PEI: LAST FULL DAY

 We pretty much went our own way in the morning of our last full day.  The ADAM family had booked deep sea fishing and had a chance to go out - Miro and Andrea each caught a cod so we had fish tacos for lunch  - delish!!  

I talked Dave into driving me to Park Corner so I could get another look at the home where L.M. Montgomery was born.  It was better than I remembered and had a replica of her wedding dress, the room where she was born was nicely arranged,  and the "nursery" looked very appealing as well.  She would have lived at this home for nearly 2 years.  I was interested in seeing that she was into scrap booking - flowers and fashion were favourite topics!  

Dave had found an interesting lighthouse that he wanted to explore and we walked down a red dirt road to get to it - it was driveable, but not easily.  I liked the rocky cliffsides at the point.  We didn't see much in the way of bird life, however.

The afternoon was spent at our favourite beach (MacNeill Creek) and 2 kids buried themselves in sand.  The NJ family felt that they needed to get on the road that day so they left late in the afternoon for points south.  Fortunately, there were no issues at the border, even with one Canadian in the car!  

Since the rest of us are all true foodies, we knew we had to get to the New Glasgow lobster supper on our last night together.  It was the only one open on this particular Saturday so we did wait a bit to get served.  But the space was really quite lovely and the food was great.  It was a wonderful way to end our last full day in PEI, 2025!  

PEI: North Rustico Spooning and Entertainment in Charlottetown

I'd heard about Brendon Peters on the CBC and sent him an email.  We could have a "spooning" session with him while visiting North Rustico.  It was a 90 minute workshop and we pretty much had it mastered within the first 10 minutes so I needed to save this situation quickly.  Fortunately, he could tell a story or two and I asked him to show us how to adapt playing "spoons" to modern music.  It was super easy and we had smiles on the faces of the girls when we did Taylor Swift's "Style" and Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA".  Another saving grace was the song from Anne and Gilbert musical, "You Know You're An Islander".  Having just finished reading Chris Hayes'  "The Siren's Call", I'd have to say that this activity was a perfect antidote to the attention propaganda that inundates our world today.  I found it to be a fun hour and a half and I'd say that 7/10 of us enjoyed it.  We all left with a set of "spoons" to play and Atley played every time we were "sitting around" at the house during the next 2 days.  I liked the atmosphere of a lobster shanty during our workshop and we sat on lobster traps.  

The kids very much wanted to go to a trampoline park - they'd been enticed by a trampoline in the neighbourhood that they were forbidden to use.  Parents decided this was a worthwhile way to spend time,  so off we went to Charlottetown to watch the kids play.  For me, that entertainment lasted about 30 minutes.  We drove into town to see if we could get tickets to the "sensory sensitive" performance of Alan Doyle's "Tell Tale Harbour".  It was easy to get in - a performance where you didn't get the complete show with all the special effects, but the stars of the show were there.  It was also "pay what you will".  There were quite a few kids and crying babies, but we did get to see one more show that was part of the PEI entertainment scene in the summer of 2025.  

PEI: The Lake of Shining Waters

 I know all of you Anne fans out there are familiar with the Lake of Shining Waters.  It plays a somewhat pivotal role in the life of Anne.   Now it is an amusement park complete with rides and water slides.  How did I ever manage to go to a place like that when an iconic name has been usurped for commerce??  Well, I did manage to go and I had a rather amusing time during my visit.

We didn't arrive until after 10:30, on the second hottest day of our time in PEI.  It is an ungodly hour to arrive because one is forced to wait in lines.  I was, however, pleasantly surprised that the cost was only $38/person (which included the horrific HST) and I know it was time for a "kids day".  One remarkable thing that happened is we found one of the last shady spots available in the entire pool/slide area and I grabbed a chaise lounge, moved it to the shade,  and sat like a slovenly queen for the remainder of the day.  

Did I see much of my grandchildren?  Not at all!  They had to line up (in brilliant, full-on sun) to take the water slides and their parents aided and abetted this situation by standing in lines to obtain "tires" for their slides.  I pretty much had a few hours to myself for my own amusement and people watching was terrific!  I also had my treasured copy of Anne of Windy Poplars if I ran out of people to watch.  

I hadn't been on a roller coaster for over 50 years and I did go over and do the ride with my grandchildren.  It was a rather short ride (probably about a minute) and 

still quite a thrill.  It was lovely to have Callie beside me.  The "boys" of course were at the front of the coaster.  Following that, I had my first "beaver tail" (or 1/4 of it) and that was a tasty treat.  I watched  my granddaughter Callie taste her first bite of poutine and the day flew by.  I even arranged to meet my college friend Lenore,  and her husband Roger,  at 4 pm inside the park - they'd just arrived with their 4 grandchildren.  We had an hour to share!  Texting really helps when trying to locate someone at Shining Waters.  

The rides at the park were fairly varied - there were lots I'd never seen before, but then I'm still living in the previous century.  And the "space" at Shining Waters (away from the water slides and the lineups!) was actually quite "green" and calm.  I rather like what they've done with it.  And if a person stays out of the "frey" among the slides and tires it has a rather pleasant environment.  I don't know what L.M. Montgomery would think, but she did have a good understanding of human nature and the natural world.  She might have actually liked it.  

