To New England and Nova Scotia

It was a chilly morning when we pulled out of our driveway at Eagle Ridge Court kicking off our two-week sojourn to New England and beyond. 

The plan is to visit friends in New York, family in Massachusetts and Maine and then cross over to Nova Scotia by ferry. After a night in Yarmouth we will drive to Halifax and pick up our friends Richard and Pauline at the airport. The four of us will spend a couple of nights in Halifax and then drive  north to Cape Breton where we have reserved a house for three nights. Returning to Halifax we will drop our friends off at the airport (they're heading way west to the wild west of Canada) and we will drive back home, taking a couple of days meandering as we we go.

We left home a little after 8am and some 9 hours and 560 miles later pulled into the Hampton Inn at Cazenovia, New York. Driving was fine, aside from lousy roads in Michigan, but the lack of billboards in Ontario and smooth road surfaces not to mention light traffic even around Hamilton, ONT and Buffalo, NY, made for a very smooth trip.

Susie spelled me twice which allowed me to stretch out and relax, collect my thoughts, such as they are. We took a break for for a lunch of homemade rollups at the Woodstock, ONT, service plaza. 

Traffic was light through Canada and we had to wait at the US border only about 10 minutes (no dedicated NEXUS lane) and soon zipping along I-190 to I-290 and then to I-90 east. One thing about the present state of the NY Thruway is the absence of several service plazas in  the midst of n ongoing project to complete build all of them. 

We left the Thruway at Syracuse and headed southeast via backroads to Cazenovia, our stop for the evening.

After check-in we dropped our bags and headed back into the lovely little village of Cazenovia to find the Lincklaen Inn, a recommended eatery. Located right on Main Street (but then so is everything else) we found a parking spot right across the street and headed inside in search of the pub.

Bottled wines ($100 or less) were all half price on Wednesdays so we came on the right night. Our food was OK: the opening act was a brace of popovers which were a bit doughy and not very flavorful, followed tasty Calamari; Susie had Salmon over rice and I had a rather unremarkable ramekin of Shepherd's Pie. But the service was fine and the space comfortable. 

Back to the hotel we turned in early, as we often do on these road trips.

Tomorrow it's cruising the back roads of upstate New York!

Salmon

Shepherd's Pie - doesn't look to good does it?