Peggy's Cove Area Festival of the Arts: Opening Night and Paint Peggy's Cove

Three years ago I had the great idea that we should host a small, weekend arts festival at Bay Hammocks. A few artists creating art on the lawn, some music and perhaps something for the kids.

So I phoned a couple of artist friends. "What a great idea" they said. "but there is not much to paint at Bay Hammocks. Why don't we go out and paint Peggy's Cove? We will help organize it." Good idea.

Then I phoned Sarah Irwin, a friend, an artist and the co-owner of The Finer Diner, a popular restaurant down the Peggy's Cove Road in Hackett's Cove. "I think we should have a studio tour" said Sarah, "I will help organize it. I will call my artist friends and we can meet here at the Finer Diner to make plans."

The next day I bumped into Paula Fredericks at The Bike and Bean coffee and bike shop. Another local hang-out. Paula is the owner of Cornucopia Marketing, a marketing and website design company and Acoustic Roof, a business the puts musical artists and house concert hosts in contact with each other. "I can organize a musical event and do the marketing for all the events." She said.

And then Bay Hammocks, The Finer Diner and supportive friends Geoff Le Boutillier and Jan Miller chipped in some money.

And The Peggy's Cove Festival of the Arts was born.

This year the festival opened with a great reception at Shining Waters Marine, organized by Sarah and her committee and last weekend was the third annual "Paint Peggy's Cove".  With 38 artists in the village and out on the rocks painting and chatting with visitors. Following are a few pictures:

The  crowd at the Opening Reception

Lots of art for sale at silent auction

You could fish in the Fish Tank to win the item of your choice from the auction table

Five of our member artists created "fresh fish" while guests watched and discussed the process.

And then at Paint Peggy's Cove:

A temporary art gallery was created using a rented Mongolian Yurt

Paintings the participating artists brought from their studios was displayed for sale on the walls

Pods in the centre were erected to display the fresh art created during the event

Over 40 volunteers were on hand to help the painters, bring finished art to the yurt and explain the event to visitors to Peggy's Cove

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation did a piece for the evening news

Claire served great hot dogs

Lovely music at the entrance to the Yurt

All in all a fun weekend. 

I am really looking forward to this weekend's studio tour and the musical concert featuring the Hupman Brothers and Ian Sherwood on Saturday night. You can buy tickets for the concert here. It promises to be a fun evening.

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Wild Leek - Food and Juice Bar

I apologize for no blog posts for the last month or so. Since we arrived home we have been busy - with very boring stuff - getting Bay Hammocks up and running, looking after backlogged doctor and dentist appointments, etc.  These things are nearly under control now so I will get on with telling you more about our life and friends in Nova Scotia and the neighbourhood where we live.

Kirsten Taggart was an "across the road" neighbour when we lived in our sticks and bricks house. She is a trained chef who blogs about her life and food. She is also a single mom with three beautiful daughters. And earlier this month she realized a life-long dream by opening a restaurant in a very interesting Halifax neighbourhood.

Very cute don't you think?

Wild Leek - Food and Juice Bar
 2156 Windsor St., Halifax

My sister, Mary, and I had lunch there yesterday. The menu is all natural and vegan. And changes monthly. There is also a daily special, a selection of desserts and excellent, made just for you, juices are served.

Although neither of us is vegan we really enjoyed our lunch. I had the quiche and salad and Mary had the Five'Oh BBQ Portobello sandwich. A fresh orange, grapefruit and ginger juice and chocolate cake for dessert. All very delicious and beautifully presented.

 I did not take photos of the food. Wonderful artist and blogger friend, Shelagh Duffett (also a photographer) has gorgeous photos of Wild Leek and Kirsten's food here.

So, if you are in Halifax, check it out.

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Overnight Guests at Bay Hammocks

Last week we hosted our first guests through the Boondockers Welcome website. (click on the mailbox to the left for more information). Last year we hosted three RVing couples at Bay Hammocks and really enjoyed meeting them and hearing their stories. This time was no exception. Except our guests were not the usual Rvers who stop here.

Meet, from left to right, Illia (sorry, I know this spelling is wrong - simply a best guess), Alex and Hannah from Australia. Alex and Hannah are brother and sister, Illia a friend of Alex. They traveled across Canada from Vancouver and are now on their way to New York City to meet up with Hannah's boyfriend. Then plan to circumvent the US before returning to Vancouver and on home to Australia.  They purchased the VW camper in Vancouver and will sell it there when they leave Canada. Alex is a mechanic so they have no worries about keeping it in operating condition.

We enjoyed hearing about their experiences and sharing travel stories over a glass of wine in the Adventure Bus.

Arch suggested that they sleep in hammocks in Bay Hammock's shop as it was forecast to be a very chilly night. Which they did. And enjoyed a warm night's sleep, deemed the most comfortable of their trip.

One slept in the EarthFriendly rope hammock, which we make, one in the colourful cotton hammock from a craft cooperative in Nicaragua and I think Hannah slept in the camping hammock in the background.

After they left the next morning I stumbled upon this photo on the internet:

The perfect vehicle to tow behind their camper don't you think?

