Have you ever forgotten the word for something, and it comes to you at the most unfortunate time?

I had something like that happen to me today. While I was crouched down peeing behind a bush today, I suddenly remembered what poison ivy looked like. Because I was peeing on it.

Still I thought… nooooo, whats the chance of that?

Until we saw this sign:

We had been walking through it.

If this is poison ivy, would anyone mind telling me how long until I’d be itchy? We delicately stripped our shoes and socks and pants off when we got home. Neither of us have ever had it before. Maybe we’re immune. How do we wash our running shoes? If it is poison ivy, it is definitely on our shoes unless the sand took the oils off.

We went to the ocean today – on the west side of Nova Scotia – so it was the Gulf. Not too far from town there are a couple of beaches so we went to explore that area. First we took a small gravel road that stopped at a sandy area near the water. We stopped the car before the sand and walked over to the water’s edge, through some big fire pits.

We walked along the coast and picked up some shells and neat looking rocks. Here are some of the photos I took. You’ll notice poison ivy in half of the photos:

Dead fish? I couldn’t help myself, it made a good photo.

The oddest things wash up on shore.

There’s my blue beauty!

We saw a couple of these guys around. Blue heron?

Here is the flag of Nova Scotia:

There were protected areas on the beaches where the piping plover bird has nesting areas. They are an endangered species. I don’t think we saw one.

There was another sign that warned of jellyfish in the hot summer weather. Ouch!