On PEI!

Life on the road is still good! Even though it is our third trip to Prince Edward Island, I still felt a rush as we were coming over that 8-mile bridge. It’s simply wonderful to have all that planning and dreaming come to life. And of course, we celebrated by getting Cow’s Ice Cream, a PEI specialty. It’s tradition! When all was said and done, we drove 2035.4 miles to get to our destination of Prince Edward Island. Our little oil-loving car needed two extra quarts to get here and another one since we arrived, but otherwise there have been no real troubles along the way. We are blessed.

This is our fourth day here. R.J. and I have more time on PEI this trip than we had on either of our other two trips. We’ll be here a total of 11 days/10 nights, whereas we only spent a week here in 2013 and 2018. Our first three nights have been spent on the south side of the Island in a two-bedroom apartment. It is part of a farmhouse, and the owners live on the other side of the house. When we arrived, there was a box of Anne of Green Gables Chocolates waiting here for us, as an anniversary present from the owners. Isn’t that sweet? This place has had everything we needed and was a wonderful place to rest as well as a good jumping off place for adventures.

R.J. and I used our first full day here to rest. All that time driving/being in a car plus the fact that we moved ahead two time zones really took a lot out of us. After a slow start to the morning for this usual early riser, I walked around the farm and explored the paths down to the ocean that the owner had created. I so enjoyed having some time alone with nature and God, just admiring the red sand, the dunes, and the sound of the waves. It was delightful, and I have lots of pictures to prove it! Then, after a lazy early afternoon, we headed over to Summerside to have an anniversary dinner. Our actual anniversary is on Sunday, but we wanted to celebrate early. R.J. did some research, figured out where we should go (Brothers 2), and made reservations for us. We both had seafood, since we are over here on the ocean. Our meals were delicious, and mine was large enough to feed me at lunchtime the next day as well! Win!

On our second full day here we had more energy, so we planned two adventures. In the morning, we took our lives in our hands by driving down a pretty sketchy little red road to get to Blockhouse Point Lighthouse. I think it was definitely worth the drive – but then I wasn’t the one doing the driving. R.J. must really love me! We walked around there, enjoying the lupines and the view, before heading to our second stop of the morning. Skmaqn–Port-la-Joye–Fort Amherst National Historic Site was right next to the lighthouse, so we went there too – and then remembered that we had been there on our first trip to PEI, 10 years ago. We still enjoyed a walk around the site. During the afternoon, we went to Bonshaw Provincial Park to do some hiking. It reminded us of hiking at State Parks, except there was no password to find along the trail. Our Minnesota State Parks hiking friends will understand! They had lots of trails that crisscrossed over each other here, and all the trails were well-marked. It was overall a positive experience, exept for the devastation all around us as we walked. PEI was hit hard by Hurricane Fiona last fall. In our earlier travels around PEI, we have seen a few trees down here and there. It really didn’t seem that unusual; however, along these trails, trees were down truly everywhere. You could tell that the provincial parks people had worked very hard to reopen all the trails, but alongside the trails there were hundreds of trees down. I could hardly believe the quantity. It makes me wonder what we will see in the other parks we go visit. I can believe that clean-up will take years to complete.  

Bonshaw Provincial Park devastation

We have come to the end of our time at this place and will be moving on to the next one (on the north side of the Island) after we load the car back up. This next part of our trip is not like any of our other PEI adventures, because the family will be joining us! We can’t wait to see Joseph, David, Laura, Andrew, Elle, and Liam, and we wish them well on their flights! Four of them (David, Andrew, Elle, and Liam) have never flown before, and the other two are not exactly experts. Today will be a big undertaking for them, and hopefully a mostly fun one. We wish Em and Eric could have joined us as well, but they just aren’t able to do that. We are all looking forward to video chatting with them, to include them in this crazy trip of ours. PEI Part 2, here we come!