The Adventures of Sunsette -- Our PEI souvenir (July 11)

[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 "