Salutations:
Pleased to know I haven't scared people away from the province, I figure it's always better to be as frank as possible and try apologize if I offend anyone.. At least that way, people have some faith that I'm at least trying to speak the truth as I see it..
Anyway, on the subject of 'visual paradise - roads from hell' in Nova Scotia.. visitors will mostly find the primary highways pretty good (the twined major highways are in particularly good shape depending on which way you are traveling) - however, the secondary roads you need to take to get anywhere interesting in Nova Scotia are increasingly in need of repair and best traveled in off hours (late at night, mid morning/afternoon, sunrise).. because you'd have to be really confident or really crazy to run them at anymore than about 40 mph (about 70 kph)..
A good tip in Canada is that they post longer secondary roads at 90 kph - which you should take as about the number of days it's gonna take for someone to drive by and find you and yours.. Moreover - I happen to know as a fact that they only put curve signage or guard rails up when there has already been an incident that required them.. If they are showing you a guard rail or up-coming turn - check your speed..
This isn't as big a deal in Nova Scotia as it would seem as the province is very small by Canadian standards - I usually describe the mileage from Halifax N.S. to Toronto Ontario (sort of north east of Detroit) as about the same as driving from Paris to Moscow (one of the reasons they are miserly with signage up here I think)..
But Nova Scotia can be crossed from Atlantic to Bay of Funday in about 45 minutes depending on the route you choose.. which is paramount regarding safe navigation of the elephant as most of the interior secondary highways were put in in the '40's to haul lumber out and are still in use by heavy lumber/mining trucks who tend to leave the pavement crushed fairly deeply..
This is exacerbated by what I think is the worst frost/heave cycle on the planet..
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, frost/heave happens when ground water under the pavement freezes and expands (pushing boulders and stuff upwards) then thaws out, turning all the supporting soil under the roadway to soft pudding - which lets the boulders and stuff sink again but leave shallow water puddles as the only supporting substructure under the pavement - the practical upshot of which is that you get really deep potholes and long deep trenching on the pavement when a heavy loaded truck passes over.. This trenching is not at all like 'rutting' which usually happens under both wheels on an older highway.. and in Nova Scotia I have crossed a perfectly repaired stretch of road, flat as a billiard table in the fall - and returned in the spring to find the same stretch of road literally unpassable as we will do a freeze/thaw cycle here about 10-15 times over the course of a winter..
Typical Maritime Frost/heave trenching will see about a 50 foot long 6 inch deep (rounded on the sides) trench under your 'Oh My God' seat then some light left/right mogaling (like ski hill stuff) - then another 50 foot long 6 inch deep trench on the drivers side.. usually followed by a set of flat dips and rises in series that usually close with a really tremendous pothole or pavement 'curl' (when the pavement pushes up like a small wave on the ocean) at the end.. All of which is why we have named our GMC 'The Elephant' - because running these kinda roads makes our GMC look exactly like a elephant walking through the forest.. anyway..
Most of the these roads have about a 2 or 3 inch drop between the pavement and the shoulder gravel - which brings us to my 'High Pucker Factor moment' (a motorcycling term related to the remarkable suction power your backside can produce in certain riding situations)..
I was making my way back from Five Islands/Economy on the north side of the Bay of Funday and was running through a trench (I have worked out that if I don't fight it to much - it tends to self correct) - when I got my first GMC driving surprise.. I was on a left hand sweep onto a small bridge when, first, my rears then my front passenger side tires got hooked over the shoulder.. I had read in '75 popular mechanix owners report that this shoulder situation was 'exciting'.. which I think was a bit of an understatement..
While I was saying 'whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa' (which, I gotta tell ya spooks the passengers quiet a bit) - I tried to slowly coax the front wheels out without oversteering as I was worried that I would get the front wheels heeled over too far - then eject from the shoulder like a whale breaching, catch the front wheels funny and roll my elephant over between the bridge abutment like a cork in a bottle (yes, I think this all happened over a 4-6 second period - but that's a lot of time to think in the circumstance).. Finally, the shoulder seem to let go and I got back into the trench and crossed the bridge with about 20 feet to spare.. But I can assure you good folks that I don't think I was in full control for much of the exercise..
I realize that asking for written advise about driving technique is kinda like asking someone to do interpretive dance about architecture.. but if you have any simple advise I could put in the emergency brain rolodex - I (as would Mrs. D and the kids) would be greatly in your debt.. Something that rhymes with 'whoa' would be nice..
So, for travellers - general roads in Nova Scotia are not a problem, nor the major highways and where we travel may not typical but the really out of the way places - which is to say where we want to go - should be run at lower speeds than posted and any signs you happen to see on 90 kph roads are there because someone who drove before you on that road needed a sign or guard rail and didn't have one..
your pal
J Dexter
Pleased to know I haven't scared people away from the province, I figure it's always better to be as frank as possible and try apologize if I offend anyone.. At least that way, people have some faith that I'm at least trying to speak the truth as I see it..
