Denise Goldberg's blog

So near and yet so far away
An exploration of western Nova Scotia

Monday, January 26, 2009

Introduction

Waking up from a long dream... decision time

Journal entry written on June 11, 2006


The winter months are usually my dreaming months. By early spring I have settled on my touring destination(s) for the year.

For some reason, this year's cycling destination didn't jump out at me in my normal time frame. My dreams wandered from eastern Quebec, across the ocean to southwestern Ireland, a little further into Europe to Denmark, and back across the Atlantic Ocean to Nova Scotia. Good dreams, and I'd like to think that at some point I will visit all of these places with my bicycle. But I can't visit all of these places in 2006; I need to choose just one.

I spent yesterday - a very rainy Saturday - dreaming of touring, reading about my possible destinations, exploring travel sites, reading journals of others who had cycled through my dream locations. And I think I have my destination.

A trip to Nova Scotia has been bubbling in the back of my mind for quite a while, but somehow it didn't come to the top of the list for a full vacation - until now. I'm so drawn to the western side of North America that I tend to neglect the places in the east.

Initially I was going to travel over the sea to Nova Scotia for a long weekend back in 2004. Those plans had to be canceled after my bike and I performed an unexpected flip during my commute to work. Last year's trip planning skipped Nova Scotia, although it did help me get over my habit of not planning tours on the eastern side of this continent. Instead of using my "sort of plans" to visit Nova Scotia, I ventured to a maritime province east of there, Prince Edward Island. But now feels like the right time for my bike and I to wander in Nova Scotia...

It's entirely possible that my mind will wander further between now and my tour. As of now though, my decision and my destination for September is Nova Scotia.

Table of Contents

For now, please use Blogger's list of posts in the sidebar to follow my trip in reverse sequence. I plan to flip this blog on its head so that the posts flow from oldest to newest (like the table of contents in a book), adding a real Table of Contents and a Page by Page sidebar entry, and adding (better) next and previous links at the bottom of each post.

I probably won't be able to make these changes for the next several weeks.

...Denise, January 26, 2009