Great that us interstates are on the base map -- bad that your position will not snap to roads using a route built on the PC, and bad that the PC built routes basically revert to point to point not even following the roads that are on the base map (I made sure all roads routed were on the base map). Basiclly, you need detail maps to follow a route built on the PC. If you are not loading detail maps just use Find/Goto on the GPS instead of routes.