Final Destination

It cost us $46 to cross the Confederation Bridge.  Eight miles long, it connects Prince Edward Island with New Brunswick and rests on 62 piers planted in the Northumberland Strait.  The long crossing gave us plenty of time to learn more about PEI on Wikipedia.  The red earth is great for growing potatoes, the province's primary export.

A stop at Magnetic Hill in Moncton broke up a long morning of driving.

It's been around since horse and buggy days.  Let's just say people were more easily entertained then.

An unpleasant surprise awaited us when we picked up Thom's car in Bangor.  Less than a mile from the garage, we discovered it had a flat and no spare.  The wonderful employees at a nearby Citgo station dropped everything to "plug" it.

It took us another couple of hours to get to our final destination.

Millennials flock to Portland, Maine's largest city for its cheap real estate.  Our hosts moved from Washington, DC to an old neighborhood once populated by ships captains just a five-minute walk from downtown.   Physicians moved in during the '70s because the ground floors of the huge houses were perfect for seeing patients.  But the area eventually fell into disrepute before hipsters, young families and Airbnb came to the rescue.

 Our hosts' daughter may have a future as a florist.

Portland claims Romantic poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  He wrote "The Song of Hiawatha."  If nothing else about his epic, you probably remember the name of the title character's girlfriend:  Minnehaha.

We passed Longfellow's house on our way to church for a drink.

The only thing Grace lacked was a congregation, though Tuesday evening may have been to blame for that.

 

 

Amidst plenty of derelicts, downtown Portland has a lot to offer, including a barber shop catering to senior citizens.

After an incredibly delicious tapas meal at Sur Lie, we window shopped before turning in at our very small "studio," where we shared a bathroom with some other, unseen lodgers.  It was by far the least pleasant and most expensive of our accommodations.

Point Prim Chowder House

Anyone will tell you I'm guilty of hyperbole, enthusiastic more often than not, but I really can't remember a better travel dining experience than the truly fabulous meal we enjoyed at the Point Prim Chowder House.

Let's start with the middle-of-nowhere setting, half way between Charlottetown and the Woods Island ferry on the southern shore of PEI, right next to the province's oldest lighthouse.  A helicopter and more than a dozen cars randomly parked outside of a modest structure at the end of a peninsula suggested something special lay in store.  Had we driven any further we would have sunk into the Northumberland Strait, just as the sun was about to do.

Lack of reservations on the inaugural night of the 2016 season meant we had to sit outside. We didn't mind.  Despite the stiff breeze you couldn't beat the company or the view, and a cancelled reservation permitted us to devour ice-cream sandwiches indoors.

A blackboard, the only menu, anchors the unpretentious decor.

The simply served, freshly caught seafood had me salivating so badly that I forgot to photograph my second course, a incredibly delicious pasta rustica.  The Bloody Caesar (substitute Clamato for the tomato juice) and repeated exclamations of culinary delight contributed, too.

Don't feel bad for Joe.  He ordered only a lobster roll but fed well from everybody else's plates and washed his food down with a Beach Chair, too!

I couldn't resist gushing about our meal to the manager, who was enjoying a well-deserved smoke outside.  He introduced me to the young, talented chef just before the sun disappeared.

A local buoy tree and a pasture of cows contentedly grazing under the rising moon on our drive back to the Pink Cottage made for a perfect evening I won't soon forget.  

Down Time

After returning to Charlottetown, we learned sailboat tours of the harbor weren't offered on Monday evenings.  That left us at loose ends for the first time during the entire trip.

Window shopping and a coffee shop with good wi-fi helped kill an hour until dinner while Thom searched in vain for a manicure.  Anne would not have approved!

 

Bears, Buoys & Stickers

I asked my traveling companions to sum up our Canadian trip with a single word as part of a silly video.

Thom shouted "bears" because he nearly mowed down a mother and her three cubs while barreling through the Liscomb Game Sanctuary.  Ironic that we couldn't photograph one of the trips most exciting (and unexpected) moments.

Magda chose to pronounce "buoys" correctly.  I insisted it could be pronounced like the word for immature males (see below) but the guy who made them had final say.

Joe was determined to win a "Pump Up The Fun" game that required collecting "stickers" from gas stations whenever we gassed up.  Circle K won nearly $200 worth of our patronage with this ploy.  We went home empty-handed even though we forced Magda to humiliate herself when she forgot to claim one on our way back from Peggy's Cove.

"Fresh" would have been my choice.  The fresh smell of the landscape, the fresh experience of traveling with Magda, Joe & Thom as a group, and the fresh visit to the lovely Maritime Provinces.

PEI National Park

An Anne clone at the Green Gables gift shop said we could rent bikes at a local petrol station.  For a little less than $20 each, we spent several hours pedaling through the unspoiled coastal scenery in Prince Edward Island National Park.  Bikes are admitted free.

 

 

 

We lunched at the highly recommended Blue Mussel Cafe.

Too bad they were out of hard root beer.  Neither Thom nor I had ever tried it and we were super thirsty.

A folk artist at a nearby house made and sold lobster buoys from his garage.  Joe and I each bought one.

Our return trip to Cavendish was just as beautiful with the light behind us.

The seabirds have incredible views of the Gulf of St. Lawrence from their shaded nests.