The Adventures of Sunsette -- PTFCo Grand Tour hits PEI! (July 4)

[Alliecat]

"The accounting office threw up its hands and said Whateverz.  Smoke em while ya got em.  Yes, they do have a lot of erosion.  And on the north shore the dunes change all the time."

"Mum says, she would love to ride along with the Grand Tour guys and share their adventures, and that simultaneously she would not want to be anywhere near the predicaments they get into.
"The picnic parts would be fun though."


"Mum forgot to make a sandwich before we set off this morning.  This is why you should always have cutlery in your glovebox."



"Cape Bear light, at the southeast tip of PEI.  We did not stay long because the blackflies were atrocious!!!"



"Beach Point light is at the other side of that southeast tip, and it was not buggy.  So we had a walk on the beach and looked at all the red rocks.  This spot has a few grey ones."





June 11
"We've had one more day of driving all over.  We have covered much of PEI by now.  Today Mum could only find a couple of properties to drive by, so we kinda slacked off and went to PEI National Park's Greenwich dunes ."


"It's been very windy all week, but it's warm, so it's actually nice!"



"Wow, Mum -- we almost have the beach to ourselves!"



"We'll have some more pictures off the camera.  Mum didn't let us pose on the marsh boardwalk because it was windy and she was afraid we might fall in the water.  But after the boardwalk is this steep hill and steps down over the dune."



"Lookit this enormous wall of sand!  Greenwich's parabolic dunes are rare.  It's a special wildlife habitat too."



"Whoaaa.... Willya LOOK at all this SPACE?!?  There's, like, nobody here!!"



"We could be happy here, Mum... couldn't we."
...Yes... yes I think we could.



"The Mi'kmaq people have a very long ancestral history here.  It's neat to see some of the road signs including native place names.  The nearby interpretive center has a lot of information about their history."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-ed...-1.5708332



"This is where our latest accommodation is.  ...this has gotta be some kind of good omen, doesn't it??"

"Thanks for reading!
"Love, Sunsette "

[davidd]

There used to be vast tracts of unrestricted dunes in Oregon where I grew up. Over the years, the areas surrounding "where the sand dunes are" has been increasingly developed, with efforts made to control and restrict natural dune movement. Now, areas where I used to slide down dunes on a plastic saucer when I was a kid are overgrown with beach grass and imported gorse. The dunes aren't allowed to drift like they once did. As a result, the dunes are gradually disappearing.

Of course, plenty of dune space is maintained for ATVs.

Has gorse from Europe been imported in to Canada? I've never seen thorns on anything like the thorns on gorse.

There's an inland dune area here in Utah, about an hour south, Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park. It's pretty impressive, altho' like many dune areas, it is mostly maintained for off-road vehicle enthusiasts.

I remember person-less beaches like that in Oregon when I was a kid. I even remember certain person-less stretches of beach like that on the North Shore of Oahu when I first moved there. Things were getting pretty crowded by the time I left, with always more ocean-front development.

[Alliecat]

It's amusing (not really) that whoever's managing that land thinks keeping dunes for ATV use is "maintaining" them.  PEI National Park's effort to protect the dune system and allow it to behave naturally means you are Absolutely NOT allowed to walk on them.  The marram grass and other plants that hold them together are fragile.  I have no idea whether there is gorse in Canada.

.......................................................


"Goodbye PEI.  We promise... we'll be back.  Mum has vowed to bring the sand back to that beach when we find a home..."



"Two tired and sad travellers back on the ferry.  Mum never speeds... but thanks to losing half an hour going 2 km in Charlottetown traffic, she had to, to make the ferry.  We missed the reservation cutoff time but fortunately the boat was barely half full.  You just never know.  We made it with 15 minutes to spare, and we are so Over It."

"Mum took a lot more pictures with the Optio so we'll have some more -- we hope soon."

"Love, Sunsette "

[davidd]

Absolutely no walking on the dunes? Seems like "protecting" a place is always one extreme or another.

Mum never speeds, huh? Of course, in Canada speeding probably means ten years in the slammer. Seems like everybody speeds here in the wild west, but you kind of get used to it after a while. The posted freeway speed limit on the I-15 of 80mph (that's a lot in kph) sometimes seems like it's a "minimum" rather than a "maximum."

Gonna take the sand back to the PEI dunes so you don't get busted for disturbing the ecosystem?

How many times does the ferry run each day?

[Alliecat]

No walking, because tromping all over the grasses holding the dunes together would totally smush them and destroy the roots and wreck the fragile system.
People speed here all the time. I'm the one who's always pulling over to avoid having someone end up in my trunk.
The ferry runs 4 round trips a day, with the 2nd boat on in the summer for 3 more. Except for right now because it's broken, and there are No Trips At All, with a bunch of people stranded on both sides, and no information as to what is wrong with it, and the backup boat is still away for maintenance in NS, apparently started home & then went back because according to the Facebook rumour mill it "blew up an engine".
I hear a couple of people are going over in fishing boats to pick up stranded passengers.
...did I mention I'm Overrrr Ittt with the ferry??????

[davidd]

So you can't even walk on the sand part of the dunes? Of course, your average moron out there can't tell the difference between "sand" and "grass" so... yeah, I get it.

I pull over to let faster traffic pass as well, especially when I know I have a turn-off in to a driveway or something coming up. Seriously, if I can see 'em in the mirror, no matter how far back they are, they're gonna be hugging the bumper within 30 seconds. It's really getting crazy.

Sounds like you need to get yourself a boat of your own! Of course, moorage fees etcetera etcetera. Maybe an airplane, since you're halfway to your pilot's license already! And airplane in which you can haul a motorcycle so you can go places after you land.

[Alliecat]

OK.  So if you look at the pictures of the beach & dune... there is grass growing on the dune.... so you don't walk on the dune beyond where the grass starts.  Because if you walk between the grass clumps you might be damaging the root system even if there isn't any grass Right On That Spot.
There is tons of beach to enjoy without scrambling over the dunes.  A lil respect for Mother Nature.

And airplane in which you can haul a motorcycle so you can go places after you land.

I mean, sure, OK, I guess something like that could work...

[davidd]

Ha! "It's a good thing this runway is 26 miles long!"

That would have been easier to manage with front-wheel drive cars.

I thought those Chevrolet SSR pickup trucks were pretty cool back in the day. I still think they're cool.

[Alliecat]

"Hi!  We're back with some more pix from our PEI Grand Tour!  A little more detail, a few more places... a bit more of our story following our dispatches from the field.  We hope you enjoy seeing more of beautiful PEI.
".... and beautiful US too!"


"Here we are getting underway on our way out of Saint John.  PEI's not that far away.  No two-day drive like to Nova Scotia.  One good point already."



"Our arrival!  A nice evening, and what we hope is the start of a new adventure."



"Driving over the bridge is really cool, although it has high enough sides that it doesn't look like much when you're on it -- just road and walls.  Sometimes you get a glimpse of what's ahead where it curves.  It's just under 13km long, and it took us 15 whole minutes to drive across.  Really makes you feel like you're Going Somewhere!"



"One of the first things we found was this sign.  We're hoping its not a ... um... sign.  Mum often says that our ship has sunk here, and we are in need of a safe harbour, a new home and not a lifeboat property.  The fact that this means 'no anchorage here' was something we chose not to take as an omen."



"A little less-underex-posed photo of the "Quartermaster" statue at the Marine Rail historical park; he's a tribute to marine and railway workers of times past.  They actually used to put trains on the ferries!"






"We started ex!ploring the next day after Mum's first meeting.  Of course, we took an unproductive turn and ended up in a construction zone.  This was also the point at which our car started moaning about its front wheel."


"What is this?  This isn't slow traffic, this is a parking lot.  Come onnn, GET OUT OF THE WAY!"
*channelling Jeremy Clarkson?



"We made it through another couple or three hours of driving with a whiny and very hot brake caliper.  So the next day we had to scrap our drive plan, and Mum spent much of the morning calling garages.  We told that story earlier; in perfect Grand Tour style, we ended up in a dirty dive of a garage and he did a bandaid sort of lube thing that got Mum to her next meeting, and then we kinda limped around (the car and Mum both; she's got a sore foot) Charlottetown, where the recon trip started to convert to spending moneyz.  Here's another look at our working lunch sitting on a sidestreet while Mum does news deadline, real estate, more accommodation and further drive plans."



"This is Province House in Charlottetown, 'birthplace of Confederation'.  The building has been closed for restoration since 2015!!  This prolonged half-together under-construction kinda struck us as appropriate for Canada at the moment...."



"The war monument is for soldiers in both world wars, Korea, and Afghanistan.  It was dedicated in 1925."



"St. Dunstan's Basilica... we didn't go in but it looks amazing from photos we found.  We'll put it on the list of things to see another time."



"Another pic of what Mum says is a very appropriate shirt."



"Aww, MUM!!  The Dirt Road Tour??!?  AGAIN?!?!?!?!
"Actually it wasn't that bad.  We were quite impressed with how much better PEI's roads are than Nova Scotia's.  We only encountered a few side roads like this, and they were weird little mid-sections of road in between paved parts that joined other roads.  So, like, did someone just decide 'let's stop paving here' at each end...?"



"Saturday we were on the road again.  Hans the mechanic got us a shiny new brake caliper, and, no longer afraid our wheel was going to catch fire, we decided to go up to the north shore after all.  Not originally part of the plan, but, we're staying extra days now so why not.  And, nothing is very far from anything on PEI.  This is Lucy Maud Montgomery's house.  Closed... something else for another time.  Anne of Green Gables stuff is everywhere on PEI."



"And, we found BOATS!  Yay!  This is French River.  Doesn't look quite as magical as the spectabulous painting we saw in a Charlottetown shop, but, the surrounding country is nice."






"Another day, another drive, with all our stuff packed as we had to leave our Airbnb.  Mum won't miss the ten-million-degrees memory-foam mattress and none of us will miss the cigar-smoke residue from the garage downstairs.  Here we are at Point Prim where Mum spent moar moneyz at the lighthouse gift shop."



"And this is Hannah's Bottle Village, which we mentioned earlier too.  It was whimsical and we had a quick look around, but the owners weren't there so we didn't stay too long."



"Sherwood Forest.  With bottles.  Um... OK...."






"We finished up the day at Wood Islands, in time to see the ferry on its way to Nova Scotia.  The lighthouse was completed in 1876 and had a budget of $6000.  The land it was built on cost $300. 
"Dang.  We're a little late.
"In 2009 the lighthouse was moved inland because in the time since it was built, nearly 150 metres of coastline had eroded away!"

"Thanks for reading.  More to come."

"Love, Sunsette "

[davidd]

What an exciting adventure!

The working-from-the-road part is interesting, too! That little car is a mobile office... and lunch counter!

Yeah, historic or public buildings "under restoration" is something I'm too familiar with. Actually, it sends me in to a rage. The one time I visited D.C. in the US, the Lincoln Memorial was surrounded by scaffolding and tarps and had been undergoing "restoration" for several years, and was still several years from completion. The entire "restoration" was taking more than twice as long as it originally took to build it. So frustrating. The modern era sucks and everybody in it sucks and everything about it sucks. They built the Empire State Building in New York in the 1930s in 18 months from starting to draw the plans to open for business. These days, everything takes two decades and never turns out right.

Escaping to the location and era of Anne of Green Gables sounds blissful, but... I'm guessing your photos are "selectively curated" and that real life there isn't like it was... because it's Canada, which loves government intrusion.

My grandparents used to tell me when I was a kid about how they could have purchased ocean-front land for $100.

I'm sorry -- I'm ranting more about the "concepts" your photos and captions evoke than about the scenes and the journey, which actually sounds like a lot of fun. Except for the work from the car part. And the broken car -- altho' that turned in to a mini adventure with a story and you got the car fixed!

[Alliecat]

"Lunch in the car is pretty much the norm when we go away."

"Here's the next chapter of our PEI Grand Tour!  Yay!"


"Our first big beach is Cavendish, on the north shore."



"Red beaches, red rocks.  This little scene might be on Mars, if Mars had birds."



"Our new toy.  You can't tell here that it needs major repairs...."



