Canada

PEI is a small province, and a province we should have never have gone to. Especially on such a nice day. The best thing about the province is that it takes about 3 hours to drive across. We started at a Provincial Park right off the ferry from Nova Scotia and the park was about the size of the park next to the Toronto ferry docks, which is very much not a provincial park. Then we went to a winery that advertised, but didn't offer tours or anything like that. Subsequently, a whole lot of nothing until Charlottetown, which has a few Anne of Green Gables-themed stores and a few other stores. Finally we took the confederation bridge. Sue was driving, and when trucks would pass in the oncoming lane she was a bit scared because the car would get blown a little to the side. Confederation bridge itself is long (and expensive, with a toll of $40 to cross, but cheaper than the ferry which is close to $70) and offers good views of the sky, but not much ocean because there's a 3 foot high barrier on the sides.

Watching whales in Nova Scotia costs about half of what it does in New Brunswick, about $25 vs $45 when we went. We had seen a couple whales or porpoises (couldn't really tell) through the longviews at the park earlier in the day, but it was pretty cool to be so close. We stopped next to one school (?) of whales for about half an hour, as they swam around and leaped and napped. The boats that they take us on are fishing / lobster boats, with seats bolted in for tourist season. The take this year of lobsters, we heard, sold for very low prices (as changing diets on Wall Street reduce demand, according to an article I read earlier), starting the season at a wholesale lobster price of $2.50/lb and currently at $4/lb. That also answered the question of how it was possible for us to each have a lobster and 2 oysters for under $10 at a small restaurant the day before...

This place was truly awesome. It's a massive mountainous park, with peaks around 500m and valleys around sea level, so needless to say the views are spectacular. There are many footpaths (and biking paths but we had no bikes), ranging from 15 minutes to several hours. As we entered the park we lost a hubcap as a result of Sue driving over a curb, so the car is down to 1 of 4, and there was a fox on the road immediately after that. Inside the park there was a lot of nature, we saw a mother (no antlers) and baby moose from a distance and forest in a lot of different states (old growth, wetlands, barren (possibly from forest fires). We only spent a day there, and definitely regret going to PEI instead of spending another day or two in the park.

We stopped in Cheticamp at an Acadian museum where they make hooked rugs (Sue was much faster than me, and looked less confused - pics are in her post), and then at a Hooked Rugs Crafts shop (or so says the roof). The lady that runs the place, Lana, was very friendly and made Sue and I even more jealous of people living there. She had excellent stories about her cats and her work, all while hooking a custom rug. She was extremely quick, especially remarkable after trying it ourselves earlier in the day. Apparently some of the folks that hook the rugs object to being called hookers, but I'm in favour and some of the hookers including her don't see any stigma attached to the label.

Our first stop in Cape Breton was an empty stone beach with lovely water, abd I couldn't resist going for a swim. It was cold - after about 5 minutes I was starting to feel frostbite everywhere, which is an interesting sensation. I quickly left the water and walked along the beach, and learned to skip stones under Sue's leadership. It was a great beach for it, some areas had nothing but skipping stones, no need to look for well-shaped ones. Sue almost hit me with a really big rock, luckily I moved out of the way.