Days 5-6 Nova Scotia: Medford Beach!!!, winery lunch, more fall fun and goodbyes…

Sunday, October 12

Looking back to Day 4, you’ll remember that Sarah and I closed down The Library pub on Saturday night. 😅

As such, we were looking forward to a lazy Sunday morning. We’d been pretty busy and active so far, and I think we both liked the idea of a little time to enjoy the Inn.

I’ll admit I was very torn, because part of me also really wanted to go to church with Elisabeth + family. However, I ultimately decided that I felt satisfied that I’d at least been able to go inside the church building and witness the aftermath of youth group on Wednesday. I know it’s not the same, but I at least feel like now when Elisabeth talks about her church, I can generally picture where she goes, and the most lovely “vibe” it has. 🙂

I decided that… my life has been crazy lately, I so very rarely get away alone, and that a bit of relaxing in my room and lounging was in order.

I woke up to the sound of cheering and cowbells. Out my window, I took this picture of runners on the marathon course! WHAT A DAY to run. The temperature was cool and amazing and it looked like the perfect fall day for a race.

We weren’t able to bump back our breakfast reservation (reception was closed when we returned from dinner Saturday night), but it ended up being fine. Who am I kidding. I can’t sleep in anymore, anyway!!! 😅

From our breakfast table… I really loved this dining room!

We split an omelet + the “Maplemania” waffle… YUMMY. It was so good that I forgot to take a picture. We chatted over our coffee + tea and enjoyed our final breakfast at the Tattingstone. (We still had one more morning, but we had special plans for Monday morning… 😉 Stay tuned on that.)

After breakfast we went back to our rooms to regroup. Note the beautiful fresh flowers scattered around the Inn!! Not sure if this is always the case or because it was Thanksgiving weekend?! But they were so pretty! Here’s one example below:

We had more time to just relax while Elisabeth finished up at church. Since it was a gorgeous morning, we decided to hang out on the front porch of the Inn. The runners were still going by, it was sunny and pleasant…. it was a great choice.

We each did our own thing, mostly, but sat by each other. 🙂 Sarah did some misc. admin stuff on her laptop, and I worked on a blog post on my phone!

Elisabeth picked us up around 11 am to head out on our next adventure. This was going to be a big one!! On the itinerary for today was my personal “must do in Nova Scotia” (that I had selected from Elisabeth’s previous posts): Medford Beach.

The thing with Medford Beach is that it’s only accessible during low tide- which Elisabeth had told us was at around 5:30 pm. WELL. It’s glad she’s an organized person and double checked, because she actually had that wrong. Low tide was at 11:30 a.m! Fortunately she noticed this in advance and we were able to rearrange the order of our plans for the day. It would have been so disappointing to miss out on Medford!

(*IMO it actually worked out much better how the order of events turned out, anyway, so this was a blessing in disguise.)

We set out on a short drive to Medford Beach. The colors… oh, the colors…. so beautiful everywhere….

SO PRETTY! I feel like this looks like a fall postcard.

Elisabeth, being a local, knew a very secret sneaky spot to park to access Medford Beach. I actually have no idea where we were, so I’m at no risk of blowing the locals’ secret here, lol. But she tells us that the “standard” access point that tourist info would give out involves parking and walking a very long way to access the beach (taking into account swift and extreme tide changes!), which is why, as you’ll see, this amazing place was completely void of any other tourists. 🤯

We left the car on the side of the road by a corn field and walked just a couple minutes down a dirt trail.

We took a short path down from that and emerged to find….. THIS:

It was like being on another planet!! The red sand was so unique. This is literally the ocean floor! The tide is just waaaaaay far out- you can barely even see the water in these photos, but it’s there. But when it’s in, this is fully covered in water. You can see the marks on the rocks. CRAZY!

Sarah and I inadvertently wore earth tones that really complemented the landscape! I truly love all of the upcoming photos. And be warned, there are a lot. Ha!

We had left our shoes on the path by the corn field and meandered all over the beach barefoot.

There are several big rock formations that we had so much fun scrambling on. Many of them were pretty slick! We had to be careful.

This has become the classic “blogger’s pose” when Elisabeth brings her blog friends here. 💗

Sarah said she felt like we were in Utah or something! With the red rocks, it really did.

Elisabeth showing us how it’s done. 😉

I made it up to this little lookout spot:

Sarah for scale:

Gorgeous.

