Road Trip 2015 - Prince Edward Island

Prince Edward Island.  Land of red sand and Anne with an e. And of course, we made sure we saw both!  We drove from Grand Manan to PEI on Tuesday night.  I was hoping to see the confederation bridge in the light, but it was already dark when we got there.  Only by about 10 min!  But it was awfully beautiful with the lights on the water in the dark too.  And the next day we were able to see it in the distance on one of our drives.  We stayed in Cornwall right outside of Charlottetown.  I went by some online reviews and booked the Super 8.  I was a little nervous about that one, but it was a wonderful place!  And had the best pool.  Kids loved it there.  Couldn’t see a pool that nice and not let them swim right away so they got in another late night swim:)

Wednesday morning we got up and drove into Charlottetown.  We went to the Founders Hall first because its also an information centre.  We took the Founders tour first and it was awesome.  I learned so much about the founding of Canada that I had either never known, or likely, had forgotten.  It was a self guided tour with headsets which was actually really nice because you just go on your own schedule and your own pace.  If you go to Charlottetown, you need to go there.  Then we got our maps, and sat in the car staring at them for a while before a kind information officer noticed us sitting in our car for a long time, came over, and told us the best way to get to Green Gables.  Of course, since we were following the map and our phones weren’t talking to us, we ended up going the wrong direction for a while:)  For us, PEI was the island of u-turns:)  And I don’t know why, because everything is clearly marked, and we got the hang of it by the end of the day, but only after several turns:)

We made the drive down to Green Gables, which we really enjoyed.  A friend of ours was texting us while we were there and was so excited that we sent him a picture.  He said that was the “Greenest Gables Ever”:)  We had fun learning more about the author and touring the house, but my favourite part was walking through the trails that inspired Lovers Lane and The Haunted Wood.  It was so beautiful there.

Only problem there is, its a very seasonal area of PEI so it was very difficult to find food!  Mostly everything was closed for the summer but we did see this one market open.  We walked in to buy some groceries and eat a quick lunch in the van but when we walked it, almost every shelf was bare.  It was a weird feeling.  We managed to put together a pretty tasty lunch from random things left and when we walked out the door I noticed that the sign said they were closing that day!  Just in the nick of time:)

On the way to Green Gables, we stopped at a beach, but it wasn’t quite red enough for me.  Apparently PEI has many different colours of beaches.  Who knew?  Anyways, we hunted the rest of the day for a very red sand beach.  We kept finding places to pull over and look at the very beautiful red cliffs,

but I was stubborn and really wanted to walk on the red sand.  We kept trying, but finally decided to give up and head back towards the city.  We saw a place to look at lighthouses and pulled over.  We went walking on all these trails towards the lighthouses

and low and behold, one of them led down to a red sand beach that you could walk on!  I was so excited!  And I got this awesome picture so I was happy:)

We headed back into Charlottetown to try out another You Gotta Eat Here restaurant, but it was so busy that we headed back up the street.  We ate at a burrito place and it was really good too.  We were going to end with some Cow’s ice cream, which apparently you must eat when you’re on the island, but for some reason closes at 6!  So that was a bust too.  Our eating plan in Charlottetown didn’t work out the way we planned it, but it was a beautiful night and a beautiful city so we enjoyed it anyways.

The next morning we called and booked the ferry off of the island - I’m learning! - and just took it easy.  The kids got some more swimming in and since it was the halfway point of our trip, I took the time to reorganize everything.  I felt much better after that!  Also, we discovered that just down the road was the Cow’s Ice Cream factory with free tours.  Off we went on the way out of town and we finally had some ice cream.  And it was amazing.  Definitely a must do!

Another gorgeous ferry ride later and we were off to our last province to explore, Nova Scotia!