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Corporate Runaways

Overland travelers and certified geeks, based in Vermont.

Kay

5-Minute Read

We woke bright and early… for no apparent reason, got dressed and wandered across the street to grab breakfast at Tim Hortons, which was tasty, but I scoffed mine down to get back to work on uploading images and inserting them into posts.

Next thing we know it’s almost about 10:40, and with a suspected checkout time of 11:00 we initiated UltraPack(tm).

Kay Selfie

The ride was largely uneventful until Dachary noticed a placemark we’d added to the GPS passing off to our side. “Hey, it’s that wild animal park. You still wanna go?” “Hell yes!” I respond. So we do. A little backtracking and we’re at the Shubenacadie Provincial Wildlife Park although the road signage would have you believe it’s a Ducks Unlimited place, which it technically is.

When we got there the lady who took our money suggested that they had crates we could stick the dogs in while we walked around the park. We thanked her but suggested that the sidecar was a place where our dogs feel safe and comfortable. Ben frequently jumps back in the sidecar when he’s unsure about the place where we’ve stopped. So, she suggested we park down in the quieter employee parking area, but check in with the office.

We did, and the lady on duty showed us where the crates were, just in case we wanted to change our minds. It was a quiet, cool, out of the way room, and we decided to go for it.

In the park we took tons of photos, but there was a cage, or fence between us and most of the animals, so many of the pictures, came out pretty crap (as we suspected they would)., but some were worth sharing.

Peacock

Sheep

Photographer

Peacock

Peahen

We learned from one of the caretakers that the “velvet” on antlers is what carries the blood and nutrients to the antler. I always thought it was the marrow…

Reindeer Velvet

This poor guy got one of his antlers stuck in the fencing and the velvet ripped off, which killed the left antler. Now he’s holding a 20 pound lump of bone on one side with no counterbalance. Poor guy.

One Antler Moose

I found some curious signage,

Cutlery

…and then suggested Dachary should “show me your cutlery”, which she then proceeded to do.

Dacharys Cutlery

We also found the future home of the Bighorn Sheep. Presumably this is where the last mating pair will be kept once we’ve fully destroyed their environment.

Future Home of the Bighorn Sheep

Fox

Fox

Peacock

There were also some Timber Wolves and Artic Wolves, which looked a bit stressed. I think they just lacked cover, and space to run. There were Coyote’s in another pen that were pacing restlessly.

Timber Wolf

We wouldn’t suggest that they’re not taking good care of the beasts in their park, and many of them came to them because they were injured or raised by humans, and can never be released into the wild. That being said, wild animals just aren’t meant to be living in cages.

There were some beautiful exotic birds, but by this time we were so hot and exhausted that I got head-spinney every time I stood back up from crouching to take pictures. I didn’t bother figuring out what these gorgeous creatures were called.

Bird

Another Bird

Another Bird

Racoon Lounging

Check out the skin on this beaver’s tail:

Beaver

And, I love this little skunk in the middle of all these people… Just waiting until the perfect moment I’m sure.

Skunk

Afterwards we made a beeline for the nearest food. We were running on empty and I was so flying on autopilot that I dropped the bike trying to mount it. :/

On the way to the Kentucky Fried Taco Dachary said “I felt something hit my boot. What was it?” and I said “probably just bug”, because I’ve had some big-ass bugs hit my boot, but I did see some black thing bounce away, that looked a bit bigger than a bug… A few minutes later we get to the KFT and Dachary see’s this:

Missing Bolt

which really ought to look like this

Non-Missing Bolt

and helps keep the forks attached…. nothing terribly important.

So, back I go on the BMW while Dachary stays with the dogs and her … suboptimal ride. I park on the side of the road, unzip my suit and start walking, then as I pass back by the bike say “fuck that” take off the suit (since it’s so damn easy) and continue on without getting heat-stroke. Walk, walk, walk…. until finally:

Bolt Found

I never did find the washer that goes under it.

We ate lunch, then I swung by a back-woods VW fix-it place hoping they might have a washer that would work, but they didn’t and pointed me to a place I never found, but did stumble across a hardware store where I found a o-ring that I figured might help exert a little pressure on those threads to keep them better in place.

And yes, we have blue lock-tite with us, but we need to undo that bolt every time we check the steering head bearing (worst design ever).

Somehow we managed to find ourselves in the Highland Family Campground (which didn’t appear on the map) which turned out be be quite nice for a private campground, if a bit pricey…. $46… which sadly is about the same for private US campgrounds. Dachary helped me get the poles in then ran off to grab dinner while I finished off. We made a time-lapse of the process for you.

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A couple with 2 dogs and a thirst for exploring the places in-between.