It was one thing to get up (that window cut out below is where the above pics of me were taken), but getting down was another story! Sarah and I figured out that “crab walking” on our hands and feet down was the safest method. 🙂 We made it unscathed.

We somehow even successfully managed to get a fun jump shot!

At another rock formation:

The weather was perfect. I mean, it was slightly chilly, with us being barefoot and all, but it really wasn’t bad. There was a decent amount of wind, but we can’t complain. Did I mention there was NOT a single other person on this entire huge beach?!?!

The colors on these rocks were amazing.

We retraced our steps back to the car….

where our host extraordinaire Elisabeth had jugs of warm water, buckets and fresh towels waiting for us to wash our feet!! I mean. Could she get any better?

We took turns washing the red mud off of our feet, in the middle of a beautiful corn field. These are my favorite types of travel memories- the kind of weird, random things that really stick with you! 🙂

There were a bunch of sheep in the field just up the lane:

I couldn’t resist another picture, closer this time, of that white country church….

Elisabeth then dropped us back off at the Tattingstone to change clothes and clean up before picking us back up for lunch.

She planned for us to go to nearby Luckett Vineyards, which turned out to be a most excellent choice. The setting was just stunning, the venue was beautiful and the lunch was great!

Being a Sunday afternoon, on Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, it was very busy. They don’t take reservations, so we put our name in and had to wait- but not really very long!

Note the views! Imagine in the summer when they open the big glass doors….

The brief wait gave us just enough time to check out the scenery and take a few photos.

Just a short walk into the vineyard is this cool red phone booth. So photogenic!

Thanks to a stranger, we got a nice real, non-selfie photo of all 3 of us. 💗💗💗

When our table was ready, Sarah and I each ordered a glass of wine. We had to, of course!

It was already mid-afternoon, and we had Thanksgiving dinner yet to look forward to, so Elisabeth and I each kept it pretty light and went with a seafood chowder + biscuit combo. Sarah got a flatbread that she said was great.

We did a few more rounds of 36 Questions here, including a deep dive on one question that was something like, “Tell your partner/friend 3 things you like about them.” This led to us going around and sharing detailed things we like and admire about each other, which was, frankly, a very special and memorable moment. These ladies are earnest and smart and so kind and to hear the very sweet and thoughtful things they said about me…. let’s just say, it was extremely touching.🥹💗 I had NO trouble thinking of things I love about them either to send right back at them.

After lunch, we briefly enjoyed the little gardens on site. SO PRETTY.

The views were insane! I don’t feel like these photos capture them. This is a must-stop place, in my opinion, if you’re in the area. It’s just beautiful!

On our way back to Elisabeth’s, she stopped off so we could squeeze in one last “fall walk”. This was kind of a minor stop off or add on attraction, but Sarah and I both loved it!

I can’t even remember where this was to list the name- it was some sort of actual trail loop. It’s a great spot for a short walk.

It ends up by this little lake which made for great photos:

Sad! Our time together was starting to dwindle…

After the walk, we headed back to Elisabeth’s. Belle was WAITING for us, because she wanted to partake in some board game time with us before dinner!

We started with Scattegories, which I don’t think I had played in like, 25 years. Haha. I feel like I was very mediocre at this, lol. But it was great fun! 14 year old Belle totally kicked my butt. 😅😅

This pic is funny… haha. I look so devious, like I’m about to win big! (I was not.)

Eventually we moved on to Telestrations, which is a drawing based game where one person gets a word, has to draw it, and then it gets passed to the next person, who has to guess the word they were trying to draw and write it down, then pass it to the next person, who has to try to draw that (on a different page, each time)….eventually it gets all the way around the table and we find out if the original word made it back or not. (So sort of like the game of “telephone”, but with a word/illustration…). The results were often pretty hilarious!

Elisabeth’s husband John was so kindly making us all Thanksgiving dinner in the kitchen, while we ladies of leisure chatted for a bit in the living room.

Then it was dinner time! YUM.

Elisabeth told us that for their family, Thanksgiving is not really the “major holiday” that it is for other families (especially in the U.S.). They have the traditional meal, but everything felt more low key than what I’m used to.

I have to say- it was sooo nice! Kind of has me rethinking the big production we make out of our Thanksgiving. This felt like the most important pieces were there (food + family + pie) without the extreme prep and millions of side dishes and extra time + exhaustion.

