Canadian Maritimes Vacation

Day 14-15 (May 30&31)

We are in Vacationland RV park at Brackley Beach on Prince Edward Island. This will be our second night of a planned three, perhaps four. We decided to travel the whole way from our last overnight stop at Sunset West Campground (where it rained all night) on Brule Point near Tatamagouche along Nova Scotia's Sunrise Trail. We stopped for a delicious bowl of fish chowder at a neat, eclectic appetizing place called Sunrise Mercantile. We were treated to friendly folks and hummingbirds at a window feeder.

Then on to Jost Winery (which is advertised all over Nova Scotia) at Malagash where we tasted a few wines, including an award winning ice wine...very excellent. A couple of bottles of that and a few more of other Jost wines are now stowed safely away under Carol's bed.

Intrigued by the sign at Jost that a Dandelion Festival was underway in Wallace, a bit further along the Sunrise Trail, we stopped. Carol checked out the Festival while I went to the dock to buy some lobsters [$4.50/lb.] for supper. Chatting with my lobsterman, we learned the misery of being in that business pushed around by the vagaries of the market and the costs of being on the water. We had talked with a lobsterman earlier in Main-a-Dieu N.S. and they were $3.50/lb. So the price fluctuates daily as does the catch from port to port. This wiry lobsterman even blames the construction of the Confederation Bridge, some 30 miles away, for some of the poor catch in recent years.

Carol's report on the Wallace Dandelion Festival:

"The Dandelion Festival consisted of a photo contest with a few dozen entries of photographs of dandelions ...one section for adult photographers, one for juveniles.... displayed on the side wall of Wallace's Town Hall. Outside the white worn wooden building and down a set of equally worn and weathered wooden stairs was a little corner of tables and grills for the purpose of selling hot dogs and sausages in a roll (I bought one, of course, just to give some kind of credence to their efforts!). The fish pier across the street where David got the lobsters was mostly deserted. Yellow balloons, a few garage sales along the street, and a few local folks gathering around to talk was the extent of the Festival. What I really wanted was to buy some dandelion wine, but alas, none was even remotely available. I don't know why it's not a favored product of the area...I've never seen so many fields and lawns literally yellowed over with the flowers of the dandelion from which the wine is made. At least they give a nod to the proliferation of them with a Festival, however, no matter how small."

We stopped again in Pugwash where Carol shopped for some pewter. Crossing into New Brunswick, we headed over flat farming country to the Confederation Bridge for our crossing into Prince Edward Island.

Last night in the RV we cooked the two Wallace lobsters (3.5# total) . Can't get 'em any fresher than that and they were super delicious. So we are certainly having our fill of fine seafood

Today's weather was perfect, clear and low 70's, so we spent the day in Charlottetown, about 12 miles from here on the waterfront. We ate lunch at a place called Flex Mussels which serves mussels cooked with a choice of 23 different recipes. They were really out-of-this-world goodI enjoyed mine Thai style and Carol relished her Pesto. Given this is the potato capital of Canada, we had fantastic thin cut Russet French fries...better than Al's... to go with the mussels. This restaurant, seasonal in PEI, also has a location in New York City. For seafood lovers these mussels can't be beat!

Tomorrow, after a few errands, we'll probably head for the northwestern part of the island beginning with 'Anne of Green Gables' in Cavendish.