New Rule...

New Rule: IQ tests are required for anyone trying to purchase spray-paint. 
 

...Well, good thinking.  It's also going to cost you another $1,000 when it dawns on you that you just spray-painted every surface of your truck in a rainbow of colors.  Any local kids who miss the "20 foot" part of that are also balling their eyes out when they see the local rednecks are gunning for their Santa Claus again.

The only thing that would make this better is if this isn't that guy's truck to begin with, and next week there is another vehicle parked next to it reading, "$1000 reward for the arrest & conviction of the @$$hole who spray-painted my truck."

Oh, I sense a challenge...

On Tim Hortons and Massive Axes

Nova Scotia loves Tim Hortons.  Seriously.  And let me tell you...I love it too.  Where else is a 'lunch combo' a sandwich, donut, and coffee?  What kind of combination of foods is that?!  The donuts are a little Krispy Kreme,  but the sandwiches taste 100% homemade.

This has got to be the only food establishment I've come across that actually manages to have more locations in a given area than McDonalds.  I passed about 40 of them, but through a little research I've found over 100 locations in Nova Scotia, the equivalent of about one Tim Hortons for every 7,000 citizens.  Not bad.

A crappy collage of almost 40 different Tim Hortons I passed on the roads of NS

While traveling through New Brunswick, I came across yet another "World's Largest..." site, this time for the World's Largest Axe.  I was hoping to run into some locales while there so I could try to convince them that I come from a family of Lumberjacks and that I made the journey some 600 miles just to see this very axe, but for some reason there wasn't a soul there -- surely there should have been a line of cars for something as awe-inspiring as this--no?

This axe towered over the Canadian flag

I was pretty pumped to get my picture taken with this monstrosity

Nova Scotia

I'm in Nova Scotia.  It's very windy.  I'm surrounded by the ocean and rocky cliffs.  I love it.

Today was mostly a driving day (side-note: I drove 700-miles before I saw my first cop) and the weather wasn't particularly great either.  While the conditions took the beauty out of most of what my camera could capture today, it has been one heck of a gorgeous tour so far.

Crashing in the northern part of Nova tonight and then traveling along the coast down to Halifax tomorrow.  Was planning to be up for sunrise, but that is at 4am EST and I might need more than four hours of sleep.

I sat on a thorn bush while taking this shot

Everywhere I go there is a new, "World's Largest [random item]! Next Exit!"

My homework assignment when I get a chance: Research the waste disposal practices of Nova Scotia.  I don't know what is happening here, but 50% of the driveways I pass are stacked with trash.  I'm not talking bags of your normal disposable items--I'm talking like stoves, mattresses, oil furnaces (the most-common), and just about any other major appliance you would find in a kitchen or a basement.  Now, don't get me wrong--this place is very clean.  In New England, 'adopt-a-highway' means a crew of a dozen people pick up a good 50 bags of trash along a couple-mile stretch of highway.  In New Brunswick/Nova Scotia, it was one man walking down the highway with no trash bag, picking up the rare items of trash by hand.

And to think how pissed Waste Management gets in NE when you don't sort your plastics...

Oh, no you didn't!

Did this dude seriously just stick his tongue out at me?

Welcome to Iowa: You must be lost

I finally made it to Iowa today.

I'd rather have been in Nebraska.

 Rejected state motto's

In all honesty, Iowa was actually really nice, but without having gone into the cities, it was very similar to Nebraska's landscape and left me a little bored when it came to finding something I wanted to capture.

First thing you see when entering New Hampshire is a liquor store.  First thing you see when entering Iowa is Stoner Drugs.

Naturally, I decided I had to find and travel the first road I came across that was not intended for cars.  The result was I got stuck on some sort of wildlife preserve on a one-way road; I didn't realize this until I was a mile or two in.  It was either keep driving the road until I came out somewhere, or drive in reverse down the 8' wide road that had steep drop-offs into the streams around it.  As I am still living by my motto of No U-Turns. Ever. I drove through it, parking next to every "No Parking. Do Not Stop Vehicle" sign I found.  I should mention that this is where Iowa stood apart from Kansas, Nebraska, and just about every other state I've been in; while there were shotgun shells everywhere, for once none of the road signs were shot to pieces!  Iowans must be a bit more proper.  Or maybe they just have really bad aim.

I saw plenty of wildlife running around, but I was too concerned with getting out of the place to patiently wait to get good shots.  What I did do was wander into the wetlands barefoot (bad idea but I didn't want to get my shoes wet) to get a variety of different shots of how the area was growing in.

This makes my fifth state in the past two weeks.  Speaking of which, another Kansas fact I forgot to mention the other day (which I unfortunately did not get a picture of):

You know you are in Kansas when...

        ...you are filling your tank next to a man pumping gas wearing only a bathrobe, who is standing next to his wife (wearing only her pajamas) who is smoking a cigarette.

 Eh, what the heck, I'll throw in one more...

You know you are in Kansas when...

        ...you are driving behind a twenty-year old GMC truck that is going 35mph in a 55, when it suddenly accelerates to approximately 70mph while swerving towards a flock of turkeys crossing the road, only to slow back to 35 after failing to hit any of them.

You know you are in Kansas City when...
          ...vanity plates are unprecedentedly blunt and disturbing: