P.E.I.: Day Fifteen

It feels good to come home.  Today was our last day on The Island, so the morning was spent packing up the Summer House and giving it a bit of a clean up.  The weather was gorgeous so we headed to what Ephraim refers to as "Ephraim's Park", also known as Victoria Park in Charlottetown, and just puttered around the town today.  We ate lunch at the vegetarian place for lunch that we ate at when we first arrived, and I'm not exaggerating when I say we ordered practically the entire menu.  So damn delicious. 
Then we hit the Wharf, which is just a lot of tourist stuff.  Emily bought some old Golden Books and I stopped myself from buying the entire Fraggle Rock stuffed animal line-up.  Because we are pretty much over Cows, we went to a place for ice cream called Billy Timbre, and their picture of the banana split looked amazing, and since I'm going to go off treats upon our return, I figured why not go out with a blast. 

Let me say something, the photo didn't do it justice, I had no idea what I was in for:
Large waffle bowl
Four scoops of ice cream
Real fudge
Lots of whipped cream
Fresh raspberry sauce
Crushed Almonds
Cherry

I got through a little over half, and did I ever feel sick afterwards, don't get me wrong - it was tasty as hell, and I'd go back in a second, but it's something best split between at least two people.  Probably more.
Found a nice nearby park to kill some time in and then headed back to the Wharf where a man played some songs on his guitar for Ephraim before we headed to the airport.

So we're home now, safe and sound.  It's nice to be back.  In the end, I think two weeks was too long to spend in P.E.I. with a two-year old.  We had a great time, great weather for the most part, but unless you want to spend the whole time on a beach or in a park (which we can do here) you run out of things to do rather quickly.  Perhaps that comes from being used to the options of Toronto as well though.

I still have a few days before I start my next show, so tomorrow will all be about decompressing, unpacking, relaxing.  I was going to be a good boy and hit the gym tomorrow.  We'll see how the morning goes.

Well thanks for following along.  That's in for the vacation blogs, although stay tuned - I should have news about my film The Untitled Work of Paul Shepard (aka The Girlfriend Project) very soon!

P.E.I.: Day Fourteen

Today was our final full day on The Island and it was supposed to be crap weather, but we were surprised to find it to be absolutely lovely. We spent the morning on the beach and then caught lunch in North Rusticoe near our place. It advertised the "Best Fish & Chips on the North Shore", and if that's true then I don't think I'm interested in eating fish and chips on the north shore. To be fair I prefer the British Style of fish and chips, where the batter is a bit more… fluffy?
After that the sun was still lovely so we headed out for mini-putt (Ephraim's first) and then some gelato (I can only imagine that Ephraim is one of the few two-year-olds that always chooses Pistachio over every other flavour). We learned that Mini-Putt is still a bit advanced for a two year old. We got through 9 of our 18 holes but then he was clearly done.
So a pretty light day all in all, which was nice for us. Tomorrow we have to get our stuff organized and out in the morning, unfortunately our flight doesn't leave till the evening - so pray for good weather for us so we're not stuck in the car or inside buildings all day!

P.E.I.: Day Thirteen

It's hard to believe that we've been here for as long as we have - it feels much longer both in a good and bad way. The area is very familiar now, know my way around pretty darn well (although I still use the TomTom to get me places faster). The house we're staying at is large and cozy, and so that alone makes the place feel like home. But I'm going to enjoy not eating out so much (the kind of problems you want to have, right), and not feeling like we have to plan each and every single day. P.E.I. is lovely to visit, but I know how that I wouldn't want to live here. And we'll come back for sure, but when our kids are older.

Today the weather wasn't supposed to be nice so we relaxed a bit and did some more shopping around. I picked up two CDs by Cynthia MacLeod (love the one so far - a full review of all the new music I bought sometime upon my return home). We also finally made it out to The Cheese Lady Gouda Cheese place and bought a small fortune worth of flavoured gouda (smoked, herb and garlic, pepper & mustard, and old). When I was a kid I could never eat cheese unless it was melted on something. I'd proud to say that I'm slightly more adventurous these days.

Because of the not-so-great-weather we decided to take Ephraim bowling for the first time (which we did instead of seeing The Royals - no offense but I really don't understand the big deal about The Royals, as far as I know their only real power is that they can dissolve the British gov't and call for a re-election - not to say that this isn't a power, but given that they are unlikely to act upon it, I'm just not sure why I should care about these people… and this is coming from someone whose mother was Diana obsessed). I didn't get a really great photo of Ephraim, but we got some video - I plan on doing something up and posting it when we return and I have a few minutes.

On the way home we came across a local woman and her husband stranded by their broken down motorhome. They were taking it for a test drive before a long trip to (surprise, surprise) Toronto, ON. So we gave her a ride to her house, which she insisted on paying us for (going toward's Ephraim's violin fund!), and then settled in for the evening.

One more full day (no idea what we're going to do tomorrow) and then another almost-full day. And in case you're wondering about the photo below, Ephraim has made "Teddy-Bear" part of our family, and he must be present at all meals with food in front of him or else Ephraim will continue to say, "Where Teddy-Bear food go?"

P.E.I.: Day Twelve

The forecast was calling for lovely weather today and we certainly got it!  We were up and on the beach before 9am!  Mostly because we figured it'd be best to hit the beach in the morning as opposed to the hot-hot-sun of the afternoon.  I have extremely fair skin so the sun is not my friend - although I am starting to sport a rare-tan - normally I'm white as a ghost.
So not only did we hit the beach but I even submitted to allowing myself to being buried in the sand.  Of course afterwards I was just covered in the stuff and had no choice but to jump into the salty freezing ocean to get it off.  We have some video but I'll spare you my manly screams!

After the beach Ephraim needed a nap so we took a short roadtrip back to Victoria to get some more of those delicious Island Chocolates.  The selection was a bit smaller today and picked over (no fresh chocolates on the weekends sadly), but I think we got a pretty damn fine selection anyway!

We headed off for lunch to a place that we've been looking forward to for awhile now.  A place called the Kitchen Witch.  Their menu is mexican inspired and the majority of it is vegetarian, which in P.E.I. is a rarity.  That and their advertisement for wholesome, home cooked meals was quite inciting.  When we got there we were really excited - it was a renovated one-room school house, very charming inside with a cute gift-shop full of random things, a bathroom with an actual real change table, and some diapers free to use.  Amazing!  Run by a mother and daughter, as well as another woman who will read your tea leaves should you require (and pay).
But then the problems started.  First they were out of refried beans - which as a vegetarian was our protein for the meal.  Their excuse is that it's homemade… which I don't get.  You feature mexican food and you run out of refried beans?!  Make more!  So that was fine, but then the food took over an hour.  And while I understand home-cooking takes time, an hour is a bit much to wait for lunch.  The soup we got was really tasty and spicy, but our entrees were bland and tasteless, even Ephraim (who eats ANYTHING) spit the food out.  Which was good because as I was trying to get him to eat his rice I noticed something in it.  A large bug.  We told the owner and she was mortified, swearing that this has never happened before.  She asked us if it was fine that she only charged us half, which was fine, but we'd lost our appetites by that point and excused ourselves about as quickly as we could.  Ephraim was given a cookie on the way out, which he told us was very tasty.  We really wanted to love this place, and honestly, if it wasn't for the food being so… bleck, I wouldn't diss the place as I am now, but that in combination with everything else, this was easily our worst meal at a restaurant in P.E.I. 

We drove around this afternoon collecting some stuff from some shops we'd been meaning to hit, and then went home for a rest before hitting the Fisherman's Wharf for my lobster dinner (delicious!).  The trip is quickly winding down, tomorrow the weather looks a little iffy.  We're debating whether or not we're going to attempt to see the Royals, William and Kate while they are here.  We shall see!

P.E.I.: Day Eleven

We've been here for quite awhile now and we've mostly been hanging out centrally and, to be honest, I needed some new surroundings.  So we decided to head east.  When we visited here last we went to East Point, which is the eastern most point of The Island, and it's also where the tides meet and collide with each other - which is pretty awesome to see actually.  That area is about an hour and a half drive and luckily we have a son that likes to get going first thing in the morning, so we took off soon after breakfast

The weather wasn't as sunny as we were hoping for, but we decided to pick up some supplies and have a picnic on the beach anyway.  We went to Basin Head Beach, also known as "The Singing Sands" because of the way the sand sounds when you walk on it.  It's a finer grade "white sand" whereas the rest of the island has the redder variety.

After lunch and a little nap we headed to East Point and was amazed by how much the cliffs have receded since we were last there.  They've even had to move the restaurant that was on the water back a bit.  When I get home I'll check my old photos and see if I can't do a side by side comparison of the two.  While there we got a quick treat of the local Prince Edward Island ADL ice cream (which I actually think is better than Cows actually.)

After that it was off to Elmira to the train museum.  What an awesome little place.  The highlight, as you can see above, is a mini trade ride that goes over a mile in track.  I can't imagine how much work went into that thing.  Ephraim was mesmerized the entire time.  That alone was worth the trek out.

So tomorrow is supposed to be sun-sun-sun so we may just do a beach day, otherwise I think we're curious to see if there's anything worth visiting the west end for before we head home.

P.E.I.: Day Ten

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANADA! So today the weather was on and off, which was perfect for the festivities. One of the coolest things about the trip was knowing that we'd be in the birth-town of confederation on Canada Day, so I was pretty excited for that. I couldn't even begin to imagine what kind of festivities they would have!

And then we got there. And it… kind of reminded me of the Canada Day's in Cayuga, Ontario where I grew up (but maybe on a larger scale). And if I'm being honest, I think Cayuga was a bit more exciting - there was more involvement with people, games, events. The only really great thing today was their music stage, other than that it was some bouncy castles and line-ups for junk food. Ephraim wanted his face painted (which is new, it used to scare the hell out of him), but there was only one person manning the booth, and after being in line for a half hour with it barely moving we realized that we'd be there for at least another hour before it would be Ephraim's turn. So I grabbed a temporary tattoo from the booth and convinced Ephraim that it was the same thing as getting his face painted.

So I guess I was a little let down by the festivities. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was a little more than that. The highlight, as I mentioned, was the music stage but in particular Mike Pendergast - a man whose name I keep seeing whenever we're looking into music here. We saw him play in the Avonlea Village group and were fortunate to talk to him afterwards there. He's one of the people I plan to get in touch with as I develop my idea for a P.E.I. film/show, I think he would be an absolute wealth of knowledge.

So a pretty average Canada Day, sadly, but the highlight in the evening was hearing our friend Blake Lambert read the nightly news on CBC. He'll be doing it all weekend in the evenings, every hour on the hour, and you can catch it by clicking this link here.

We've got five days left on The Island and still some more adventures to be had! We've been very thankful for the increasingly better weather.

P.E.I.: Day Nine

So above is the photo of the Summer House where we're currently staying, associated with Blue Crest Cottages.  The owner, Thelma, was awesome and gave it to us at the same price as the cottage as it wasn't booked and she thought it would be a better place for a family with a  small guy.  Can't argue that - the extra room is amazing.  It's easily as large as our place in Toronto (minus a basement), and it's kind of cool to have a yard where Ephraim can run around in.

Today was nice and tame, a nice way to celebrate mine and Emily's fourth anniversary as a married couple.  We had planned for rain, but the forecast changed (it does that here…) and apparently we're in for nothing but lovely weather for the next few days!  Huzzah!!!  So our back-up rain plan is put on hold until further notice.  We decided to spend the day in Charlottetown and poke around, so we took our sweet-ass time getting ready and headed out.  We got lunch at what is probably the only Thai place in Ch'town, possible the entire island.  Very different style from any I've had, but it was tasty - Ephraim sucked it up with glee as well.  After that I wanted to check out a comic book store, The Comic Hunter.  I've only been reading comics for the last few years, and it was when we were in P.E.I. last that I stopped into this store and bought a copy of Watchmen, and with it came an insert advertising other titles, Fables, Y: The Last Man, etc…. and the rest is history.  So I owe this store a great deal of gratitude for throwing me into an amazing storytelling medium.

