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| View from take off |
It was a quick holiday, with a few travel glitches but full of family and fun. First there was a power failure, so no elevators which left all of us scrambling to find a place for us to sleep the night before we left. Since it was an early flight, it made more sense to be safely ensconced close to the airport, rather than several hours away. The power came back on and all was good. The plane we were supposed to take was delayed on their departure, so we had a leisurely morning rather than a rushed one. We didn't have to worry about missing our connecting flight as it was on the same plane we flew in on. Regardless of a bit more airport time than one would like, for things outside of anyone's control, the service from Porter Airlines was excellent, friendly and professional.
We landed at the Charlottetown airport in drizzle. It drizzled all afternoon and evening. We tried to find a restaurant for supper but there was nothing available. It was high tourist season after all. Finally we found a totally empty restaurant, with tons of seating and people coming in and out for take out. It was a Chinese food restaurant and after talking with the owner, we found out that after a 4 week closure for renovations, this was their first night open. The food ranged from good to excellent. Their schezwan noodles were really, really good! When the guys asked if they were licensed, they were, had no beer, but the owner said just a minute, and rushed to the liquor/beer store half a block away and brought back a shopping cart full of different beers to stock his cooler. All because two guys wanted a beer with supper, on their opening night. Partway through dinner the sun broke out, and it was like every glitch suddenly disappeared.
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| Red boat in harbour was unloading gravel |
Charlottetown is a lovely little city. With a large area set up for tourism, there are lots of restaurants and little shops. The waterfront is lovely with a great board walk and lots of things to see. We had rooms in a boutique hotel very close to downtown, so we could walk down regularly.
We had rented a car so we got to see much of the island. We did a day of museums, the L.M. Montgomery birthplace, the Green Gables museum, the Potato museum, which had the Agriculture museum attached. The L.M. Montgomery museum came highly recommended and it was interesting and full of the authors scrap books and some other documents. The Green Gables museum though was full of "scope for the imagination". It was a home that was owned by Montgomery's aunt and in it were various items that she'd incorporated into her books, like the blue chest, the china cabinet from Emily of New Moon?, and the view from the window to the lake of shining waters! It enjoyed it very much.
We had a late lunch at the potato museum, which mainly served potatoes. The servings were massive and one of the meals was a stuffed baked potato with a side of potatoes! I bucked the trend and had a bowl of chilli. None of us were ready for supper yet, so we took a sunset boat tour of the harbour. It advertised seeing seals and lobsters. We'd looked for whale watching but hadn't found an available tour, so this one was instead of that. The evening tour didn't go to the seals, but we were treated to love music, a lot of island information and a very educational program on lobsters. This included being able to pet a lobster, fresh from the trap. I will admit that I didn't pet the lobster as it was passed around from passenger to passenger before it was put back into the sea. The captain had a special permit allowing him to have one trap for educational purposes.
We went swimming the next day at a provincial park and got to play in the water and a unique white sand beach, on an island with mostly red sand and clay. We left once it got busy and realised as we drove back to the hotel that we'd seen most of the island. DH really enjoyed the rental car which was a sub compact SUV. Even after another delay on the way home due for reasons that apparently included a broken loo door, we got home. I will say that the landing on a short runway surrounded by water showed me how very much I'm not good with plane landings. The only downside of the trip was the ride home on the GO train, packed beyond capacity with people from the Jays game and the Toronto Indy races.
All in all it was a fabulous trip. We had a blast. The cats were happy to see us when we got home and the chooks were happy to be let out to free range, as we'd told our son to keep them in, so he had less work. The only thing I didn't do was find a special skein of sock yarn to have as a souvenir. Otherwise the trip was perfect and the first time we'd been away for anything at all in over 4 years!
