Well, it’s summer and when I’m not working, my time is being claimed by my husband, friends and family. My time does not feel like my own and when I get a moment to relax, I rarely have time to read and write, so I tend to just read and swear to post those comments in the morning/before work/after work/before bed/insert other time other than at that moment.

But this morning I woke up and tried to check my reader and nothing was there. I went into full on panic because I knew Google Reader was shutting down and I took preventative measures weeks ago to set up Feedly to migrate my RSS feed, my rather large RSS feed at that, and thought nothing more of it once I did it. So I go to the Feedly site and its giving me an error message like I didn’t migrate my feed. Cue my panic because I started to question if I even migrated my feed. But I had no extra time to look into it because I had to leave for work. So I spent my whole drive to work thinking through trying to sort out the daunting task of re-adding each blog individually on another reader. When I got home tonight, I checked the Feedly blog and it turns out that this is a kink for many. I was still worried and panicked. They suggested another reader and suddenly, my feed is back! Crisis averted.

So back to our scheduled programming.

Even though I’m working nightshift at work, I’ve decided to still make the best of my summer and enjoy what I can. The first step in my plan was to celebrate Canada Day with some friends. For those Canadians both near and far (as well as all those honorary Canadians) I hope you had a wonderful day on Monday! Thanks to my wonderful government job, I had a day off with pay to do as I pleased. So myself and hubby, along with one of my very dear friends and her husband, played tourist on this beautiful Cape Breton Island that I call home and drove around the world famous Cabot Trail.

If you’ve never made your way to the east coast of Canada, put it on your to do list. The trail itself is one of the most beautiful places you will ever see. The pictures truly cannot do it any justice.

We hit the road at 8am determined to make the best of the day despite the weather call of overcast skies with chances of showers all day. By the time we hit Kelly’s Mountain, the sun was out and shining bright and we planned to enjoy the sun while it was out because we knew it would eventually change to what they called for. We are just simply not that lucky.

We opted to take the Englishtown Ferry and start from the Ingonish side of the trail. The view was stunning.

As we made our way toward the entrance of the Cape Breton National Highlands Park (which is the most scenic and northern part of the Cabot Trail) we stopped by this little bakery and cafe called The Clucking Hen.

We had our pictures taken with not only the amusing sign but also with a real pair of moose antlers (that I banged my head on).

After that we made our way to the top of Cape Smokey.

Then we had a rest at Black Brook Beach.

Finally we made it into the National park and made our way into Ingonish where a local business had a 40 foot Canadian flag waving outside.

We drove through the park and stopped at all the look offs and snapped pictures while we laughed, joked and soaked in the beautiful scene around us.

We were speechless as we soaked it all in. At one point I looked at my friend and said, “if its gorgeous now, then we have to come back in the fall”. Oh how I wished we could see all those trees in shades of red, orange and yellow!

So we made a plan, right then and there, to do this again in the fall. Only next time we will stay somewhere on the trail for a night. Rent a cabin. Split it up over the course of two days instead of a day trip.

And while we were awed by the beauty, our husbands used the look offs to pose “like the swimsuit models in the magazines”. They wanted to do the sexy look. We didn’t have the heart to tell them that sexy went on vacation and left them to fend for themselves.

Then we made it to what is probably the most photographed part of the trail. And it was everything I remembered. The moment you take that turn and face it, you get chills down your spine.

There really are no words to describe its beauty and had I had my way, I’d still be standing there, taking in the view.

After we finally forced ourselves to move forward, we made our way to Cheticamp where we stopped in a little gift shop and I bought myself a patriotic new purse.

And we finally finished off the day with an early supper at The Dancing Goat Cafe and Bakery. This place has the best porridge bread and sweet rolls I may have ever tasted!

By the time we left The Dancing Goat, we were ready to head home. We drove through Lake O’Law and downtown Baddeck before we made our way back home. We dropped our friends off at their home at 7:15, 11 hours from the time we left town for our little Canada Day adventure. I drove the whole time so, needless to say, I was tired when I got home. Despite the fact that it was overcast by the time we got into the heart of the National Park and we had scattered showers from the mid point until we got home, it still ended up being an incredible day. The weather didn’t take away from the beauty of the drive. If anything, it set the mood and gave it character. The best part was that even though we spent 11 hours exploring and driving there and back, we barely scratched the surface of the park. We didn’t really stop in most of the little towns, we didn’t get to the waterfall and we didn’t even see a fifth of the beaches, walking trails, campgrounds and picnic areas that are just as gorgeous as what we saw. We also didn’t get to see a moose that the rest of my companions were so desperate to see, even though there was a watch for moose sign every couple of minutes along the whole trail.

Of all the ways to celebrate my country’s birthday, this has been one of the most rewarding. I really can’t wait to do it again in the fall. Happy Belated Birthday Canada!