After most of our attendants and families left Carp to travel back to their homes, we got down to packing for our honeymoon. Although

nothing was packed ahead of time, we had a comprehensive list of all the things we wanted to bring with us. Unlike previous trips, we did not pack lightly, instead, we took advantage of travelling in our own car. Since we left later in the day, we decided to only drive a little past Quebec City that night. It was great when we arrived and were finally able to sleep. We could tell that it was going to take a couple of days to recover from the wedding.

The next morning, we got up early to try to make it to Halifax for dinner.

Being on a tight driving schedule, we kept up a steady pace and got to Halifax at 7:30pm. This was an hour later than we expected, having forgotten about the change in time zone.Once we arrived, we had a nice dinner with Jen & Chris and got to meet their two-week-old baby Leornard (Lenny) Karl Carey. They recounted stories about Lenny's birth and we shared our wedding stories. After dinner, Paul & Candy Damstra came over and we had a chance to catch up with them as well. We stayed overnight at the Damstras, who only live a few minutes away from the Careys.

On Tuesday, we had breakfast with Candy and confirmed our ferry

reservation for 4pm. Before leaving Halifax to drive to the ferry in North Sydney, we ran a couple of errands. Then on a whim, we decided to stop in Truro to look for a wide angle lens for our digital camera. Ross fetched some food, while Ann was looking at the lenses. Unfortunately, we were unable to find the right combination of lens and adapter rings. After the camera expedition, we continued on to the ferry.

The trip across the mainland was quick, with a stop to stretch our legs at the Canso Causeway,

which leads to Cape Breton. For variety, we took the Eastern route along 104/4, unlike the previous year's trip. It turned out to be a wonderfully scenic drive along the shore of Bras D'Or Lake during a sunny afternoon.

We arrived at the terminal at 3pm, as we were supposed to, only to discover that our ferry had departed at 7am that morning! We were pretty miffed, especially since we had confirmed the reservation after the ferry had already left! Our first option was to wait until the midnight ferry, but all of the accommodations were taken already. Not wanting to sleep on a chair for the 5+ hour ride, we instead opted to take the next morning's ferry at 9am.

With the unexpected change in plans, we were left with several hours of daylight to explore Sydney. We decided to find a tourist bureau to locate a BnB for the night and see what we could do to pass the time. Last summer, we visited the Cabot Trail during our vacation, so we were somewhat familiar with the area. One of the things we missed out on last year, was taking a tour of the Miner's Museum in Glace Bay.

So, we drove along the Colliery Route from Sydney to Glace Bay, passing through New Waterford. It was a pretty drive along the coast.

The Miner's Museum was interesting, it included a tour of an actual underwater coal mine. Some of the sections of the tunnel were only four feet high. After the tour we had a quick dinner at Subway, and then drove back to Sydney to see Troy at the movie theatre. The movie was too long and not much happened. After that, it was a quick trip to our BnB, located quite close to the ferry terminal.