Last night about dusk, Frank saw a fat fox run across the grassy parking area we were parked in for the night.
By 7 a,m. we were sitting on a cliff overlooking the Gulf of St. Lawrence watching the fishing boats pulling their nets behind them. Just before 9 a,m. we left to go to the Green Gables complex where it's 'all about Anne' and her creator Lucy Maud Montgomery. I did get some photos of the inside of the house (below is "Anne's" bedroom)
It was modeled after her cousins' home for the “Anne” books. I walked the whole (1 K) Balsam Hollow Trail and understand why she loved those walks in the wooded areas around the site. It's very quiet except for the birds and has several foot bridges back and forth across a stream. Off the trail a short distance, I discovered a beavers' dam.
After lunch we arrived in Summerside to refill the propane tank, the gas tank, and visit another Dollarama, my very favorite Canadian store. After I cleared their shelf of my absolute favorite cookie that can only be found in Canada!, we went across the street to take a look around the County Fair Mall – which was touted as being “a country fair every day!” It had a Zeller (a Target like store), a Sobey grocery store, a medical clinic, and about a dozen small boutiques, and a narrow middle corridor. Nowhere did I see anything that resembled a 'county fair'!
That evening we stopped at the Red Shores at Summerside Raceway where we watched the first five of twelve harness racing events. My first pick came in first by a mile, and my second pick came in dead last after breaking stride about ¾ of the way around the track. Then a driver was thrown and had to be taken to the hospital so we left as it was getting dark anyway. We returned to the Walmart we had seen on the way there to park for the night.
June 10, 2010
After I got fresh bread and eggs, and several other items, we didn't need, we followed Rt. 12 north around the North Cape tip of the island, stopping to visit the Wind Farm Interpretive Centre and the lighthouse. We started noticing that all the churches have huge spires, only a very few had none, three or four had four stubby spike like spires on the four corners of the tower.
This museum is dedicated to the history of the potato and how it changed the lives of the pioneers to PEI. The kitchen where all kinds of potato recipes are shown was closed. I did get a recipe for potato fudge, though. Just on PEI the farmers grow more than a dozen different varieties.
THIS IS MY DOLLHOUSE!!!! Why is it in their museum????
We worked our way around the west side of the island until we arrived at the Potato Museum in O'Leary. As it was getting to be 5 p.m. we headed for the closest provincial park to spend the night. It was getting hot, the wind died down, and the mesquites were swarming.
June 11, 2010
We left the campsite this morning and headed down the road to Cap-Egmont to see the Bottle Houses created by a man during his retirement years, now his son and grandson maintain the buildings.
Then we went on to Summerside again to do laundry and then to the Confederation bridge to get back over to New Brunswick to follow the Acadian Coastal Drive. We stopped at the Irving Eco-Centre, La Dune Bouctouche which has a wooden walkway that snaked along the dunes for miles (so it seemed) and I only managed about a half or maybe a third before turning back.
Planning to stop in Miramichi for the night, I used the GPS to find the place we wanted only to have it tell me to make a left turn then it said, “Make a legal U turn as soon as possible,” taking us right back to where we should have made a right turn like the map said to do; then further down the road it told us to make a right turn on the wrong side of the river! We finally made it to our overnight parking place.
June 12, 2010
While we were sitting in the hardware store parking lot waiting for it to open this morning at 8:30 a.m. (on a Saturday!), a former long-distance truck driver stopped to ask if we needed help thinking we had broken down. Then he tells us that we can park in his yard with full hookups for several days if we would like!
After we got the metal washers and rubber things needed to fix the front end of the RV, we headed on up the road to stop at the Acadian Historical Village outside Caraquet only to find out it didn't open til the next day. Nothing that I saw or read anywhere said that it was only open from June 13th til whenever this year.
We did stop in Bereford to check out the beach boardwalk and it was somewhat disappointing. It's not nearly as long as the one at Bouctouche. Plus the beach is very rocky, littered with broken shells, tree limbs, and sea weed. I think they brought in about three cubic yards of sand to make a 'beach' for children to play on and run in and out of the shallow, waveless water.
Hardly any English is spoken in this area of New Brunswick....we're crossing into Quebec tomorrow morning to tour the Gaspe peninsula and that's about all that's spoken in that province!
June 13, 2010
Spending the night in the Sobey's parking lot in Campbellton, NS, we left at 6 a.m. for Perce to go whale watching. Once we crossed into Quebec province, we noticed a definite difference in the terrain! It suddenly became mountainous with steep hills and many curves to slow us down. We were taking our time anyway.
We arrived in Perce just in time to catch the 1:30 p.m. cruise...in fact the ticket seller called the boat to return to the wharf to pick us up.
Only about twelve people were on the boat, one man in a wheelchair. Off we went into 20 kph winds in a large bass boat! It took about 20 minutes to get about eight miles off shore to start looking for the whales....we were being raced by three or four dolphins just before we caught sight of the first of many whales spotted. Unfortunately, two of the women got sick from the rocking, rolling, and tossing about we did most of the time we were out. Amazingly, I didn't get the least bit sick.
June 14, 2010
Leaving the Fort Ramsey campground this morning, we continued following Rt 132 around the very end of the Gaspe peninsula. We stopped at several picnic areas along the coast to try to spot sea creatures without luck. The scenery is spectacular!! We would top a hill and look down on a picturesque seaside village. We are seeing actual ocean waves again; before the shore line was like the Gulf of Mexico – little or no waves at all, now we can see actual swells.
Around dinner time, we arrived in Matane, and as we had been seeing a restaurant called 'Dixie Lee' in just about every town along the way in the other provinces too, we decided to have dinner there. As luck would have it, not one person in the tiny store we finally found could speak English. It was a fast-food restaurant serving several versions of chicken, seafood, and only pepperoni and cheese pizza or with everything on it so we ordered the everything-on-it pizza which turned out to be pepperoni, cheese, mushrooms, and green peppers! It was really, really good, though.
