A slower-paced couple of days on PEI

We're house-sitting for a few days while Nancy and Pat head off to Nova Scotia for a trip of their own. Yesterday (Thursday) was a slow day, catching up on shopping and laundry. It was a nice day though, and a lovely warm evening. 

Right at dusk Wednesday evening a large tanker slipped into port. It blew a few blasts on its horn, sounding like a mobile foghorn, so I got an almost-legible picture before the mosquitoes drove me home:

 While I was at the shore, the setting sun caught my eye:

Charlottetown at sunset

Today we lazed around in the morning, and in the afternoon went for a drive to the North Shore, playing tourist without our guides.

In the Stanhope area we found a number of (not-so) little summer homes (lots of nice ones in this area) along Bayshore Rd:

Not much winter population around Stanhope apparently, so these folks have winter options too.

A nice set of cottages caught our eye at By the Bay Cottages. They have a nice inland bay water view across the road we were on:

No Vacancy right now, like most places this week

After a strenuous morning of sightseeing, we felt it was our duty to have some fish and chips at the Blue Water Grill takeout again, to see if they are consistent. As a reminder from a few days ago:

We have to say that today's offering wasn't quite up to the first visit
on Sunday, so today's ranked as likely the second-best fish&chips we've ever had, second only to Sunday's.

Nearby some kids were having a great time jumping in the water. It was a safe spot to jump, deep enough but out of the way of any boat traffic:

 After lunch we decided we really needed to get our feet in the water ourselves, so dropped in to a National Park beach just north of North Rustico, always popular:

Several fishing charter boats heading for port nearby

Later the skies turned a bit threatening, with some rain forecast for the evening. The farmers are really needing rain so we hope they get what they need, but overnight would be good:

After our near-disaster with a car wash in Baddeck NS, we still needed to get some of the travel stains washed off our van. We couldn't find a car wash with doors big enough on PEI for the van, except a transport-sized wash and that wouldn't work.

Finally today we found a wash bay. If you're ever looking for a wash for a tallish vehicle in PEI, there is a 10'5" high wash bay right on the main road in Cavendish:

Here's a map of the North Shore part of today's travels: