Today we had a cloudless and nearly waveless hop across the Northumberland Strait to Prince Edward Island, the smallest of the Canadian provinces. In the U.S., PEI mostly is famous as the home of Green Gables, the farm where spunky Anne Shirley spent her youth and enjoyed many adventures, although not really because she’s a fictional character. We luckily landed a rental car so we’ll drive over to see the house, which apparently isn’t completely fictional and served as some sort of inspiration.
The island also is famous for its red sandstone cliffs and causally-related red sand beaches. We had to settle for some puny cliffs on the way in to Summerside but we’ll try to stop by a beach or two during our stay.
PEI is the first English-as-the-only-official-language province we’ve visited since Ontario last year. So we’re back where a boat is a boat and seafood is seafood, although frankly we find “bateau” and “fruits de mer” much more aurally pleasing. Oscar’s back to being just a plain old little dog rather than the more lyrical “petit chien” as multiple francophones have called him. When we reached the Summerside Yacht Club—also known as the Silver Fox Curling & Yacht Club—Megan directed us down the fairway to the face dock at the end and we understood every word.
We’d hoped to get around the north third of PEI this afternoon, but barely made it to the Bottle Houses, which aren’t so famous in the U.S. but are a big attraction here. Some retired dude started collecting old glass bottles and using them in concrete walls, and the next thing anyone knew he’d build a chapel and two houses in a garden. None of the buildings actually are useable for much more than a tourist attraction, but they’re still pretty cool.
Oh yeah. We also stopped for another one of those Acadian bands, this one with a piper sitting in.
Dana found a Celtic show she wants to see on Monday, so we’re here until at least Tuesday.
One last thing. After we reserved the last available car the young lady at the rental place found the blog and read about us before we arrived. She figured that since we’ve traveled a long way we’d like a nicer car. So she gave our original car to someone with an insurance claim and gave us the new one. The someone with the insurance claim might disagree, but we think Britney is awesome.