While on Queen Street we hit Cows to try to knock off a few more flavours.  I don't think we're going to bother trying to do the whole list.  In fact, I think I've had my fill of Cows ice cream.  Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with it, but I'm kind of over it.  The ice cream itself is tasty, as it should be when it's got a ridiculously high butterfat percentage.  But my main issue is that the flavours are kind of lazy.  Of their 34 flavours I'd say that at least 80-90% of them are simply the vanilla base with a variation of the same dozen or so ingredients thrown in.  I like flavoured ice cream, not sugary inserts.  When we were at Shipwrights they served us ice cream from the local dairy ADL, and it was damn tasty stuff, so I think the next time we need a fix, that's where we'll go.  Nothing personal Cows, but that's just the way it is.

We stopped off at a playground and then a farmers market and bought Ephraim's weight in fruit, then returned home for a nice simple supper.  Tomorrow is Canada Day so we're heading back to Ch'town, the birthplace of confederation!  Should be cool.  And also, as you'll note in the photo below, our dear Ephraim has finally made a friend here on The Island...

P.E.I.: Day Eight

So the plan was to open this entry up with a photo of our new place, the Summer House, and in the foreground be the toy lawnmower that I swiped from the little bastard seven-year old.  But it just didn't happen.  (to be clear, I just didn't get a chance to take the photo today - I swiped that lawnmower like it was nobodies business!)
Today was another day of lovely weather so we headed down to a place called Victoria-By-The Sea, which is a very small town.   It might not even be a town - more a village.  The whole place literally has six streets.  Here is a map below.

It's a mixture of houses and shops (that are also part houses) more or less completely there for tourists - not really functional town type shops.  Oh and (as you can see above and below) a lighthouse!  We had lunch at a great place called The Landmark Cafe and then got some pretty amazing chocolates at Island Chocolates - Emily loved their cinnamon one (had some kick to it) and we're still going through our box.  We assumed that it was a chain, but after a quick google search I believe that there is actually only the one location.  We just may have to make an excuse to get back over that way…. hem….

After that we headed back to our neck of the woods for another lovely beach day. Ephraim loves running in the "rough waves", and silly me decided that we've taken "enough" beach pictures and missed some pretty awesome little moments - my favourite being Ephraim sitting in a large hole in the sand that Emily had dug and declaring it his "beach chair".  Priceless.

The more time I spend on The Island the more I'm fascinated with the idea that this is a REALLY seasonal place.  It could just be that I'm really just seeing the tourist side, but a large chunk of this place shuts down in September and doesn't re-open until about June.  And when the weather turns cold their agriculture and fishing must slow down as well.  I'm very very curious what it's like here during the winter.  Do people just work their ass off in the warmer months and then relax in the colder?  I must find the answers to these questions!  And another piece of useless trivia about P.E.I.  In 1976 they outlawed the use of plastic bottle to help curb littering (which I actually remembered when we were here for our honeymoon back in 2007), but then in 2008 they made them legal again.  This is another thing I'd like to know the reason/answer to.

Okay.  So tomorrow is supposed to rain - but we've got a rain plan!  And it's a fun one!  Stay tuned.  Today was the half-way point of our trip. 

P.E.I.: Day Seven

Today was an interesting day with a bit of a roller coaster of emotions. First off we awoke to a bright sunny day. Finally!!! It's amazing how quickly good weather can turn around your perspective on everything. We'd been told by various sources that today was supposed to be good so we planned to go to a place called Shining Waters, which is a little amusement type park with lots of water stuff, even for little guys like Ephraim. Have to say that I was a little disappointed in that the kiddie area, which is made up of a really large splash pad with a mini slide and other items, as well as two sets of larger slides. I wasn't disappointed by the area itself - it was pretty awesome, but the fact that it was more or less unsupervised. They had one poor employee monitoring the entire area, and all they could really do was to tell kids to slow down. Meanwhile at the top of the slides there were little kids pushing past each other to get to the front of the line. And when you went down the slide they wouldn't wait but five seconds to go down behind you, hitting you in the back. Part of me wants to blame the kids for being rude, but they're kids - they are at a water park and they're excited and impulsive. Part of wants to (and does, if I'm honest) blame the parents for:
A) raising kids who are so selfish and rude
B) not paying attention to them (seriously, there was a two, maybe three, year-old who was strapped in a life jacket and their parent more-or-less just let them run wild. A life preserver is not a substitute for a supervisor or parent).
But I think I have to ultimately blame the facility. The parents don't know their kids are misbehaving (even though they should) and ultimately the place needed another employee there to monitor the tops of the slides.
So other than that we really enjoyed the park - lots of different areas over and above the water park stuff. Ephraim and I even did a Pirate Paddle Boat. You'll see how successful below. After that we headed to Cows for some ice cream (our goal is to go through all of their 34 flavours before we leave (the trick is getting two flavours in one scoop!), then back to the cottage where I witnessed one of the saddest things ever.
The rest of the cottages in our row have started to fill up and when we returned we saw almost a dozen other kids playing at the little park area. Ephraim was so excited to have what he was calling "new friends". So we got him ready to go and I went down to the park with him. When we got there he saw a toy lawnmower and declared, quite loudly, that he wanted to play with it. So just as he was about to grab it, a seven-year old swiped it away, knowing full well that it had been called for, simply responding, "Too bad!" And when I told him that I'd appreciate it if he'd let Ephraim play with it he simply told me that if I didn't leave him alone that he would tell his father that I "touched him". Wow. But that wasn't the worst part, the worst part was that Ephraim stood there, not understanding what had happened. Why this person who he hoped might be his new friend would do this. Sad indeed.
Luckily tomorrow we're being upgraded to the Summer House down the road (went for a tour tonight - it's gorgeous) so we won't have to be near that kid. And the lady that owns the place told us that we could take any toys we wanted to the new place. So first thing tomorrow morning guess what I'm grabbing?

P.E.I.: Day Six

So first off, today was Emily's birthday! Happy birthday to my lovely wife!!! We started off the day with breakfast at the Charlottetown Cora's. We were planning to spend most of the day in Charlottetown, but the weather sucked, which wasn't doing well for the birthday festivities. We haven't had the best of weather since we've been here - mostly just a lot of cloudiness - luckily not much rain, but no warm sun either. So after a few stops we decided to head back to the cottage for lunch.
Ephraim had another epic (for him) nap, and by the time he got up the sun had finally come out! Huzzah! So we decided to head to the Cavendish beach. I have to say that I think the high point of the day, heat wise, in this province is much later than ours back in Ontario. Here it appears to be around 4pm, home it's closer to 2pm. We still went nowhere near the water, but had a mighty good time building sand castles and digging what Ephraim refers to as "toilet tunnels". After that we went to a restaurant in Margate that we'd heard about, Shipwrights. It's pretty awesome to pull up to a place and see a large vegetable garden on one side and a pen full of chickens, ducks, and rabbits on the other side. In a time where sometimes it's hard to know where your food comes from, there was no guessing here. Everything was pretty much made on sight. Emily was a little let down by her meal - she ordered the Vegetarian Lasagna, which advertised garden vegetables, but was mostly just soy-ground-round, I however had what was probably one of the top five meals of my life - a Pesto Scallop Pasta - homemade pesto and amazing homemade pasta - I'm not a big scallop fan, but damn if they didn't taste great.
So after that headed home for a much needed rest and shower (wrestling on the beach with Ephraim got sand e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. And now, as I write the, the rain is pounding down. Go ahead rain! Give it your best. Get it out of your system. Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be lovely. We'll take it!

