We Went to Canada and Saw Prince Edward Island!

Here's what we've done on our trip so far:

Here's our first stop at Steamtown National Historic Site.

Here's our second stop at Lowell National Historical Park.

Here's our third stop at Acadia National Park

Here's our fourth stop at Hopewell Rocks

Here's our fifth stop at Fundy National Park

Here's our sixth stop in Halifax

Here's our seventh stop in Kejimkujik National Park

And then it was on to the destination that I, personally, had been anticipating the most--Prince Edward Island!

I really wanted to take the ferry to the island, but was so nervous that I wouldn't be able to figure out what to do that I couldn't make up my mind. Fortunately, even though Matt wasn't with us in person, he was readily available with advice and emotional support via Facebook Messenger, and he convinced me that I could do it.

Yes, I bumbled quite a bit, including having to get our hotel's check-in clerk print me door-to-door directions because my car's GPS apparently didn't want to go to the ferry dock, but ultimately it was easy enough: drive to the gatehouse, drive into the lane they tell you, get out of your car and stretch your legs when everybody else does, get back into your car when the intercom tells you to, and follow the attendants' instructions and the car in front of you to drive RIGHT ONTO the ferry!

And then leave your car and head up on deck to enjoy the view!

Here's our last view of Nova Scotia:

And then we were on our way!

The weather was beautiful, probably the warmest we'd been so far, and it was a lovely day to cross the Northumberland Strait.

We saw a dolphin and several seals:

Of course, some of us had better things to do than simply sightsee. At least she's reading Anne of Ingleside...

Once you saw the above photo, you knew that this one was coming next, right?

They did have shipboard activities on the ferry, but I couldn't bear to stray from the open deck, so that's where we stayed for the entire crossing:

We drove from the ferry to Cavendish, checked in, swam, and got groceries from the touristy grocery store in town, me kicking myself the whole time that I hadn't stopped at the Atlantic Superstore in any town we'd passed on the way, darn it. But the good news is that they had swim goggles and Whippets, so Syd was basically living her best life after that.

There are lots of French-language TV channels where we were, and my rule had been that if we were going to watch TV, we had to watch it in French. Exceptions turned out to be a super-weird show called Love Yurts that Will happened upon and then we could not stop watching--like, every yurt is more hipster than the last! The last episode that we caught had the couple building a yurt with a tiny skate park inside!--and all the Sharknado movies, which, maybe there was a marathon? All I know is every time someone turned on the TV Sharknado was on. I could only tempt them away if there was also an episode of Funniest Home Videos in French playing on a different station.

ANYWAY... I'm going to show you Green Gables in another post, so that I can lovingly detail every step that I took into that magical world, so here's what else we did on Prince Edward Island!

Mainly, the beaches of Prince Edward Island National Park!

As soon as we got off the ferry, we noticed that the light in Prince Edward Island was strange. The sand is red, and it lends a reddish cast to everything, a little like a sunset, but not really because the sun is high and the lighting direct. It wasn't unsettling, but it also wasn't something that I got used to.

The kids, of course, settled right in:

I almost didn't pack beach toys. By the first of August, the stores in our town had tossed their summer gear and were busy selling sweaters and long pants, grr. It took three stores, at least, before I found swim trunks for Syd, I had to buy beach towels from Amazon, and I didn't think I was going to find beach toys at all until finally Matt had the inspiration that we should try the Dollar Store.

The buck each that I paid for these beach toys were more than worth it, though, even for a 12- and 14-year-old:

We drove the coast, visiting several beaches. Will mostly did this--

--but Syd helped me explore!

 

Will took a little more interest when we went tide pooling:

Actually, no. No, she didn't. That's a book in her hands:

The kids had seen a couple of lobsters while they were playing on the beaches, but here we had a much better view of happy lobsters scuttling around on their lobster business:

Ah, she put the book down for a minute!

And when we finally got back to the hotel on this day, exhausted from a full day of Green Gables and beach after beach after beach, you know what I did?

Take Syd to the motel pool, because she was dying to swim some more...

We Went to Canada and Saw Kejimkujik National Park!

Here's what we've done on our trip so far:

Here's our first stop at Steamtown National Historic Site.

Here's our second stop at Lowell National Historical Park.

Here's our third stop at Acadia National Park

Here's our fourth stop at Hopewell Rocks

Here's our fifth stop at Fundy National Park

Here's our sixth stop in Halifax

Halifax is a good halfway-ish stop across Nova Scotia, so in between our two visits there, we spent a night in Kejimkujik National Park.

