We got up Monday morning and did the necessary paperwork for our room (and thanked the couple again, profusely, for making arrangements for us outside their normal hours) and got a great diner recommendation for breakfast. She also tipped us off that while there is a fairly significant charge either for the ferry or to cross the Confederation Bridge between PEI and the mainland, you only get charged for the return trip, so you might as well take the ferry over and the bridge back - 2 different views, and you do the less expensive one second!
So, after a very solid diner breakfast, we turned the Elantra towards the ferry terminal. It turned out that it was an unexpectedly busy day, so we wound up having to wait for the next ferry - which was ok, we had another coffee, planned out our route, and walked up and down the rows of cars trying to find Delaware and West Virginia to complete our set. (No luck)
The ferry to PEI had a decent cafeteria, soft serve icecream, and live music. It was awesome. And you could actually see yourself coming nearer to the red earth and green EVERYTHING ELSE that people write books about (Particularly LM Montgomery!)
You know, the best way to describe PEI is that if you just point your camera in any direction at anytime in (as far as I can gather) any part of the province, you'll have a postcard worthy picture. We drove through rolling hills of cornfields, potatoes, blueberries and just generally bucolic meadows and old Victorian style farmhouses and barns as far as the eye can see.
Then, we arrived in Charlottetown, the "Cradle of Confederation" and it happens that this summer they're celebrating 150 years since they hosted the set of meetings that eventually led to confederation (which PEI then didn't join until they'd pretty much bankrupted themselves building a railroad, several years later).
Charlottetown, too, was extremely pretty, even if you didn't count all the slightly self-consciously cute Anne of Green Gables stuff (which was not hard to find - although the part of the island most closely associated with Anne is on the North Coast and we were opposite. Upon arriving in town, we took a quick detour to the Gahan Brewery (PEI Brewing) - we arrived just as a brewery tour began, so we joined in! It was fun, and the beer was very good - I just had one of the Blueberry Ales not too long ago, actually! Then we had a bit of a wander around, and found (among other things) a tasting room for a local distillery, tried some delicious rum and whiskey, and stopped at a Timothy's (the upscale version of Tim Horton's that makes really nice sandwiches and fancy coffees) for lunch before we wended our way towards the bridge.
Sadly, we had several more hours of driving to do to get to Fredericton, so we weren't able to visit Summerside, where apparently my Grannie and Dad (when he was a baby) waited for my Grandpa to return from overseas in WWII. But I would go back to PEI in a heartbeat, if given the opportunity! The next time, we would plan to do the same thing we did in Hawaii, and circumnavigate the island in a week or so, staying at hotels/b&bs along the way. It would be a great holiday... Man, that province is SO pretty!
The drive to Fredericton was pretty relaxed - we had a bit of an adventure finding our dorm (we stayed at the historic Lady Beaverbrook Residence at UNB Fredericton (which is, incidentally, the oldest English language university in Canada).
Our room was probably 3 times the size of our room at Memorial University - I think I could probably survive a school term in that room with a stranger without killing either one of us. And the "lounge" area looked like the smoking room of an old men's club (which I guess it was, except that the men were young) - dark wood, big leather furniture, portraits... tres posh.
I didn't want to go exploring too much, (actually that's not true. I totally wanted to, I just thought Adam would worry about me!) but according to some info photos and captions in the dorm, it was built in 1928 and looks like something out of Hogwarts. I swear! There's a weather vane in the shape of a beaver, and a bell tower that apparently plays "The Jones Boys" at noon and 6, and apparently there's a (now empty and non functional) swimming pool in the basement that was once the largest indoor pool in New Brunswick.
(Still regretting not poking around enough to find the old pool...)
Had a good sleep - tomorrow's a long driving day!
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