"We found a ... BUMBLEBEE, SLEEPING ON A ROCK!"



"Yes, it really was alive.  We hope it was just sleeping, and was OK.  Seems like a weird spot for a bee to sleep."



"We also found these weird tracks, which Mum hasn't found out what they are yet."



"This is pretty nice.... I think we'd like it here."



"...sighh...."



"We left our mark."



"Pretty evening colours at Rustico beach."



"Next day, we're doing south/east shore.  We found chair-sized scallop shells."



"After lunch in the car, which we posted a pic of the trunk sandwich station previously, we visited Cape Bear lighthouse.  The Marconi station heard the first Titanic distress call in Canada in 1912.  (A Newfoundland station communicated with them but Nfld. wasn't part of Canada yet.)  It wasn't open.  And the blackflies here were, like, biblical plague level.  We shot a couple of quick photos and ran for it."






"Cape Bear is the waaaayyy southeast point of PEI.  On the other side of the point is Beach Point, with another lighthouse."



"You can't really see it in the photo, but the sand right here is full of little glittery bits."






"And there are BOATS.  Yay!"



"How cool is THIS.  We missed posing with it cos we waited in the car while Mum wandered around a piece of land."



"There are lots of little beaches.  At this one, someone had painted the rocks."



"And we found a mermaid.  Sort of."



"...as well as this funky little we-sized cave and arch."


"Thanks for reading!  More to come."
"Love, Sunsette  "

[TrueFan]

Lunch in the car was the norm when I was a kid. Or at a picnic table at a rest area.

[davidd]

I like how you're staging this trip as a "Grand Tour" episodes. Do you have a co-driver to share wisecracks with, or are most of the travel conversations between Sunsette and Mum?

Is that layers of dried salt on the rocks in the motor scooter pic?

I used to find bees on the beach once in a while. Usually honeybees. I think maybe they come down to get water but then get wet or something and have to dry out before they can fly. That ginormous bumblebee might be a carpenter bee. (Eastern Carpenter Bee, sez teh interwebz.)

I've seen weird tracks like that in the sand. I've seen what makes them. But I won't tell you, because I know you'll enjoy tracking (ha!) down the mystery.

So, like, about a bazillion years ago, when I was a kid, we were at the beach with our grandparents. My grandma and my little brother were sitting on a big log WAY back from the surf line, in the dry sand like in this picture. A so-called "sneaker wave" rolled in. It didn't look all that big, but it was fast, and the water kept coming and coming until about two inches of water hit the log, enough to float it and move it and to send my grandma and little brother tumbling! They both got totally wet and covered in sand! I suppose it could have been super dangerous, as those large drift logs weigh tons, but as it was, it was pretty funny.

Oh, man! That little beach stream inspires the full-on "nostalgia feelz" from when I was a kid ex-ploring at the Oregon coast. All those once-remote beaches are lined by fancy rich people houses now.

Those scallop shells would make perfect mini-sized sand saucers for sliding down sand dunes. But... no walking on the dunes!

Hey, lobster traps! I've heard of a place where hundreds of those have been discarded!

"Biblical plague level" of flies! That sounds nasty! Reminds me of the mosquitoes I encountered in the Klondike. (And, once, at Yellowstone Park.)

The Beach Point light looks more practical than aesthetically pleasing, but at least they've given it a classic colour scheme.

Little glittery bits in the sand, and is that a turban snail shell?

Is that a wild iris? When I was a kid, wild irises of a type called "Lady Slippers" grew in the deep moss in the forested portion of my grandparents' farm. Supposedly they were an "endangered species."

People used to paint on the rocks at Ka'ena Point when I lived on Oahu. That would be Ka'ena Point where, when the Coast Guard decommissioned the small lighthouse, they knocked over the tower. Because, y'know, gub'mint. The lighthouse remains became a "canvas" for those with an artistic bent (and a backpack full of spray paint).

Oh, that mermaid, carved in to the rock! Art? Or vandalism?

The cave looks like a fine place to get out of the sun and wind for a few moments; or until the tide comes in. Were there any prehistoric-looking isopods scurrying around in the dark sea cave crevices?