Safe travels Illia, Alex and Hannah. Have fun!!

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The Power of One (if you are a well loved country music star)

They tell us that, in 1986, the road through Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg Tennessee was a narrow, two-lane country road leading through the arts and tourism community of Gatlinburg and into the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. That was before Dolly Parton developed Dollywood as a job creator for people in her home town. Today it looks like this:

Pigeon Forge, TN

Gatlinburg, TN

To me Pigeon Forge is Niagara Falls on steroids. I'll let the pictures tell the story:

Even the Titanic was there

Complete with iceberg

It was all too much for us so we headed straight to the National Park. Such a beautiful spot.

We planned to drive the Newfound Gap Road through the mountains to Cherokee, NC (in the car, not the Adventure Bus). It was closed due to a landslide.

And we hoped to hike up to Clingman's Dome, the highest point in Tennessee to enjoy the view. It was closed due to ice and snow on the road in to the trail. But we had a great day never-the-less.

Not too far into the park we encountered this sign. Where on earth is this road going!?

Turns out we go through the tunnel then up around and over the tunnel. Pretty clever.

The first snow we've seen this winter.

The hiking trails were beautiful, with something for all levels of hiking ability.

Part way down this trail we encountered this sign:

NO DOGS! Oh well. So off we went to find a trail dogs could enjoy. This one was perfect. Straight up hill but that didn't bother our lame dog.

Will you two please hurry up!

In the end we had a lovely day exploring parts of the park that were open and that welcomed dogs.

This was our last two-day stop on this winter's adventure. From Pigeon Forge it took us 5 uneventful days to get home. Until we came to the Cobiquid Pass in Nova Scotia:

Welcome home

We will be in Nova Scotia until next October. While here I will be telling you about Nova Scotia and all the adventures you can find here.

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Lost in Lost Creek

 It took us 10 days to drive home from New Orleans but here we are, home and parked at Bay Hammocks.

We drove diagonally across the US from Louisiana to Maine, which meant we spent a lot of time in the Appalachian Mountains. A beautiful drive if you stay on the beaten path. Beautiful and scary if you don't. And one day we strayed.

We spent the night at Harrison Bay State Park in Southwestern Tennessee and the next morning decided to take the scenic (but 4 lane) route through the mountains to Pigeon Forge, our next stop.

Getting out of the park and back to the highway was going to be tricky. And we new the GPS would back track us by several miles to get on I75 so we did not use it. Instead we used the map to choose an alternative, and shorter, route. Which was fine. The road was a bit narrow but it took us through some pretty country. And Arch got to drive the Adventure Bus up and down a small, winding (and mercifully short) mountain road.

We came to the ramp for I75 and passed under it and started looking for the turn onto highway 441. After driving several miles we realized we missed it. And there was no where to turn a 38' motorhome, towing a car on a dolly, around. So forward we went.

The road was good but very narrow with not much protection to keep you from going over the edge:

In some spots there was a low barricade. Which looked very low from the passenger seat of a motorhome:

In other spots trees served the purpose:

And in other spots, barb wire was employed:

Even when protecting us from ravines such as this:

You may not see the fence in the trees but it is there.

At the top of the mountain we were greeted by this sign:

Very aptly named town. We wondered if we should drop in and say a little prayer before heading down the mountain. Which we knew we must do.

The drive down was even more scary. But the country side was beautiful:

 With several old abandoned houses along the way:

This one had a plaque describing its history (I assume) but there was no spot for us to stop and check it out. Looks like a school house.

Eventually we found highway 441:

This was almost enough to make us turn around and head back into the mountains.
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Living With Hurricanes

The Gulf of Mexico is very shallow along the US Gulf Coast from the Big Bend (where the Florida Panhandle starts) to the Texas coast. And the water is the warmest in the US. As a result they deal with a lot of hurricanes and are good at it. But sometimes as storm gets the better of them. Such was the case with Katrina, as we all know. Another that will stay in memory for a long time is Hurricane Isaac which came ashore at the same place as Katrina, 8 years to the day later, in August 2012.  Both storms produced large storm surges that caused unbelievable damage along the coast.

As we drove along highway 90, that runs along the gulf of Mexico, often right beside the ocean, we saw plenty of evidence of storm damage.

There is a lot of vacant beach front (Hwy 90 runs between these properties and the beach) property with concrete pads where buildings once were. In some cases this damage went back to 3 blocks from the ocean.

And a lot of evidence of homes on stilts that were simply blown away:

But also a lot of rebuilding is happening:

It looked as though it will not be long before this pier reopens.

And the buildings look like they are being built to withstand quite a storm:

The building on cement pillars above will be public bath and change rooms when completed.

And home owners appear to be determined to stay:

When we were driving through the bayous south east of New Orleans we came across the scene below. It really tells the story of hurricane damage and recovery. The first thing that caught our eye was this steeple sitting on the roadside with the time for church services on a small sign beside it.

Then we noticed a steel shed with a "fancy" entrance. A temporary church:

And behind it signs that the church is being rebuilt. On stilts it appears:

Brave people.

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