P.E.I.: Day Five

There they are - the P.E.I. chocolate covered potato chips!  Apparently so popular that an extra facility was needed just to keep up with the demand.  How were they?  Well, they're the kind of thing that you only need a few of, that's for sure.  The chocolate is pretty rich, the chips pretty greasy, so put together it's not the kind of thing you want to make part of your every day snacking, but it's a unique little treat.

So today was pretty uneventful, in a good way.  We went to a open tank fish museum in Stanley Bridge this morning, and I'll be the first to admit, I assumed it was going to be a little lame, especially based on the outside.  I take it back, it was really cool.  First off they have some of the funkiest fish I've ever seen, and what's even cooler is that they're all indigenous to the area.  Another room filled with stuffed birds, hundreds and hundreds of all species and types.  If there is a bird missing in that collection I would be absolutely amazed - it was pretty damn impressive.  The touch tank aspect was a little underwhelming, consisting mostly of starfish and clams.  Older kids would probably get a lot more out of it as there was a LOT of information.  For example, did you know that oysters change sex several times through-out their lives, and that they mate with one another by essentially spitting at each other and their sperm and eggs meet and mix in the middle.  No touching whatsoever.  And Walrus' were indigenous (word of the day!) to P.E.I. until the poachers made them extinct here.  Sucks, right?

The plan was to hit a kids music concert featuring Mike Pendergast (a P.E.I. musician superstar - seriously you can't go anywhere in this province musically without his name coming up.  He's everywhere (that's a good thing!).  But Ephraim ended up having an actual decent nap for once and so we missed it.  Instead we wandered over to the Cavindish Beach to collect more shells and whatnot.  The water was nowhere warm enough to go near, and despite the clouds it was nice weather, so we built sand castles, dug ditches and played Ring-Around-The-Rosie in the sand.  Special thanks to the guy who decided to sit a few feet over from us and smoke so that it kept hitting us in the face. 

Then we just headed back home for a nice relaxed evening.  Tomorrow is Emily's birthday so we're looking forward to a fun-filled indulgent day (and hoping that the weather improves!)

P.E.I.: Day Four

So today was kind of a weird day. First off, I'd like to retract a comment from yesterday's post! It would appear that we had shopped at the ghetto Atlantic Superstore and the one on the other side of Charlottetown had, more or less, everything that we're used to from the grocery story near our house. Huzzah! The Island didn't let us down! I also forgot to mention yesterday an interesting Island treat we discovered, chocolate covered potato chips. Yum yum.

Our first stop today was to head to the Cows Creamery. For those that don't know there is a world-famous ice cream store that originates here named Cows. In addition to their ice cream they are also somewhat famous for their awesome line of parody t-shirts. I'll post a photo of a shirt we bought later on in the week. I have to admit, the Factory Tour at Cows was kind of lame. It's a very small factory and they charge you $6 to look through the glass into a t-shirt shop, then the tiny ice cream kitchen, then the cheese storage, and then a spoonful of ice cream to sample. The whole thing takes about 10 minutes. Granted we were there on a Saturday, so it's probably a little more exciting when the rooms are filled with people working, but I have to say that I'd just rather you spend your money on the actual ice cream or one of their fun shirts. Avoid the tour. Lame-o!

Because our pass was good for two days we headed back to Avonlea Village, where both Anne and Gilbert remembered Ephraim (how awesome is that?). And so we did the tourist thing and took photos of him with them. Also kudos to Gilbert for playing ball with Ephraim for over ten minutes (including hitting him in the head). Can't say enough good about this place. Really solid. Please go - it deserves to be supported.

Also something that I forgot to include yesterday from our Avonlea visit. While in the school house we were given some homework to do. Here are some of the more generic questions, just off the top of your head see how many you can answer. Remember all questions are referencing 1908, not the current date:

Name the current Prime Minister of Canada.
Name the current President of the United States.
Name the current King of England.
Name of our present flag.
Why are cars not permitted on the roads of Prince Edward Island?
What are the two main industries in Prince Edward Island?

And before we left, Ephraim had to say goodbye to his (I think) favourite animal, the Donkey, Eeore.

We then headed back to Summerside as we'd read that there was supposed to be a Kitchen Party at the Legion.  Now, from what I've been told Kitchen Parties are supposed to be traditional music and storytelling, instead we got to the Legion (should have been my first clue) to find a band full of over the hill-wanna-be-rockers, filled with middle-aged and over people drinking beer and hard liquor.  Several minutes into it they somehow realized that we'd brought a two-year old in and kicked us out.  Thank the sweet lord.  That place scared me, but it also scared me to leave quickly and upset people.  So we got to the tourism booth in Summerside and asked what else was going on, especially since Ephraim kept exclaiming "Where music go?".  Do not separate that guy from his music.  He'll cut you.  So they pointed us in the direction of the Highland Games.  I have to say that Emily and I get ourselves into some pretty random situations when we go on trips.  For the most part we plan where where to go and what to do, but we're also big fans of going with the flow and giving into whims.  Let's just say that the only thing that trumps Band-Geek is Highland Band-Geek.  It was fine, but nothing I could see myself returning to by choice.

Oh, and before I forget, here is a personal little letter to the people at TomTom GPS service.
Dear TomTom people, we find your navigation system quite easy to use, however your P.E.I. maps are something to be desired.  On several occasions you have lead us down roads that no longer exist, and fail to acknowledge ones that do.  I spent at least half an hour or more today heading in the wrong direction (on several occasions).  So please, send someone to P.E.I. and update your maps.  There is an entire survey of houses that you do not know exists.  That is all.

So that was our day.  We ended it with going to an AWESOME restaurant in Summerside called Five Eleven West.  Great food, awesome staff.  Would go there again in a heartbeat!  We've had two later nights with Ephraim out about so I think the plan is to stay close to home tomorrow.  Supposed to be nice in the afternoon so we'll see what we get up to!

P.E.I.: Day Three

 

There is a saying about The Island that if you don't like the weather just wait for half an hour.  It's true.  Thankfully.  I've never been somewhere where if you look at the fourteen day forecast in the morning it looks nothing like the one in the afternoon.  On Wednesday before we left it was calling for blue skies for the majority of our trip and that estimation has changed several times since we've been here - we're hoping it continues to do so as a few rainy days are expected, but honestly, I don't think that there is a hell of a lot to do on The Island in bad weather.  We spent an hour or so searching the internet for options and came up with a few, but not nearly as many as you'd expect - especially in a place where tourism is key, and you'd want the people to have things to do on rainy days.  I'm telling you, anyone wanting to invest in a potential goldmine, build an indoor play centre in P.E.I.  So far so good, but if the weather turns you'll be sure to hear it from me :)

So this morning was cold and cloudy.  We went to a really nice playground in North Rustico while waiting for Avonlea Village to open at 10am.  Seriously, this playground was awesome.  Below here you'll see a photo of an outdoor gym area that's pretty damn neat.  If you look closely there are no weights, but look to the bottom of the machines.  They are each designed so that you pull/push a percentage of your own body weight.  Pretty damn awesome.  If we go back there I'll get a video demonstration for you to marvel/laugh at. 

After the park we headed to Avonlea Village in Cavindish, just down the road from our cottage.  It goes without saying that the Anne Of Green Gables legacy is something that has done awfully well for The Island.  It's pretty amazing how a hundred year old literary character has put a place on the map, an in such a romantic way.  I think it adds a fairytale charm to the The Island that no where else I've ever been to has.  I could go on and on about this and how it fascinates me, but I won't bore you.  Instead, The Village.  In a world: wonderful.  Seriously, especially for families with children.  It's set up in a way that it's almost like an on-going story and live theatre.  Through-out the day the "characters" do little 'moments' from the books, but then in-between then just walk around and mingle in character, and they do a damn fine and funny job of it.  Again, charming.  The place is open from 10am-5pm and I swear that you could spend the entire time there just immersed in the characters walking around.  It could just be that it's early in the season and there were less people there but I'd say that we actually got to know the characters a bit.  Below you'll see a drawing that one did for Ephraim, 'Charlie Sloan' who became Ephraim's friend over the course of our time there.  Top notch stuff.  AND our pass is good for two consecutive days, so we'll probably head back tomorrow afternoon to catch up on anything we missed.

