Fair warning, this post was written while tipsy.
The weather was still pretty gray and windy this morning. This was the sea on the St. Lawrence side of the island, so I can only imagine what the Atlantic must have looked like:
Then we drove out to Bras d’Or Lake, and visited the Alexander Graham Bell museum. He summered here in a town called Baddeck – and it was very easy to see why he and his wife fell in love with the spot. It was just beautiful and serene, and must have been even more so in the early 1900’s. Turns out Bell was quite the inventor; I don’t think either of us really had appreciated how much more he did beyond the telephone. He was pioneering in so many other fields, especially aviation.
Here’s the view from the museum:
I just love the quote, right at the museum entrance:
This is a replica of the airplane Bell and his colleagues invented, the first one to fly in Canada:
You’ve got to be nuts to be the first person to try and fly this thing, but you at least have to admire the sheer chutzpah.
After leaving the museum, we drove along the lake coast a bit more, then turned inland and drove up to Lake Ainsley – which if I read the sign right is the largest freshwater lake in Canada. It was also quite a beautiful sight:
Leaving the lake, I had the batty idea to drive up to something called Egypt Falls; on Google Maps it listed it as a nice tourist destination. So we turn off the main route, and start driving on this muddy, gravel road – but there are Honda Civics passing us the other way, so we aren’t exactly worried. We finally get to this little sign pointing down a hiking trail. I googled it, and all the posts say it’s a short hike and worth it. So we figured, why not? and starting hiking down this trail. It keeps getting steeper and steeper, but we can hear the falls, and after a certain amount of time, you’re pretty committed to the enterprise (even if you know walking back up is just going to be the worst thing ever). Well, we made it nearly to the bottom, but when the trail started to use ropes, that’s when we called it quits. We got a bit of shot of the falls through the trees, but that was about it:
After hoofing it back to the car, it was time to get back to the distillery for our tour.
As anyone who knows us could tell you, I am rather emphatically not a whiskey aficionado, but Jon very much is. I have to say, that was a ton of fun, and we both learned a lot.
First we went into the distillery itself, and learned how whiskey is made, then we went into the warehouses where they age the whiskey in barrels:
We tasted some 21 year old whiskey out of the barrel, and then it was on to the pub, where it was considerably warmer and more comfortable. To prove the point, while we were sitting there we had snow flurries. (and let me point out, it’s June 3 – although apparently this isn’t terribly usual weather for June.)
We tasted 5 different whiskies – one unaged, which I didn’t much care for, then a 15 year old (I liked this one), a 10 year old that had been finished in ice wine barrels (definitely my favorite), a 23 year old (very complex – I liked this one too), and finally a 15 year old made with a peat mash. I hated it, but Jon loved it, it’s along the lines of the Scotch he usually drinks.
All in all, we had a great few hours talking to Donnie about whiskey and life. Definitely worth the money. Now we’re taking a nap before dinner. We’re really looking forward to going to the Cape Breton Highlands tomorrow.