Anyway, on the subject of 'visual paradise - roads from hell' in Nova Scotia.. visitors will mostly find the primary highways pretty good (the twined major highways are in particularly good shape depending on which way you are traveling) - however, the secondary roads you need to take to get anywhere interesting in Nova Scotia are increasingly in need of repair and best traveled in off hours (late at night, mid morning/afternoon, sunrise).. because you'd have to be really confident or really crazy to run them at anymore than about 40 mph (about 70 kph)..
A good tip in Canada is that they post longer secondary roads at 90 kph - which you should take as about the number of days it's gonna take for someone to drive by and find you and yours.. Moreover - I happen to know as a fact that they only put curve signage or guard rails up when there has already been an incident that required them.. If they are showing you a guard rail or up-coming turn - check your speed..
This isn't as big a deal in Nova Scotia as it would seem as the province is very small by Canadian standards - I usually describe the mileage from Halifax N.S. to Toronto Ontario (sort of north east of Detroit) as about the same as driving from Paris to Moscow (one of the reasons they are miserly with signage up here I think)..
But Nova Scotia can be crossed from Atlantic to Bay of Funday in about 45 minutes depending on the route you choose.. which is paramount regarding safe navigation of the elephant as most of the interior secondary highways were put in in the '40's to haul lumber out and are still in use by heavy lumber/mining trucks who tend to leave the pavement crushed fairly deeply..
This is exacerbated by what I think is the worst frost/heave cycle on the planet..
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, frost/heave happens when ground water under the pavement freezes and expands (pushing boulders and stuff upwards) then thaws out, turning all the supporting soil under the roadway to soft pudding - which lets the boulders and stuff sink again but leave shallow water puddles as the only supporting substructure under the pavement - the practical upshot of which is that you get really deep potholes and long deep trenching on the pavement when a heavy loaded truck passes over.. This trenching is not at all like 'rutting' which usually happens under both wheels on an older highway.. and in Nova Scotia I have crossed a perfectly repaired stretch of road, flat as a billiard table in the fall - and returned in the spring to find the same stretch of road literally unpassable as we will do a freeze/thaw cycle here about 10-15 times over the course of a winter..
Typical Maritime Frost/heave trenching will see about a 50 foot long 6 inch deep (rounded on the sides) trench under your 'Oh My God' seat then some light left/right mogaling (like ski hill stuff) - then another 50 foot long 6 inch deep trench on the drivers side.. usually followed by a set of flat dips and rises in series that usually close with a really tremendous pothole or pavement 'curl' (when the pavement pushes up like a small wave on the ocean) at the end.. All of which is why we have named our GMC 'The Elephant' - because running these kinda roads makes our GMC look exactly like a elephant walking through the forest.. anyway..
Most of the these roads have about a 2 or 3 inch drop between the pavement and the shoulder gravel - which brings us to my 'High Pucker Factor moment' (a motorcycling term related to the remarkable suction power your backside can produce in certain riding situations)..
I was making my way back from Five Islands/Economy on the north side of the Bay of Funday and was running through a trench (I have worked out that if I don't fight it to much - it tends to self correct) - when I got my first GMC driving surprise.. I was on a left hand sweep onto a small bridge when, first, my rears then my front passenger side tires got hooked over the shoulder.. I had read in '75 popular mechanix owners report that this shoulder situation was 'exciting'.. which I think was a bit of an understatement..
While I was saying 'whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa' (which, I gotta tell ya spooks the passengers quiet a bit) - I tried to slowly coax the front wheels out without oversteering as I was worried that I would get the front wheels heeled over too far - then eject from the shoulder like a whale breaching, catch the front wheels funny and roll my elephant over between the bridge abutment like a cork in a bottle (yes, I think this all happened over a 4-6 second period - but that's a lot of time to think in the circumstance).. Finally, the shoulder seem to let go and I got back into the trench and crossed the bridge with about 20 feet to spare.. But I can assure you good folks that I don't think I was in full control for much of the exercise..
I realize that asking for written advise about driving technique is kinda like asking someone to do interpretive dance about architecture.. but if you have any simple advise I could put in the emergency brain rolodex - I (as would Mrs. D and the kids) would be greatly in your debt.. Something that rhymes with 'whoa' would be nice..
So, for travellers - general roads in Nova Scotia are not a problem, nor the major highways and where we travel may not typical but the really out of the way places - which is to say where we want to go - should be run at lower speeds than posted and any signs you happen to see on 90 kph roads are there because someone who drove before you on that road needed a sign or guard rail and didn't have one..
your pal
J Dexter
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