A few days in PEI, visiting Nancy and Pat, and touring

 

Michael Thomas memorial. A renowned PEI runner.

As usual we've had some fun days in PEI. We're parked in the driveway of Nancy and Pat, one of our favourite camping spots. Nancy is Cathie's sister.

These pictures don't do Nancy's yard justice, but here are a couple:

Wildflower plantings in their drainage ditch

A bit of view of Charlottetown harbour from their front porch

Homemade lobster chowder. Lots of lobster...

 

 

Cathie and Nancy enjoying the chowder

 

On Saturday we attended a presentation of the "Come From Away" play in Charlottetown.  A very moving depiction of the townfolks of Gander Newfoundland hosting some 7,000 passengers from several transatlantic airline flights that were grounded due to the events of 9/11 2001. 

The play is performed by one cast, each playing several roles throughout the play.  No pictures were allowed during the play. It was all played on this one set:

On Monday the ladies went for their now-traditional pedicures and lunch out:

 

Tuesday Cathie and I decided to do some Island touring for a few days. No real plans except touring the Canadian Potato Museum in O'leary.  

An interesting tour, some antique equipment, potato history from around the world, and more descriptions of possible potato diseases than we really wanted to know. :))

Lunch was a highlight, potato-based of course: 

I had a chicken/potato soup 

Cathie went for a pulled pork baked potato that we likely could have split

 

It's always interesting to see a world map with pins placed where visitors are from:

Lots of US, Indian and European visitors

Hard to see in this somewhat fuzzy picture, but down near the bottom in the Indian Ocean there are 2 pins in the tiny Prince Edward Islands: 

Administered by South Africa and described as uninhabited except for some research teams and a number of species of penguin, I wonder what visitor placed the pins?

Here is a link to a Wiki article on the islands if you're interested in learning more: <Wiki Link>

 

As an EV (Electric Vehicle) owner I was interested to see a charger with 2 outlets provided by  Chargepoint and the Potato Museum:

Display of charging costs

I only put this picture in because of the charging costs shown. There's a flat connection fee of 25 cents for someone with a Chargepoint account, and 49 cents for a guest charge. From there on though, charging is free, provided by the Museum.  Nice price!

 

Once we left the Museum we decided to head south/east on mostly back roads.

A pretty tidal inlet

That cloud looked ominous but didn't develop

 

We also stopped in to the Island Traditions Store. They do basket weaving here and offer classes in basket weaving. We had stopped here a few years ago and got a couple of basic kits. Something to enjoy with the grandchildren at least. Our efforts didn't compare to the pros though:

 Here's a link if you're interested in more about the store offerings: <Island Traditions>

 

We had no specific plans on where to stay for a couple of days, and decided to see if we could get a campsite in the large campground in Cavendish National Park. We didn't really expect to, as entrance and camping fees for National Parks have been reduced all summer (until Sept 7) and they have been very busy.

However no problem on a weekday in early September. We took a site with electric and water for 3 nights:

A short video of the wave action:

 

More National parks are providing non-camping accommodations these days, sometimes called oTENTiks. The ones we've seen here in Cavendish are different from the mostly-canvas structures we've seen before in other campgrounds. I think these may be called Bunkies:

 

And finally, speaking of potatoes: we shopped for some supplies before our mid-week outing. Thinking of getting some PEI potatoes I checked out the shelves here in a Charlottetown Atlantic Superstore (near the Royalty Crossing mall). In this day and age I couldn't believe it:

Notice the prominent Maple Leaf on the shelf tag, and "Product of Canada". Then the even larger Product of U.S.A. on the bags! There were 2 varieties like this. In the home of Canadian potatoes. From a country that's trying to ban imports from PEI there. 

Pat posted this on a social media page he has, and within a day had tens of thousands of views and hundreds of outraged comments. We'll likely drop in to the store before we leave PEI to see if anything has changed. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We're in Prince Edward Island now

Bridge to PEI, from the PEI side

Aug 26, Wednesday 

We were away from our Quebec Camping Transit spot about 8am Wednesday, a misty morning to start. We had a couple of neighbours overnight. One couple from Kansas in a small camper van and one couple camping with their Subaru Outback, sleeping in there with their small dog (!). We really appreciated the room in our van this morning:

The morning cleared as we went, and we were soon through Quebec and onward in to New Brunswick. There is still some major road construction in Quebec as we approach the NB border, but off to the side of the current road. Plenty of slowdowns for minor road work, but no construction stoppages:

 

 

There used to be a pulloff from the old highway to a rest stop with great views of the St John river. Access to that lookout was removed with the newer highways, but we rediscovered the location this time. It's off the highway and not quite as high as the old one, but a nice rest stop that looks made for cyclists more than autos. A pretty spot on a great day:

Today we mostly tried to follow one of New Brunswick's designated scenic drive routes, the River Valley Scenic Drive. It follows the St John river more closely than the newer Trans Canada Hwy 2 route does, using some of the older roads that used to be the main roads in years gone by. 

We managed to get a NB map in the tourist info section of the Potato Museum near Florenceville-Bristol that has the scenic routes marked:

Road signs with the fiddlehead symbol above mark the River Valley Scenic Drive pretty well, but the map does help too.  

The surface of these roads is pretty bumpy in places, and much slower than following the modern Trans Canada 4-lane path, but more to look at than the hills and trees you see from Hwy 2.  

While at the museum we toured the Potato World museum itself. Interesting old tools and potato info:

A quilt in the museum caught Cathie's eye

Later we came to the famed covered bridge at Hartland, one of the longest bridges of its type. We just took a picture of the entrance today, having many pictures of the bridge from previous blogs:

 
Later we decided to find a camp spot around Woodstock NB, and did stay at Connor Park campground, touted as very clean campground and restrooms. We were so tired that we stayed there, regretting it afterwards. I won't go into details about the appalling restroom near our site. Maybe a work in progress, I hope. We payed too much for an unserviced site, basically a parking spot but on grass, which was nice. Next day we found a Walmart about 1.5 km away in Woodstock that would have done us just as well, free and with fully-functional washrooms. 

 

 

Aug 27, Thursday

After breaking camp we visited the town of Woodstock, where we found the accomodating Walmart. We didn't need it now of course, but it's on the list for any future trips.

Another fine day, we followed hwy 165 from Woodstock along the St John river. The town of Meductic caught our eye:

A community event coming up shortly

Town park on the St John river

The highway bridge we crossed is in the background

Fisherman trying his luck

 

We toured the town (didn't take long) and noticed a large industrial-type building. Looking it up afterwards we found the reason there were a lot of cars parked at the building:

A business like this is a real asset for any small town, and likely accounts for the apparent prosperity of the town.

  
By the time we were past Fredericton we needed a break, so turned off to the town of Gagetown. We knew it is right on a side channel of the St John river, and sure enough they have a nice town park/picnic area at the water:

Not sure what this artsy statue represents

  

Hard to see, a friendly cat joined me on the bench

Nice town dock, complete with plug-in power available

 

We know we're out East when boats like this start showing up: