Here we are already beginning our third week of our Canadian adventure. Today we did something that we don’t often do and that is take a tour bus. We decided instead of driving the 100 or so miles around the island we would let Graylines do it for us.  It was a very pleasurable trip. Our driver/guide is a lifelong resident of Prince Edward Island (PEI) who told us much about the local history and how the island has changed during his lifetime. The bridge we went over is several times longer than we have ever encountered and several times for expensive (about $45 toll).  He said it was finished in 1996 and has somewhat changed the face of the island as now PEI gets about 30% of its economy from tourism.

Of course there were the usual local battles about whether to build the bridge or just continue to rely on the 2+ hour round trip via the ferry. Some say the bridge wrecked the lobster fishing on the south end of the island; some say it was never that good to start with. The lobster population, despite severe government regulations has continued to decline but the blue mussel population has more than replaced it. PEI ships their mussels all over the world including a very substantial amount to Japan.  So, I have decided to try the blue mussel for dinner tonight and reserve our lobster dinner for Maine later in the week.

Our tour today took us to the north side of the island to the Cavendish National Historic Site of the famed novel “Anne of Green Gables” by Lucy Montgomery. A PBS series about the novels played in 1986 (I can’t believe it has been that long ago!!)about the story of Anne Shirley of Green Gables PEI is still rather fresh in my mind. As usual the story was a fiction but based on the experiences of the author. Above is a picture of the house that inspired the novel.  I looked into getting a set of DVDs of the series but they were priced at about $120 Canadian (about $140 usd with taxes). Fortunately there was wifi in the shop so I checked out the cost on Amazon and found it to be about $50; so I will be ordering the series when I return.

From the historic site we went to a beach on the north shore. There was a front that came through the area last night that cooled the temperatures from the mid-70s yesterday to the mid-60s today. Evidently that also brought some rare white caps on this beach as shown in the picture here.

We are now resting in our hotel and getting ready for dinner in a few hours. This will be our last dinner on PEI. Tomorrow we will tour a couple historic sites and then head down to Nova Scotia.  I have decided to let Yvonne do 100% of the decision making of what we do and where we go in Nova Scotia. This will be a very interesting couple of days for me to see what she decides to do.  After NS it is down into Maine and to NYC.

And the journey goes on.