Rapher's Log: Stardate July 5/23
Ok, trying this in the new editor to see if it crossposts... Onward with the travel logs!
No. No they do not work. Holy crap, the new editor screwed up the entire entry.
Had a really early morning. Seriously early. We were both awake around 4:00. Gave up pretending to be sleeping around 5:00. Considering breakfast didn’t start until 6:30 and our first planned outing for today didn’t open until 10:00, we might have been a little early. Didn’t have the greatest night’s sleep, the AC was noisy, the mattress hurt my hip, temperature wasn’t great… So we didn’t exactly rush to get ready, got down to the breakfast room around 7:15.
Pretty much the standard fare: eggs (boiled & scrambled), hash browns, turkey & pork sausage, bread, fruit, cereals, yogurt, pancakes, pastries, water/juice/coffee/tea… And something that seems to be the case these days, an acute lack of bacon. We hung out in the room until about 9:30 when we headed out to the Cavendish area. Was it for the music festival? No. Beach? Nope. Green Gables. No sir. It was for the River of Adventure mini golf! Seriously, are there any other reasons to go to PEI?
I took a slightly different route to get there and, as one might expect when I take an alternate route, something went wrong. I got to one of the Island’s MANY roundabouts and took the first exit. Shoulda taken the second one. Ended up on a familiar road, went past the “Great Canadian Soap Company” and their “Got soap?” and “Forgot soap?” signs. Normally we see these signs from the other direction. Luckily I realized my mistake when I got to Brackley Point Road and got us back on track. We got to the River of Adventure shortly after it opened at 10:00.
The goal now was to get through our game in before the weather turned bad (the skies were looking a little foreboding), but without rushing. We took our time, enjoyed ourselves, took more pics than usual… One thing we got a few pics of were the uprooted trees from when Hurricane Fiona blew through last fall. It was very evident, all over the Island, that there had been major damage. In the end, Sandra demonstrated some mad putting skills and won 56 to 57, not bad for a par 51 course! I did manage a hole in one though. And then messed up and double bogeyed the next hole.
Popped down to the Cavendish boardwalk to kill some time. Wandered the stores, didn’t really shop though. Had a quick bite to eat in the car for lunch (protein bars again - planned to have a late lunch/early supper in Charlottetown) before heading off. Decided to pop into Avonlea Village to kill some time. Yeah, that went well. Despite the fact that they were open, things were a mess with people getting ready for the aforementioned Country Music Festival. Once I was able to, we got out of there and headed to our next stop…which I’d discovered the night before while looking at Google Maps.
We went to the Butterfly House, which is actually part of the Gardens of Hope. The butterflies were pretty cool. Ok, technically, they were warm, as was the building they were housed in. Quite a few of them, flying around. One landed briefly on Sandra’s hair, but too quick to get a picture. Did snap several other pics. Other people who were visiting managed to get them to land on their hands and such. After leaving there, we wandered through the gardens a little bit. The skies were looking a wee bit more foreboding now, so we decided to head back into town.
And considering I was coming from a totally different place, the fact that I did not get turned around/lost was quite impressive.
Once back in Charlottetown, headed straight to the waterfront area, parking across the street from our planned destination - the Founders Hall Food Market. A while back, they used to have an interactive exhibit & tourist bureau in the building. Now it seems they’ve put in a big food court. We’d visited it last year but only bought some potato fudge. This time we wanted to have a proper meal. Considering it was after 2:00, the place was quite busy. We finally settled on getting food from “Big Burgers”. Neither of us got burgers, though. *G* Sandra got poutine, I had a BLT & Fries. The food was fine.
The ambience…not so much. They had a musician playing. He wasn’t too bad when he was just singing, but he frequently felt the need to demonstrate that he had volume behind his voice (which was not quite strong enough to support the volume). He also went to the Spinal Tap School of Sound and had his equipment turned up to 11. After getting tired of conversations like “WHAT?” “WHAT??” “NEVER MIND!” we left.
Headed back outside to walk around downtown Charlottetown a bit. Here I made a mistake, shoulda gotten the walker from the car. After going around Peake’s Quay just using the cane, my hip (opposite my bad knee) just decided that the bad night’s sleep and the walking was too much, so we wandered back to the car. Considered taking a break on a bench in Confederation Landing but the benches were all a bit wet. It was finally starting to rain a bit.
On the way back to the room, we stopped at Value Village & Indigo Books to do a little shopping. Luckily the stop lights near our Hotel were finally working, they’d been out since we arrived. Rush hour traffic got quite backed up because of the lights being out.
Settled into the room for the night, eventually deciding to finish the coolers we’d purchased the day before. Then decided to hit the sack early (9:30, wasn’t even dark out yet) in the hopes of having a better night sleep.
