Mental Health Day Trip

It started about a week ago. An underlining fatigue. A lack of focus and ambition. No desire to work on favourite projects. No enjoyment when attempting to work on them. The monotony of the days was starting to take a toll. Personally I was beginning to feel like I was in the middle of the Bill Murray movie Ground Hog Day. Then The Doc came upstairs yesterday and said that he needed to see something other than the four walls of our house. …So it wasn’t just me. 

We were both feeling it. Cracking up in unison, if only a little bit. Certainly a rare occurrence. I think everyone is fatigued these days. Those who are in the thick of things and those who are trying to stay out of the way and stay safe. Fatigued and a little on the mental down side. To counter our feelings, we decided to go on a day trip. Actually half-a-day trip because it was late morning when we started, and we planned on returning home by dinner. After a late breakfast, we grabbed a couple of granola bars, filled our water bottles, gathered hats, mitts, gloves and winter jackets from the hall closet. Put on our boots and headed for The Doc’s idling Escape. A fitting name for our vehicle on a day such as this. Once inside, the heated seats were turned on, our jackets were tossed aside and I pulled off my boots to release my bare feet. They require freedom to be comfortable.

Our plan was to drive up the Noel Shore. We exited Highway 102 and followed the Shubenacadie river towards the Minas Basin. The river is wide and tidal and very muddy in places but impressive none the less. Our intention was to stop at Burntcoat Head to check the tides in the basin. Nova Scotia has the highest tides in the world, and they were recorded at Burntcoat Head. It is a beautiful spot where you can wander the ocean floor when the tides are out. We had never viewed it in the winter and apparently we weren’t going to today either because the park was closed. We should have known, but I believe we deserve some points for deciding to go.

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We continued to drive and passed another park where we once viewed the scenery. This was also closed so on we went. We drove through small communities that continue to get smaller. Places where a few houses might gather around an intersection or a few farms combine to create a rural place. Places that are a little too far to commute to the city for work. Places with names like Admiral Rock, Moose Brook, Walton.

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At Summerville, home of a wonderful restaurant called The Flying Apron, we pulled off down by the basin on Wharf Road to get out and stretch. The water was moving slowly today but you could see the large chunks of ice along the shoreline, all tossed up at another time during wilder weather. Back in the car, we continued to drive through more communities some small, some a little larger and then larger still as we headed back towards the Municipality of Halifax where our semi-rural bedroom-community is located. We arrived home four hours after we left.

The last time we drove this loop it was summer and everything was beautiful and breathtaking as everything often is in Nova Scotia in the summer. Today, not so much. Dirty snow, bare trees and muddy waters are not beautiful but they are a change of scenery and you know what they say, a change is as good as a vacation.

Thank you for reading.

Photos: Jenn Stone

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