Prince Edward Island

Prince Edward Island is wonderful! The farm fields make you think of paintings by Grandma Moses. The roadsides are lined by flowers—both wildflowers and cultivated gardens. And right now the empty fields are filled with wildflowers and pink flowering clover. The wooden farmhouses come in various colors—white, cream, yellow, blue, gray, green.

There are great shops—we saw wonderful hand knit sweaters, some made of alpaca yarn, others fine sheep’s wool. Pottery and woodwork items are sold in small shops along the country roads.

In addition, the coastline is lovely, with blue waves, red clay cliffs and narrow beaches. We drove along the coast in the Cavendish National Park on the way to Green Gables, the historic site dedicated to the writing of H. M. Montgomery, best known for her book Anne of Green Gables.

Montgomery and her creation, the red-haired Anne, are central to PEI. They have given the island its moment of fame and its identity. The book Anne of Green Gables was inspired by a house in the Cavendish area and published in 1908. Green Gables is part of the Cavendish National Park, as is the land where Montgomery grew up with her grandparents. It was interesting to visit. The site and the play that is put on there during summer months are central to PEI tourism.

The AAA tour guide to this part of Canada describes PEI as a quite, laid back place to visit and relax. We know why. In one day we saw much of what was new and different there; in a second day we visited Charlottetown, the capital. It is an interesting town (about 35,000 people) with a pretty harbor, lots of expensive pleasure boats, and some attractive old buildings. We also walked on the Confederation Trail, walking/biking trails along abandoned railroad rights of way.

We stayed in a busy destination campground. Many people place their trailers there for the summer and commute to work or come up on weekends. Their children have summer friends there and they celebrated Halloween the weekend of Aug. 12-13.

We did a lot of relaxing, like AA suggested. Not much else. We never should have planned so many nights there, since we had already had quiet time the previous weekend. Oh well, you live and learn. We got in some good walks. And the people were very friendly and helpful. We also ran into Bruce and Nancy, a couple who full-time that we had met previously in Ottawa and Quebec. We had some time to visit with them.

Unless you have traveled with animals, you can not imagine our trip to PEI from Nova Scotia. We drove about an hour to the ferry. PC and Partner ride in the truck when we are driving. Then we put them into the trailer while we waited for the ferry to arrive and for the 75-minute ride across the Northumberland Strait. As soon as possible after driving off the ferry, we stopped and moved the cats back into the truck for the hour-long drive to our RV park. We have a litter box in the truck. In the next 20 minutes we had one puke (Partner was apparently seasick), pee and two poops. Then, have you heard the term “hissy fit”? We had, but we had never fully experienced one till we were slowly driving down a bumpy road to the campground. Partner had had enough. He sat in my lap growling and hissing for 2-3 minutes. I think a hissy fit is the cat version of a temper tantrum.