Homeward bound...with a few stops along the way.
No. No they do not work. Holy crap, the new editor screwed up the entire entry.
Had a really early morning. Seriously early. We were both awake around 4:00. Gave up pretending to be sleeping around 5:00. Considering breakfast didn’t start until 6:30 and our first planned outing for today didn’t open until 10:00, we might have been a little early. Didn’t have the greatest night’s sleep, the AC was noisy, the mattress hurt my hip, temperature wasn’t great… So we didn’t exactly rush to get ready, got down to the breakfast room around 7:15.
Pretty much the standard fare: eggs (boiled & scrambled), hash browns, turkey & pork sausage, bread, fruit, cereals, yogurt, pancakes, pastries, water/juice/coffee/tea… And something that seems to be the case these days, an acute lack of bacon. We hung out in the room until about 9:30 when we headed out to the Cavendish area. Was it for the music festival? No. Beach? Nope. Green Gables. No sir. It was for the River of Adventure mini golf! Seriously, are there any other reasons to go to PEI?
I took a slightly different route to get there and, as one might expect when I take an alternate route, something went wrong. I got to one of the Island’s MANY roundabouts and took the first exit. Shoulda taken the second one. Ended up on a familiar road, went past the “Great Canadian Soap Company” and their “Got soap?” and “Forgot soap?” signs. Normally we see these signs from the other direction. Luckily I realized my mistake when I got to Brackley Point Road and got us back on track. We got to the River of Adventure shortly after it opened at 10:00.
The goal now was to get through our game in before the weather turned bad (the skies were looking a little foreboding), but without rushing. We took our time, enjoyed ourselves, took more pics than usual… One thing we got a few pics of were the uprooted trees from when Hurricane Fiona blew through last fall. It was very evident, all over the Island, that there had been major damage. In the end, Sandra demonstrated some mad putting skills and won 56 to 57, not bad for a par 51 course! I did manage a hole in one though. And then messed up and double bogeyed the next hole.
Popped down to the Cavendish boardwalk to kill some time. Wandered the stores, didn’t really shop though. Had a quick bite to eat in the car for lunch (protein bars again - planned to have a late lunch/early supper in Charlottetown) before heading off. Decided to pop into Avonlea Village to kill some time. Yeah, that went well. Despite the fact that they were open, things were a mess with people getting ready for the aforementioned Country Music Festival. Once I was able to, we got out of there and headed to our next stop…which I’d discovered the night before while looking at Google Maps.
We went to the Butterfly House, which is actually part of the Gardens of Hope. The butterflies were pretty cool. Ok, technically, they were warm, as was the building they were housed in. Quite a few of them, flying around. One landed briefly on Sandra’s hair, but too quick to get a picture. Did snap several other pics. Other people who were visiting managed to get them to land on their hands and such. After leaving there, we wandered through the gardens a little bit. The skies were looking a wee bit more foreboding now, so we decided to head back into town.
And considering I was coming from a totally different place, the fact that I did not get turned around/lost was quite impressive.
Once back in Charlottetown, headed straight to the waterfront area, parking across the street from our planned destination - the Founders Hall Food Market. A while back, they used to have an interactive exhibit & tourist bureau in the building. Now it seems they’ve put in a big food court. We’d visited it last year but only bought some potato fudge. This time we wanted to have a proper meal. Considering it was after 2:00, the place was quite busy. We finally settled on getting food from “Big Burgers”. Neither of us got burgers, though. *G* Sandra got poutine, I had a BLT & Fries. The food was fine.
The ambience…not so much. They had a musician playing. He wasn’t too bad when he was just singing, but he frequently felt the need to demonstrate that he had volume behind his voice (which was not quite strong enough to support the volume). He also went to the Spinal Tap School of Sound and had his equipment turned up to 11. After getting tired of conversations like “WHAT?” “WHAT??” “NEVER MIND!” we left.
Headed back outside to walk around downtown Charlottetown a bit. Here I made a mistake, shoulda gotten the walker from the car. After going around Peake’s Quay just using the cane, my hip (opposite my bad knee) just decided that the bad night’s sleep and the walking was too much, so we wandered back to the car. Considered taking a break on a bench in Confederation Landing but the benches were all a bit wet. It was finally starting to rain a bit.
On the way back to the room, we stopped at Value Village & Indigo Books to do a little shopping. Luckily the stop lights near our Hotel were finally working, they’d been out since we arrived. Rush hour traffic got quite backed up because of the lights being out.
Settled into the room for the night, eventually deciding to finish the coolers we’d purchased the day before. Then decided to hit the sack early (9:30, wasn’t even dark out yet) in the hopes of having a better night sleep.
Homeward bound...with a few stops along the way.