Day 13-Monday
This is the day we leave PEI. It is truly a hard thing to do – leave such a beautiful place. We have a nice leisurely breakfast, say our goodbyes to Aunt J, Uncle C, and cousin E. Take a few more pictures.
We head up to the Confederation Bridge to cross back on to the “mainland”. The bridge is 13km and the toll is $41.50 (now that’s a toll). I actually do not mind the high toll, as I believe this is what keeps PEI pristine – otherwise mainlanders might be more tempted to visit more often and there would be more of them ruining the beauty of the island. It used to be the only way to get on the island was via ferry. Uncle M insists he will never use the bridge and drives south to the ferry at the other end of the island. And I thought I was resistant to change!! From the bridge we are able to see lobster buoys and lobster boats - pretty cool.
We headed to Hopewell Rocks which is noted to have the highest tide. This confuses me - as what it really is seems to be is the highest/lowest fluctuation of tides– whatever. It is incredible – at lowest tide you can walk way out on the beach. We of course hit there about an hour after highest tide – meaning there is no beach to walk on (looks like Super Nerd Tourist Family returns). We still hiked down to the “beach” and fortunately they do open the beach once the tide has moved out below a certain point. Incredible how quickly it moves out. Guess that is why it is a hot tourist spot!!
From there we travelled on to Bay of Fundy National Park – it was late afternoon – so we just drove through it. We actually had to drive through it to get to St. John and continue south. At this point it would have taken twice as long to get back to the Trans-Canada Highway 1. Nice thing is that the Park Ranger waived the $20 fee because we said we were just driving through. You know how we like “Free”.
As we hit St John we debated whether to get a hotel there or travel further. It was quite early (5ish). My gut instinct said we should stay in St. John, but then I looked at the map and said, let’s continue on to St George and get a hotel there. St. George looks way bigger on the map. It had 2 hotels, one had a room with a queen bed or a room with 2 doubles that was a smoking room. They referred us to the other hotel in town – it turns out I do have standards as to where I will stay. I never thought of myself as a hotel snob, but this place was a dive. We decided to have dinner and continue on to St Stephen – which is the town where you cross through the border back to USA. Of the 4 hotels that existed, nothing in St. Stephen had a vacancy (another thriving metropolis). Here is the problem, after the border in the US is the “Airline Road” named as such due to the fact it is 90 miles of 2 lane road that follows the path of the airlines. There are not many services (AAA will not even route people this way). Aunt J has been known to travel this road faster than an airplane can fly it!!! Others in the family have attempted to beat her land speed record, none have been able to do it. It is about 8:15 – T says I am up to the “Airline” tonight, so we venture down the “Airline”. K & A begin to jabber and annoy us and each other – I offer them each a quarter to be quiet for 20 minutes. During the 20 minutes A falls asleep. At the end of the 20 minutes, K feels it is necessary to try to wake A to let her know that they have earned the quarters. I threaten K that she will not have the quarter if she continues to wake her sister. At this point she also decides to sleep (safe choice). We keep seeing signs that say watch for Moose or Moose Crossing. Although I would have liked to see a moose, I am relieved we did not see one tonight! We hit Brewer/Bangor, Maine at about 10:15, T and I look at each other both with a “Now what?” expression. We scan the nightline of the “city” from the freeway looking for something that resembles a hotel – no luck. T decides to take a random downtown exit – fortunately there was the “Fireside Inn” right at the bottom of the exit with a vacancy with 2 queen beds. Turns out that the Fireside Inn has upgraded all the mattresses to Tempurpedic mattresses. We get an excellent nights rest!
Day 14- Tuesday
We wake to a downpour of rain hitting the window and I have the beginning of a cold. Relieved that we are not doing the “Airline Road” today - it is way worse to do it in the pouring rain than at night. We head south – next stop is LL Bean (yes again). We got A her backpack and K her book bag from the LL Bean outlet store. They monogram it while you wait – how cool is that? We continue on down the road headed to Gardner, Massachusetts, T’s hometown. Of course we hit commute traffic at the New Hampshire/Mass. border. We arrive safely and are greeted by Memere and Papa.
Day 15 – Wednesday
Today is K’s 12th Birthday. She is excited to be celebrating it in Gardner. We are having a get together at 1:00. Aunt T and Uncle M are coming down from New Hampshire. Memere’s sister Aunt G and her husband are coming up from Connecticut. It was great to see everyone. We have an ice cream cake, FunFetti cupcakes, lollipop cookies, whoopee pies… more food than you can imagine. Later, Aunt L came over and brought each of the girls a necklace from her recent honeymoon in Jamaica. K seems to enjoy herself.
There is an attempt to go swimming in Papa’s pool, but after about 10 minutes the kids realize it is too cold. It is decided to go over to Aunt J’s pool as it will be warmer because it sits in the sun (plus she has a slide). While at Aunt J’s a bunch of blueberries are picked. A announces she will be making a pie.
Day 16 – Thursday
A gets up early so that she and Memere can make a blueberry pie. She abandons the process once cousin K gets up, but did help a bit. Memere not only makes one pie, but continues to make another pie. They were delicious.
T, Papa, Uncle M, Aunt T and the girls head to a Corn Maze. Most seemed to have a great time. They finished the maze in under the time posted, so they all received "gold medals". There were also some other activities for the kids to do at the maze. T returns not very enthused by corn mazes. I had said I was not feeling that well (actually I have heard that corn mazes are buggy-ewww) so I stayed behind with Memere. We went to Kohl’s and to Olive Garden for lunch. I had an excellent time visiting with Memere - just the 2 of us.
Day 17 – Friday
K sets her watch alarm so that she can get up early with Memere to bake a pie. She also helped Memere make some crepes for breakfast. This is the day we are heading back to the Northwest so it was great to have such a feast for breakfast.
We head to the airport, drop off the tin can XTerra at the rental car place and head to the airport. TSA does a thorough search of my bag. They take everything out of my bag – asking if I have anything sharp in it? I say NO. I had the bag of quarters for the tolls in the front pocket of my bag so they thought I had a bomb or something. When he finally gets to the quarters, he asks why I did not state I had the quarters – I said I did not think that quarters were sharp. At any rate, he says “Sorry, I will let you put the stuff back in the bag”. Gee thanks.
The flight was uneventful – packed, but uneventful.
We arrived to the house at about 10PM, dropped into beds exhausted. Note from the housesitter informed us that there had been a thunderstorm and after the thunderstorm she could not get the internet connections to work. We called Qwest, they said they would send someone out between 1-6 on Saturday. 6pm came and went with no one from Qwest showing up. Is that India time or US time? Called again – they will send someone out between 1-4 on Sunday (yeah right). Fortunately, someone did finally show up at about 2 – our modem was fried so they gave us a new one. We are now back up and blogging!!!
That is it for our 17 day vacation. We had a blast. Not sure I would do 17 days away again, but maybe!!
Stay tuned to this blog for family updates – first day of school is this Thursday
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