The drive across the Northumberland Strait on the Confederation Bridge — 12.9 kilometers — was exciting. It's the longest continuous span across water, an innovative engineering effort of almost four years that had to take into account the harsh Northern maritime weather. And there were a lot of political and psychological hurdles to overcome, many PEI residents did not want this connection to the mainland. But as a tourist, I thought it was a great thing. How neat to be able to get to the island so easily and quickly. It's got to be a good thing on balance — for everyone.

Right as you hit land, you're in Gateway Village, a place built for tourists, it seemed. No mere visitor center here, but an indoor mall, and many outside shops and restaurants, all promoting the wonderful world of Prince Edward Island. The chamber of commerce is taking full advantage of the increased visitor flow from the bridge, and must have a huge budget. I hadn't seen such chest-thumping displays since Comdex. Needless to say, we picked up more than enough info for our stay.

With no specific destination in mind, we looked at maps and thought for a few minutes. Charlottetown. That's where we'd go, see the province's capital city and find a hotel. As we got to the suburban area, it looked like any other: fast food restaurants, motels, gas stations everywhere. I was a bit disappointed; but wait. As we got to downtown Charlottetown we saw tree-lined streets, and some beautiful Victorian architecture. We lucked into a nice hotel room — an elegant suite with a canopied four-post bed, claw-foot tub and large TV. And more luck, on PEI they receive Boston-area TV stations, so we could enjoy the local excitement of the Patriots vs. Steelers, the first Monday night game after the Super Bowl. I was quite content.

We walked to a restaurant that evening and had a good meal (more mussels). The next day was beautiful, sunny, and warm bordering on hot. We walked around Peake's wharf: an area of shops, a marina and Confederation Landing Park. Then a short drive to Victoria Park, also on the waterfront. A beautiful setting with a boardwalk along the harbor. There were several friendly walkers out for their morning exercise — it was an easy place to be happy. We really enjoyed the warmth after the previous cool days and relished the view and the walk, going the length and back, about two miles. There were some old cannons pointing out to the harbor, and at the park entrance is the 1834 Government House, a white, columned mansion, the home of the lieutenant governor.

Then we set off for the North Cape of the island. It was a long drive across mostly rural country, rolling farmlands, and small towns with pretty churches. Our mission included seeing Elephant Rock (yet another one!). We followed the guidebook directions, off the main road onto red dirt paths, and up to the edge of a moderate cliff. We walked through an opening down to the water and saw some dramatic seaside cliffs, but no Elephant. Back at clifftop we did see a sign that said "Private Property, Do Not Enter." Hmm, it appeared that was where we needed to go, but hey, I tend to listen to signs, especially when I'm in unfamiliar territory. (The cliffs, rocks, sand, and dirt roads on PEI were red, red, red. It makes for a very colorful island with the very green farmland and the very blue sea and sky. They are very proud of the iron oxide phenomenon and sell T-shirts dyed with the mud.)

Back on the main road we soon arrived at North Cape. Some nice seaside scenery, a lighthouse, a windmill farm, and a visitor center. I asked about Elephant Rock. Oh yeah, the girl said, you needed to go further (on the private property), like it was common knowledge. Anyway, we found out that the "trunk" had since fallen off the Elephant, so how good could it have been?

As we headed back south and east it was quite hot and humid, and we ran into swarms of fish flies (I think) that squished all over our new car. Like the famous love bugs of the south, these flies just hover and splatter. Luckily they cleaned off much more easily than the bugs.

We spent the next two nights in Cavendish, home/locale of Anne of Green Gables. A beautiful area on the north coast near the long stretches of beach that are part of PEI National Park. We walked through the pretty marshes and Cape Cod-like dunes to go to the beach late that afternoon. It's known for warmer water temperatures than other places in the Maritimes, but it felt cold to me. No surprise, Peter went in for a dip.

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You have to deal with Anne's Land (that's what they call it) stuff in the area: lots of touristy sites and funny theme parks have popped up. We pretty much ignored them, but there were the busloads of visitors coming and going. Our closest encounter came the next day when playing golf at Green Gables golf course. On one hole was a sign pointing to Haunted Wood, and we could see the Green Gables house across the way, with tourists swarming about.

After golf we drove further east, following the coast and national park land where possible, and ended up at St. Peter's Bay. Out in the bay were hundreds of mysterious round buoys. It wasn't until we walked a park trail to the water that we found out (from a sign) what was underneath: lines of cultured mussels, "bathed by tide and current, cultivated mussels grow larger and cleaner than their wild kin on shore." Aha! That's why the mussels were so spectacular up here.

The weather was very different from the day before, rainy and cool; it was September 11, one year later. We were in Canada again (Alberta the year before) and remembered and reflected. Canadian flags were at half staff. That night we were able to watch some of the specials on TV; and the weather took another turn for the worse.

Hurricane Gustav was moving over the Maritimes. The winds howled (screeched actually) all night long through our motel room, we were only a half mile from the coast. It was exciting but the thrill wore off as the noise kept us up most of the night. We packed up amidst continuing (but lessening) wind and rain the next morning, and wondered about the bridge... we found out it had been closed during the night, but was open again — so we were off.

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