PEI Playground

Prince Edward Island was a very fun playground for several days. We stayed at a perfect B&B in Charlottetown and used that as our base for our time there, which included...

-- Visiting a potato farm! (Another crazy connection: in the next condo building over from my grandma in her Florida retirement community, there's a couple who lives here who I met when I was visiting in January, and they are connected to these PEI potato farmers.) We even got to ride on the tractor, as we happened to be there on a planting day. It was such a surprise to see the inside of the tractor cab crammed with computers, including a GPS function that steers the machine to make the rows totally straight. And then we got to see the warehouse from which they're still distributing last year's crop.

-- Visiting the tiny seaside town of Victoria, where unfortunately we witnessed the aftermath of a fire in a candle-making shed. On the plus side, that means the the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were on the scene, and apparently my mom has a thing for the RCMP. They were flattered by her fascination and let her try out the patrol car.

-- Making the typical pilgrimage to Cavendish and the childhood homestead of L.M. Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables, and the adjacent property, which she visited often and made the setting for the books. It really was as idyllic.

From there, we spent several hours wandering the beach at Prince Edward Island National Park at Cavendish. In the pictures I've seen of this place, it's draped in people lying blanket to blanket all summer, so it was amazing to have it entire to ourselves. Literally, we didn't see another person on the beach. The tourist season here really doesn't get started until early-to-mid-June. We were lucky to be a bit early.

-- Making an abrupt (due to me slamming on the brakes when I saw it) at a goats' milk soap company, and even got to feed one of the baby goats who'd been abandoned by its mother.

-- Biking the Confederation Trail. This is the thing to do in PEI, and lots of people bike the entire length of the island, which is relatively small and flat but still a multi-day trip. We picked the 11 km between St. Peters Bay and Morell, which was plenty for us. If you try it, beware that you are not allowed to cross-country ski, shoot a rifle, ride a horse, or...open a tin can? on the lovely trail.

And then it was time to leave PEI, hopping on a ferry...

...Nova Scotia-bound!