Prince Edward Island--wow!

Pictures: top: garden at site of Lucy M M's house; next is Green gables, 3rd is TWMSD on teh sand flats, and last is the tractor (see notes bleow for more details)

As expected, I could not blog from the Island. Anyway, we were too busy having fun with friends and family. The cottage where we stayed is a short walk from the beach. At high tide there is no beach but at low tide you can walk far out onto the sand bars. Daisy had a BLAST running and running, chasing birds and squirrels and whatewver else she saw.

The Island is very green everywhere and like the rest of Canada I saw, quite clean and neat--no litter, all fields and lawns trimmed, and flowers and gardens everywhere! It's very hilly in the interior. There are 3 counties on PEI and we were only in the middle one--Queens. Next summer Daisy and are going to come back for a much longer visit so we can explore the entire island--and Nova Scotia, to which we did not go at all this year.

These days, you usually arrive on the Island via a 9-mile bridge called the Confederation Bridge. It's a miracle of planning and construction, and I met one of the engineers who helped build it. Prior to its completion in the late 1990s, the only access was via boat. I am told they had ferries so big that entire trains got on the ferries--they had tracks for the trains that connected on both sides.

One of the most famous people from PEI is Anne of Green gables. She of course is the figment of the imagination of Lucy Maud Montgomery. In Cavendish (in northern Queens county) you can see the site of Lucy's childhood home as well as the actual house that was the model for Green Gables. My cousin and I spent a couple of hours at these sites.

I got to the Island on Friday just in time for the Crapaud annual Christmas in July parade and Exhibition. Some of the people I visited who live year-round on the Island entered their 61-year-old family farm tractor, and another cousin rode it in the parade. Unfortunately it was raining so we watched the parade from inside the car. The Exhibition the next day (think county fair) would have been nicer but for the inches of mud we had to wade through to get there.

We left Monday about 5:45 am (Atlantic time) and got to Vermont about 5 pm (Eastern time). It was a long frive--lots of road construction. I keep forgetting that up North there are only 3 seasons: winter, mud, and road construction. We're having a quiet early morning befgore going to Dog Mountain.