OCanada

Fred had until June 30 to spend the grant money he received for another ancestry research trip — the last one being to Ireland to trace those roots.  This time, it's Nova Scotia. Both trips held some interest for me too (although I hadn't done any research on my own ancestry), because Fred and I are both roughly 75% and 25% Scottish.

We left Thursday at 10 am and drove the five+ hours to St. Stephen, New Brunswick. The time passed quickly as we listened to music and a podcast about a cold case of murder. 

A sight long the way. Cloud 9 Motel.

With several pit stops, our arrival time was 4:00 and this is where we arrived: 

The Todd Mansion. It's an historic landmark -- click here if you want to learn more: 

https://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=8357

The exterior is sadly a bit rundown, as is the interior of the common areas — with very worn and smelly, dirty carpeting. I got a little nervous at first, but our apartment was perfection and very artfully done. Great host and lovely, friendly people living in the other apartments.

Some cute pics of the kitchen from the AirBNB site:

And this kettle, which I love the look of and thought my LONG search for one of these might be over, but sadly it has plastic fittings inside and I'm just not into boiling water around plastic and then ingesting it... 

Since this was only a one-night stay, we didn't unpack, and just hit the neighborhood to walk around, explore the main street, and find dinner. Oh, and by the way, it was 94° Fahrenheit. 

We had both done some research on where to have dinner and not coincidentally came up with the same spot. The only spot. Five Kings — in a former train station. Very well done inside, but we ate outside which faced the St. Croix River, albeit from across the street, and at very low tide. 

Some shots from around town:

In the morning, on to our destination. Wallace, Nova Scotia.