Day 109: P.E.I. Sightseeing

The day started out bittersweet. We discovered that the ferry traveling from North Sydney, NS to Argentia, Nfld is seasonal and sets out on it’s last sailing on September 24th, three days from today. It’s 385km from Liz and Gerard’s house to North Sydney if we take the ferry from P.E.I. to Nova Scotia, thereby, skipping New Brunswick all together. There is no way that we can even cover this distance, especially since the ferry leaves at 6:00 am leaving us only two days, really, to get there.

This was a huge slap in the face to us. There are two sailing options to Newfoundland: a five hour ride to Port aux Basques on the South Western coast, or a 17 hour ride to Argentia on the South Eastern coast. The former leaves you 908 km from St. John’s via the lonely Trans Canada Highway - the only trans provincial road, while the latter leaves you a mere 133 km from St. John’s. With our diminishing time we were opting for the 17h cruise. The thought of those barren and mountainous 908 km is not so appealing these days as it seems that after over three and a half months and 7400 km this country is finally starting to wear us out (and our wallets for that matter). We were at first disheartened by the prospect of a cross-Canada journey that discludes Newfoundland, but after some tough deliberation we decided that we didn’t want to rush the rest of our trip just to get to St. John’s.

Our first reaction was to decide that Newfoundland was out of the question and, to instead travel down the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia and then loop up the Bay of Fundy via St. John, New Brunswick back to P.E.I. But as the day went on our spirits were low. For 3 1/2 months we’ve had our sights set on St. John’s as our final destination. It just made sense to us we guess. It was proving difficult accepting the idea of skipping Newfoundland all together and, by means of our route, not having a true final destination.

Late afternoon we called another board meeting. The idea of scratching Newfoundland was really bothering us. Our compromise was to b-line through New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and attempt the grueling 908 km ride to St. John’s. I won’t be easy but we figure it is the only way we’ll be satisfied.

All of this mulling occurred over a pretty cool day of sightseeing in Charlottetown (although we’d best go back to see it when we’re not mulling). We started our tour with the mandatory stop at Province House, where the idea of Canada’s confederation was born. From there we walked around downtown, stopping in a few pretty neat boutiques. We got a first hand look at how to make stained glass windows from an artist who allows people to come back to her studio and watch her work. Then it was onto the soap shop where we did some really good spying for “It’s a Beautiful Day Soapworks.” Mom you should really look into doing a chocolate soap. Dad, just imagine the opportunities for your label.

According to Liz this is actually a common occurrence in P.E.I. Granny apparently thought so too.

This was just too tempting.

On our way back we pulled a drive-by on The Royal Canadian Legion Branch #1(!), a site that we were actually quite excited to find at one point, but the anticlimactic site of the public library-like structure didn't inspire anyone to stop in for a pint.

We wrapped up our day with another wonderful family dinner, complete with the 20lbs of carrots that we picked from the garden (our instructions were to “pick enough for yourselves and a little bit more for the rest of us.”) We thought that we had picked a normal amount.

B&K