Prince Edward Island Trip: Arrival in Halifax
M had long expressed that she wanted to go to Prince Edward Island, or as it is supposedly translated from the local First person's language, "land cradled in the waves". M's desire to visit was driven less by the novel Anne of Green Gables than by the mid-1980s television film, but whatever the reason she wanted to go there, and I certainly had no objections, so off we went.
I've already charted the food in two posts as part of my food journal, but I thought it would be helpful to go into slightly more detail on our travels than can be found there or in the photos I posted.
We drove down to Columbus to drop off Chucha with M's parents, and then flew from there to Halifax by way of Newark on Tuesday, September 17. We arrived around noon, and were quite hungry, so drove our rental car (a brand new Mercedes-Benz C300, and my wasn't that fancy?) down to the waterfront to have lunch. After lunch we walked along the waterfront, which is full of new construction. We went on board the HMCS Sackville, the last surviving Flower-class corvette from WWII, who serves as a memorial and museum ship. Corvettes aren't very large so it didn't take us too long to go through her. On a side note, it was quite windy and a bit chilly on the waterfront, but this ended up being the single coldest part of our entire trip, and we had excellent weather every other day.
On our way back to the parking deck we searched out an ATM so we could get some Canadian cash. We saw the Halifax Town Clock. One of M's friends had recommended the Halifax Public Gardens, so we drove up to that area and walked around. It is a small public garden with a little lake, but it still had quite a few flowers for so late in the year. It didn't take long to walk through it. It also was the first place that we saw downed trees and evidence of chainsaw cleanup. Hurricane Dorian had blown through the Maritime provinces the prior week. By the time we arrived power had been restored and most trees had been cleaned up, but we saw the evidence of Dorian's passing everywhere. Most notably, a large construction crane had blown over across the street from the park and was crumpled into the building it had been working on.
On a side note: Canadians are stereotypically super nice, and our experiences certainly supported those stereotypes. On the way to downtown we crossed the Macdonald bridge, which has a $1 CAD toll. The problem was that we didn't have any Canadian money yet, not even a Loonie. The toll collector happily took our $1 USD and gave us a Loonie without any hassle. I have trouble imagining the same happening in America.
After visiting the gardens, we headed north out of town. Our destination for the night was the Caribou area, which is where the ferry to PEI departs from. Our flight had been extremely early in the morning, so we ate dinner and went to bed early.
I've already charted the food in two posts as part of my food journal, but I thought it would be helpful to go into slightly more detail on our travels than can be found there or in the photos I posted.
We drove down to Columbus to drop off Chucha with M's parents, and then flew from there to Halifax by way of Newark on Tuesday, September 17. We arrived around noon, and were quite hungry, so drove our rental car (a brand new Mercedes-Benz C300, and my wasn't that fancy?) down to the waterfront to have lunch. After lunch we walked along the waterfront, which is full of new construction. We went on board the HMCS Sackville, the last surviving Flower-class corvette from WWII, who serves as a memorial and museum ship. Corvettes aren't very large so it didn't take us too long to go through her. On a side note, it was quite windy and a bit chilly on the waterfront, but this ended up being the single coldest part of our entire trip, and we had excellent weather every other day.
On our way back to the parking deck we searched out an ATM so we could get some Canadian cash. We saw the Halifax Town Clock. One of M's friends had recommended the Halifax Public Gardens, so we drove up to that area and walked around. It is a small public garden with a little lake, but it still had quite a few flowers for so late in the year. It didn't take long to walk through it. It also was the first place that we saw downed trees and evidence of chainsaw cleanup. Hurricane Dorian had blown through the Maritime provinces the prior week. By the time we arrived power had been restored and most trees had been cleaned up, but we saw the evidence of Dorian's passing everywhere. Most notably, a large construction crane had blown over across the street from the park and was crumpled into the building it had been working on.
On a side note: Canadians are stereotypically super nice, and our experiences certainly supported those stereotypes. On the way to downtown we crossed the Macdonald bridge, which has a $1 CAD toll. The problem was that we didn't have any Canadian money yet, not even a Loonie. The toll collector happily took our $1 USD and gave us a Loonie without any hassle. I have trouble imagining the same happening in America.
After visiting the gardens, we headed north out of town. Our destination for the night was the Caribou area, which is where the ferry to PEI departs from. Our flight had been extremely early in the morning, so we ate dinner and went to bed early.