They went with a rotisserie chicken, in the name of ease/ simplicity (I mean, with gravy on it, can you even tell the difference?! Not really…), mashed potatoes, stuffing and corn. And that was it! Delicious and perfect.

After dinner, there was very minimal clean up, which Sarah and I helped with. Then the guys escaped to the basement rec room to watch football (I snuck down to check on the game- it was the Packers, and they won!).

The girls, including Belle, hung out in the living room for another couple hours. We finished up 36 Questions and just did not seem to run out of things to talk about.

Eventually we had space for pie (easy store bought pumpkin and pecan, which were both divine).

It was a long, full day, so when Elisabeth dropped us off back at the Tattingstone, there was no “rendezvous” to the pub this time. lol! I think I chatted with Ivan on the phone, unwound for a bit in my room and went to bed.

Monday, October 13

Our final morning had arrived! Sad. Thankfully we did not have early flights, so no rushing around was needed.

I showered and packed up…goodbye pretty room! I really enjoyed you.

Sarah and I skipped breakfast, because we had Plans to take Belle to STARBUCKS! She is 14 and heavy into a “Starbucks” phase, but if you know Elisabeth + her family, well, they are frugal folks and do not really partake in the insanely overpriced Starbucks drinks + food too often.

But Starbucks with her ‘blaunties’ (remember, Belle nicknamed us her “blog aunties”) seemed like the perfect end cap to our trip.

Sarah and I checked out and loaded our bags. We had to get pics with Belle, of course!

Elisabeth had never tried the much-talked-about “pumpkin cream cold brew”, so this was her chance. 😉 (She recently blogged about her first experience with the fan favorite Pumpkin Spice Latte, too. Maybe Elisabeth is a Starbucks person, after all. ;))

I am boring and don’t drink coffee, so I got my usual English Breakfast tea, but we all had yummy baked goods. I got the cinnamon coffee cake.

Beautiful Belle:

Sarah and I each took our sweaters/sweatshirt off to reveal that we had unknowingly twinned! haha. Same color tee.

I don’t have girls, obviously, so it was fun and special to connect with my “blog niece”. She even confided in me and Sarah with some juicy “not-for-her-own-mom” teen drama details (don’t worry E, nothing bad!).

And then, it was time to head back to the airport. 😦

All good things must come to an end…. goodbye, Nova Scotia!

Luckily, Sarah and I were on the same first flight from Halifax to Philadelphia. We had even arranged to sit together! Yay! We bought souvenirs at the airport (I got Nova Scotia honey for Asher and maple cream cookies for Ethan) and had grilled cheese sandwiches before boarding.

We chatted more and read our books and then I got to witness Sarah the Master Planner actually planning her week! hahaha.

Sarah, I never told you this because I didn’t want her to hear me, but the woman in the aisle seat was totally peeking at your neat and impressive planner spread. I think she was intrigued!

Sarah and I had to part ways in Philadelphia quite abruptly, as Sarah’s next plane was literally boarding already when we landed. Eek! We hugged goodbye and she raced off the plane and just made it. Phew.

I, however, thankfully had a long layover, because unlike Sarah’s next plane, mine was not the next gate over. I was a full 22 minute walk to get to my next gate in a completely different terminal. It worked out- I needed the movement anyway and I had plenty of time.

Sarah texted me that she had already landed before I had even boarded my next flight! Oh well, I had German chocolate from John to keep me company. 🙂

I made it back to Madison by ~9:30 pm.

Back to my own beautiful city, after a beautiful weekend away in a beautiful place with beautiful people.

I know sometimes people might raise an eyebrow at a travel recap (or social media photos) of vacations and say, Yeah, okay, but this is just the highlight reel. You’re not sharing everything. Surely there were bad things that happened too. Only sharing the good stuff is disingenuous.

Well, I’m sorry not sorry to be that annoying person… because there literally were no bad parts of this trip. What you see here is what it was, with God and Elisabeth and Sarah as my witnesses! It was AMAZING.

I’m so so so SO glad this trip worked out and that we were able to do this trip, that the weather cooperated (it was so perfect!!), that our flights went off without a hitch, that our inn was just as charming as the photos had looked, and that our internet friendships translated so seamlessly to real life friendships.

A huge thank you one more time to Elisabeth for her impeccable hosting and planning skills, and to Sarah for being the motivator we needed to actually put this plan into play and make this trip happen! 💗