Where We Are Once Again Schlepped Around From Here To There For The Entire Day.
But At Least We Had A Beaver Tail
And Anne Of Green Gables, That Too.
Knowing absolutely nothing about Prince Edward Island (PEI) other than it’s the site of the “Anne Of Green Gables” books (by Lucy Maud Montgomery) that I read and re-read fairly endlessly when I was 12, I had no expectations as to what it was like (other than what I vaguely recall from the books I read almost 60 years ago.
We thought we had this bus-reserved-seat thing down pretty well. Andy told the bus-ticket person we needed to reserve seats near the front of the bus, the bus-ticket person made the note, and we thought we were good.
When our bus number was called, all sorts of confusion occurred once we exited the gangway. We lost the rest of the group as we wandered through the cruise terminal, and ended up being one of the last people on the bus. There was no reserved seats for us. The bus driver said, “We had 6 reserved seats and they’re all filled”. Obviously, they did not check the reservations against the room numbers. Good news: there was still a single seat in the second row, and another right behind that. Bad news: decent photos through the windows were not going to happen.
The ship was docked in Charlottetown, PEI. Whenever the tour guide starts the tour by pointing out ordinary structures (the middle school, the shopping plaza with a Walmart and a Home Depot), we’ve discovered this does not bode well. A nice enough town, the largest on PEI (40K) that gets a ton of snow every winter.
Farming is a big part of the PEI economy, with potatoes being the biggest crop. This meant that as soon as we left the city limits, the scenery consisted of nice rolling hills and farmland.
To our surprise, today’s tour included lunch! Which was, of course, a lobster roll and potato salad. Fortunately, there was also the choice of chicken salad and potato salad, or some vegetarian option (with potato salad (you see the recurring theme here)). The tour guide tallied up all the choices, and, I assumed, phoned it in to the restaurant.
Our first stop was at the Marine Rail Historical Park – mostly a bathroom break, but also a photo op for the Confederation Bridge that connects PEI to New Brunswick ($25 toll each way, but paid only on the way back to PEI). There’s a monument to the ferry service that existed before the bridge was built.
Next, we were off to the Gateway Village, that had a nice gift shop and a statue to Anne of Green Gables.
You could dress up as Anne in period costumes (came in assorted sizes and included a hat with attached red braids), and have a friend take your picture. I’m a big Anne Shirley, but not that big.
The lobster industry is another big part of the economy on PEI; everyone was offered a taste of lobster potato chips by the staff. Since lobster is about as unkosher as any food item can get, we declined. We said, “We don’t eat lobster”, to which the staffer replied, “YOU DON’T EAT LOBSTER!?!”. Nope, still don’t, hasn’t changed.
On we drove to Cavendish, the town where Lucy Maud Montgomery lived and the setting for the Anne of Green Gables books. We stopped at Cavendish beach for a photo op – you can see how red the soil is on PEI by the red cliffs:
Hurricane Fiona hit PEI in 2022 and did some serious damage to the island, especially the crops and the beaches.
After the beach, it was time for lunch. Somehow, even though the tallies of lobster, chicken, and vegetarian sandwiches were known, getting a non-lobster sandwich turned out to be something of a challenge for some unknown reason. Fortunately, we still had plenty of time before we needed to board the bus when our lunches finally arrived.
Then we were off to the “Green Gables Heritage Place” (IMO, an awkward name?).
Lucy Maud Montgomery never lived in this house or on the farmstead, but some of her relatives did. She visited frequently and used the farmstead as the inspiration for the location of the books.
Keep in mind that I was the one who had read these books all those years ago. Andy had not. So while seeing this place brought back memories of the books in my mind, it didn’t mean much of anything to him. What a good sport!
We had plenty of time to share a beaver tail pastry before boarding the bus. I’m going to save the photo of the beaver tail for the very end, so it’ll be the cover photo for the blog. For the uninitiated, a beaver tail seems to me to be a flat doughnut with yummy stuff on top.
We got one with Nutella, peanut butter sauce, and Reese’s Pieces. They make it for you on the spot. It was super hot and hard to figure out how to eat it without getting burned fingers. Utensils were nowhere to be found. We forged ahead and managed to make it disappear pretty quickly. UNBELIEVABLY GOOD.
On the way back to the ship, we passed by the cemetery where Lucy Maud Montgomery is buried. Here is an awkward photo of her grave, taken through the window as we drove by, and I’m trying not have a seat mate photobomb:
I tried to get some photos of the countryside. This was the best I could do:
We arrived back at the cruise terminal something after 5:00. We didn’t have a lot of time to look at the shops, because all-aboard time was 5:30.
Tomorrow is a sea day. Wednesday, 9/18, is Portland, ME – our last port on this cruise. Some “Welcome Back To The US” immigration stuff is happening that morning. The ship’s crew has been working with CBP to set up the schedule to process all 3K passengers by 12:30 p.m. This should be entertaining.
Here is the beaver tail:
Maryland Meshugas 