And a good time to arrive is late in the day (it closes at 6 pm), particularly on the hottest day of the summer.  My friend arrived at the perfect time - the lines were much shorter and it was their warm up act for a New Glasgow lobster supper!

PEI: Blueberries and Charlottetown

 

Readers can see from this photo that PEI looks dry!  This was our hottest day and we had plans to be in the city, but in the morning 8/10 of us showed up to a u-pick near Summerside to pick blueberries.  This is a family activity - we all seem to love picking berries.  Within 35 minutes, we had picked $70 worth of blueberries and took them back to the rental house.  They were gone by Sunday and we enjoyed 2 mornings with blueberry pancakes!  Despite the heat, these blueberries turned out very well. 

The afternoon in Charlottetown was hot but we didn't go in "early" and got the grandkids picture in front of Confederation Place where the discussion about forming Canada took place (it's had scaffolding around it for a few years now) and the kids very much enjoyed the Cows store across the street.  Almost everyone had ice cream - this family is pretty addicted to that product.  I can say no to much of it.

After a family dinner at a hotel across from the Confederation Centre and Art Gallery we headed off to our big night out to see "Anne and Gilbert" at the old Holland College theatre.  I enjoyed it very much, but it wasn't Anne of Green Gables.  This is the "sequel" and does follow the story line of Anne's life in college and her resistance to Gilbert's advances, and  of course the story has its happy ending like most of Montgomery's books do.

PEI: The Anne Story

 Our first day of "family time" in PEI was a visit to the Anne of Green Gables homestead and display at Cavendish.  I had not visited it since 1970 so things had really changed.  It was good to have "free" entry with the Canada Strong Pass.  I noticed that my grandchildren paid absolutely no attention to any of the displays about L.M. Montgomery and her story in PEI.  The played with the lego sets and visited with each other.  They did walk through the house (Callie had read the entire first "Anne" book and Abby had read a graphic novel of "Anne") and were able to figure out which room must have belonged to Anne.  To my mind, this room of hers was not in the right location but it did have the necessary props!

New to me was an opportunity to walk through Lover's Lane and through the Haunted Wood to the homestead where L.M. Montgomery was actually raised.  She walked through that Haunted Wood to visit her cousins who lived at Green Gables.  The grandparent's home is simply a foundation now but it was interesting to visit the post office in Cavendish where the story of the publication of the book was on display.  Montgomery never would have sent it off again if anyone in town had known that her book was rejected a number of times.  However, since she had taken over her grandparents' role as post mistress, she was the only one to know about it and it did take 6 inquiries before finally obtaining a publisher.   To me, this is hard to believe, but it was a different time.  While we adults toured the old sites around Cavendish, the grandchildren enjoyed chatting at a shady spot in Cavendish.  I loved getting reacquainted with the author's story and visiting some of the "haunts" that she so loved.  She describes the landscape well.  However, I'm sure she'd be upset to see the number of dead trees all over the Island now.  This has occurred because of hurricanes (particularly Fiona), bark beetle insects and climate change.  

PEI 2025: North Cape

 

In the many trips that I've had to PEI (particularly in the 1970s), I'd never been west of Summerside.  On our first full day on the Island, we decided to visit Cape North.  Here's a photo of the lighthouse and the field to the east of it has quite a few wind towers - I think that I counted 21 spread out over several kms.  And they do get wind.  The place was closed up when we arrived and a lot of the information about wind power was written up on boards outside.  The best thing about visiting this part of the Island is that we finally got to see some sea mammals.  The entire area had hundreds of grey seals and harbour seals.  The "cape" is where the Gulf of St. Lawrence meets the Northumberland Strait and there's a stretch of land that is walkable at low tide.  We didn't choose to do that walk, but we could see hundreds of seals in the shallow waters that surrounded the "peninsula".    Here's a photo of the "walk" at mid-tide.     

  Dave managed to get back to the west and visited the Potato Museum in O'Leary but that is his story to tell. We chose to visit a provincial park for a beach walk and it was pleasant, but the mosquitoes were prevalent in the forest walk.  We also drove past the Stompin' Tom Museum in Tignish.  It's having a bit of a revival these days, too.  

PEI, 2025: Harmony House

 After leaving Pugwash and heading "north" we crossed the Confederation Bridge to spend 3 nights on the Island before meeting up with our family in North Rustico at the "Onley House".  We stayed in Rusticoville, a short distance away along the banks of the Rustico inlet.  That first night, we attended a musical entertainment called "Ladies of the Canyon", written by a young, local female musician.  She linked a number of songs together to tell the story of the early female (mostly) singers of Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles during the 1970s.    We both loved the performance, even though I was a little dismayed that we had to have a "back up" man on guitar.  Usually, the performers are all women in this show.  Each and every one of them had fantastic musical skills.  Any boomers reading this would enjoy the performance - and those who like that era of music.    Check it out here:  https://harmonyhousepei.com/