Vacation 2011: the away edition has come and gone with a trip to Prince Edward Island with some friends. We left early in the morning on Canadia Day heading for Ottawa to join in the festivities there. We were staying in Barrhaven, on the south-west side of the city, and took the bus downtown to join the masses. There was some music, the Duke and Duchess, and fireworks. It was the best of Canadian Culture packed into a few hours of festivities. After the fireworks finished, we tried to get onto a bus to get back to our vehicle, but a large quantity of the over 100,000 other people on Parliament Hill had the same idea as us. This led to a showing of the worst in people as we saw people almost trampled in attempts to get on the bus, other people were swearing and pushing. It took about 20-30 busses going to our destination to fill up over the course of an hour and a bit before we were able to finally be among the last to squeeze onto one (3 of our group were able to get on one about 45 minutes before the last 3 of us). I was disgusted in how quickly it could go from a moment of national pride to the disgrace of the bus queue (if you could call it that.)
Upon returning to where we were staying well after midnight, we went to sleep for an early departure the next morning with our final destination that day being just outside of Charlottetown, PEI. The drive was smooth, but long. 16 hours later with just 5 stops en route, we arrived at the cottage in Glenfinnan PEI where we would be spending the next few days.
Over the course of the next few days, we had lobster, toured Charlottetown, got a tour of Province House with an actual MLA (PEI's MPP equivalent) giving us lots more details than just the standard tour, saw the "Singing Sands", and had a day of doing nothing. It was wonderful. The second half of the week was spend near Cavendish in a cottage right on the shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We saw the national park, went swimming, played a round of golf, had a seafood boil (clam, scallops, mussels, crab, and oyster made it through my mouth, and there was salmon available as week, but I wasn't interested), and much more.
Driving home, we went through Shediac, Mirimachi, Bathurst, Campbellton, through the Matepedia Valley, and ended up in Levis, just south of Quebec City for the night. This was the only night we had to hotel it, which helped keep the cost of the trip to a minimum. This morning we left by 8:30, and had dropped everyone off and was back to my place by 7.
It was a great trip, and I have some good pictures, but first it's going to be sleep in my bed where I have no fear of pillows flying with haste towards my head due to snoring. Should be great.
Out.
