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So I went. Ended up going by myself, seemed hard finding someone (I wanted) to go with me. But despite that it was great. I didn't get to talk to many people while I was there due to weather, reminants of Hurricane Hanna. And my pictures suffered because of it as well. But my eyes certainly did not. It's amazing out there. I really didn't want to come back to Ontario.

This is the route I took (more or less). http://tinyurl.com/63n72o

Pictures http://www.flickr.com/photos/30440898@N06/...57607242700425/

Some stats:

~5380.4 km travelled
511 L of 91 purchased (god awful to find sometimes)
$676.49 in gas
8.92 L/100 km avg
7.78 L/100 km best (I have a 6.1 L/100 km but I don't believe it)
89.2 km/h moving avg
you were driving that Saab eh.....

i test drove the same black one turbo wagon at Saab dealer a couple weeks back....and it had the biggest turbo lag i ever experienced.......it felt like the car was done tuned where WRX wagon just felt more sportier.....

nice interior though

i traveled to the East cost twice in the car.....loved it......and just came back from the work trip.....that was my 3rd time but we took a plane ofcourse
Mmmmm Lick A Chick. Good food there. So you went to Glace Bay. My Ex has family there. One thing I learned while in town. Its not the end of the world, but you can see it from there. :rofl:

You got some great pictures, beautiful scenery out east.
Nice pics man, PS you got a nice car too.
Great pics - is #9297 in/near Fundy Nat'l Park on Hwy 101?

I want to go back again some day, and the Escape seems to be the near-perfect ride to do it with.

The perfect ride would be a 1991-1995 Porsche 911 Carerra 4 S. ;)

It's good to see your little cruise missile had some decent mileage, too.
NikiterZTS,Sep 15 2008, 08:28 AM Wrote:you were driving that Saab eh.....

i test drove the same black one turbo wagon at Saab dealer a couple weeks back....and it had the biggest turbo lag i ever experienced.......it felt like the car was done tuned where WRX wagon just felt more sportier.....

nice interior though

i traveled to the East cost twice in the car.....loved it......and just came back from the work trip.....that was my 3rd time but we took a plane ofcourse
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I found the car drove exactly like a WRX engine wise. Car is a bit heavier, but I don't think you'd really notice that. But then, it was also my first turbo car. I'm not sure what you mean by "done tuned" though...

I think I was the only Saabaru for hundreds or possibly thousands of kms out there haha. I don't think I saw a car anywhere that required 91 octane, as I could barely find gas stations that had it half the time. They'd generally have one at the start of a fun route and at the end. And if you didn't fill up there you'd be hard pressed to find some elsewhere. Or if you did they were out.... But maybe that's just me too busy staring at scenery and not gas stations.

Focus man, Focus.,Sep 15 2008, 09:52 AM Wrote:Mmmmm Lick A Chick.  Good food there.  So you went to Glace Bay.  My Ex has family there.  One thing I learned while in town.  Its not the end of the world, but you can see it from there.  :rofl:

You got some great pictures, beautiful scenery out east.
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lol you really can see the end of the world... Some of the houses on the cliffs looked like they were going to lose the land they were sitting on soon though. The road had washed out in one place. You can see it here. It obviously happened quite a while back, but still.

NOS2Go4Me,Sep 15 2008, 10:17 AM Wrote:Great pics - is #9297 in/near Fundy Nat'l Park on Hwy 101?

I want to go back again some day, and the Escape seems to be the near-perfect ride to do it with.

The perfect ride would be a 1991-1995 Porsche 911 Carerra 4 S. ;)

It's good to see your little cruise missile had some decent mileage, too.
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#9297 would be from Cape Breton Island. Not exactly sure of the location on the road though. I wanted to geotag as many pics as I could, but can't manage to locate them well enough. It really was a nice cruise, once you got to the fun roads, there was not a cop in sight. Now I don't expect that to always be the case, as there are some places for them. But still it was nice.

I drafted a bit to get my mileage. Not tailgating of course, I had distance and could still see the trucks mirrors for the most part. So I could easily have gotten better mileage as at that distance the draft is pretty much lost. But it helped.

I would love to do the drive again in a proper sports car. I was thinking, why don't they do something like the Isle of Mann out there, but I suppose it's quite a lot longer around say for example, Cape Breton Island. But the roads just seemed so perfect for speeding on. Hell half the corners felt like they were banked and egging you on to go faster and faster until you see the cliff off the edge and a 35 km/h sign while going perhaps a bit faster than one should enter a 35 km/h corner...
sorry "down tuned" :)

i test drove 2005 and it was going for $17
with like 40k on the engine
Really nice. Appalachian mountains are a real nice sight to see.

Did you make a pit stop in Bathurst NB? If I would have known you were going out there, I would have let you know of the good places to eat in that area.

I see on your map that you took hwy 11 all the way from Dalhousie south. Did you actually take that road or the 134 provincial road that follows the coast? The 134 is a rougher road, but nice twisties!
I was actually going in the opposite direction. I went through the US first then north. I did Cape Breton Island in the day then drove through the night to Gaspe (with sleeps along the way).

So I kept on highways to make it easy because I wouldn't see anything anyway.

I had limited time and lost a day because of fog, rain and flooded highways, and stopped in St John NB instead of going straight to Sydney.

I'll definitely have to go out there again with more time and preparation ahead. I pretty much just got up and drove to the east coast with little actual prep.

I even forgot to pack sweaters and jackets, so I bought a crappy jacket at Walmart.

Edit: Here's an updated route map http://tinyurl.com/57mebm. Just some small changes, but I picked them off the GPS recorded route. Unfortunately while recording the whole trip, it only seems to remember from leaving Cape Breton island to home. So I'm missing half the trip data and can't adjust the map anymore exactly than it is now, unless I can remember more. But I didn't really pay attention to the road names so much due to having the GPS...
great pictures, what camera were you using?

like the colours on some.

Thanks!

Nikon D100 with just my 18-70 kit lens. Oh and I had a polarizing filter on some of the time. I'll admit to falsifying the colours a bit.. rather, matching them up to how my mind saw the scenes... that is, straight out of the camera the colours weren't necissarily the same (Due to RAW and my lack of talent lol).