After that we headed to Summerside to catch their Pre-Canada Day Olde-Fashioned Carnival, which was really really awesome.  It was packed as well with locals, and had awesome music playing the whole time (I bought two CDs today, one here, and the other from the band playing at Avonlea - I'll try to give them a little write-up at some point as well).  They had games for the kids - five cents each.  A really nice little way to end the day.  We went to an Italian Restaurant for dinner, but then left quickly when they weren't able to make a sauce that didn't have meat in it.  Which probably just meant that nothing they make there is fresh, so we gladly left and went to Sharkey's Seafood something-or-other which was just fine.  Not a top-notch seafood place, but nothing to complain about.  Emily is vegetarian so she doesn't eat fish (which is difficult in a place like The Island) and Ephraim and I are pescetarian (which essentially just means we're vegetarians who eat seafood - mock us if you will, I could explain the reasoning, but that's an entirely different long winded blog).
So all in all a lovely day and adventure.  More to come tomorrow!!! (oh, and I came up with my P.E.I. film idea... ;-) )

P.E.I.: Day Two

Today started with us actually sleeping in until 6:30am!  To be clear, that's technically 5:30am our usual time, so technically not sleeping in, but we'll take it!  Ephraim had fallen asleep on the way to our cottage so he was quite delighted to wake up in a completely new place, especially one with a little park just a thirty-second walkaway, and a pool next door.  We wanted to keep today pretty low-key so after breakfast in North Rustico we headed to Charlottetown to get some groceries.  We have some particular food likes and we figured our best bet would be there at the Atlantic Superstore.  Have to say that we were a tad disappointed that we couldn't get a few things there - although we haven't give up hope and we know that we'll find them elsewhere!  P.E.I. don't let me down!
After that we bought some new swimwear and headed back to our cottage for lunch and then went to Backley Beach (the beaches here, which are part of the National Park system, require a pass to get into them - and one is included with our cottage - Huzzah!).  The Beach was beautiful, the sand was nice and warm, and the water was damn damn cold, but as you can see from the photo above Ephraim didn't seem to give a damn, he just wanted to run and hop and play in that frigid water!
So nothing too exciting today.  Tomorrow we're going on a series of adventures, so stay tuned for that!

P.E.I.: Day One

God damn I love it here.  Currently I'm sitting outside of our cottage, just a kilometre from North Rustico, P.E.I., breathing in the slightly chilled maritime air and it's just absolutely glorious.  The picture above is the view from our cottage.  Just look at the lovely red soil.  Gorgeous.  I keep telling myself that I could live here, but I think what's more true is it's just that this is a part of the world that I want to visit often.  If I'm smart I'll write something to shoot here and give us an excuse to move out here for a few months.  Now that's what I should do! 
Today was a travel day, so not much to report at all.  Charlottetown's airport is one of those lovely little places (although Sudbury still holds the title of smallest airport I've ever flown into).  What tickled me even more was to think that in a weeks time the royals, William and Kate, will be flying into there.  Our flight landed at 6pm P.E.I.-time and we got our car pretty quickly (even though I'd forgotten which company we did the rental car through.)  We stopped at a little place to eat in Charlottetown called Tai Chi Gardens (vegetarian at that!) and then we got to our cottage with no troubles (thanks to our lovely new TomTom GPS) and Ephraim even fell asleep on the way there as an added bonus!
Looking forward to two glorious weeks on The Island, tomorrow will be more or less settling it, going out for breakfast, getting some groceries, etc... but we're going to try and hit a beach as well and start planning where we want to go and when.  Oh, and we'll probably hit Cows Ice Cream, 'cause it's pretty awesome.