Will very much wanted to visit Kejimkujik National Park because it's a Dark Sky Preserve and she wanted to see the Milky Way as something real, not just the "see that cloudy bit? No, not that--that's an actual cloud. That little smudgy part! No? It's pretty subtle. Try to stare hard!" kind of Milky Way that's visible where we live, and we're lucky to get that only because we live outside of town.

To that end, and because Kejimkujik National Park is in the smack-dab middle of nowhere (probably why it makes for such good stargazing!), I booked us a rustic cabin next to the lake for the night. We'd planned to spend a full 24 hours in the park, much of that stargazing, but as you'll likely have begun anticipating as soon as I mentioned that we wanted to go to Keji to see the night sky, as soon as we got there it started clouding up, and by sunset the sky was completely overcast.

Sigh.

Instead, we had a lovely, leisurely break from what at times was a pretty harried, hectic road trip. Other than a visit to the visitor's center for Xplorer books and park maps, we did not speak to another soul for the next twenty-four hours. Other than completing the kids' Xplorer books, we did not have a single item on the agenda.

Also, the lake next to our cabin was exceptional:

 

Syd got really into whittling--



--and other than whittling and swimming, we mostly just sat outside, read/listened to audiobooks, and ate picnic food:

I swear I left our food bag alone on the picnic table for all of half an hour the next morning while we packed up the inside of the cabin, but when we settled in for breakfast--

--Will pulled the bagels out of the bag and there was a GIANT spider sitting just underneath. We're not squeamish about critters, but I don't know, there was something about that spider sitting there with all our food. Will went to pull the chips out from beside it, I swear that it LUNGED at her, and we all shrieked loudly and ran.

And then delayed breakfast to go sit on our chairs and read and whittle for a while, checking periodically until it was safe to eat:

We reference that incident a lot now, using the verbal hashtag #girlsgocamping. Honestly, the kids and I are GREAT campers. Just... it was really big. And it seriously wanted to eat Will's face off.

After a very relaxing night, and a morning in which we did not get eaten by a spider (but we almost did!), we went exploring more of the national park. Syd is obsessed with old-school playground equipment, teeter-totters and merry-go-rounds of the type that our town finished replacing a decade ago. She was in HEAVEN here: 

We hiked a few trails and explored some different parts of the lake--

--and spied some critters that we did NOT feel the urge to scream and run away from:

We also developed the shorthand of "militant Canadian politeness" here at this lakeshore:

EVERYBODY had mountain bikes on the trails, which, you do you, but man, it seemed like an awful lot of work to bicycle up giant hills on multi-use hiking trails. Anyway, there was another family at this particular lakeshore, and we were all contentedly ignoring each other and pretending like we were alone on the lake, which is just how I like to vacation, so yay. But then along comes another family biking down the trail behind us, and this woman starts talking, loudly in that way in which she's acting like she's only talking to her family but everyone knows that she's purposefully talking loudly enough that she wants everyone to hear her: "Oh, no, SOMEONE left their bike right on the trail. That is SO rude, isn't it? I know, Honey, you can't get by, can you? Why would someone leave their bike RIGHT on the trail?"

I ignored her. My kids ignored her. The other family there totally ignored her, too, even though both that family and my family knew perfectly well that it was one of THEIR bikes that the woman was griping about.

Finally, the woman broke. "Is this one of your bikes?" she called out to us. I turned and shook my head, then got back to ignoring her. The other family ENTIRELY IGNORED HER. Just kept paddling in the water. I KNOW they could hear her. People across the lake could probably hear her!

So then the woman went back to just speaking really loudly to her kid. She was all, "It's so rude to just leave a bike in the middle of the trail! They really should have moved it off the path! Honey, can you get off your bike and move it? I know it's not your responsibility, but some people just do not know bike etiquette. Someone could have gotten hurt! Bike etiquette is so important," and off they rode, the woman still talking really loudly about bike etiquette. 

Maybe ten minutes later, the family near us started talking about making Kraft Dinner for lunch. They packed up their stuff, walked over to their bikes, got on them, and rode away, none of them so much as commenting on the fact that one of their bikes had been moved. It was EPIC.

Also, every time we saw mountain bikes on the trail for the rest of the day, Will would start going on and on about bike etiquette and how important it is, and we'd all chime in with various rules of bike etiquette that it's so important that people follow.

We're kind of horrible. I do already know this.

The early evening found us back in Halifax, at a hotel that I chose solely because its indoor pool has a WATER SLIDE, and the next day we'd take the ferry to Prince Edward Island!

We Went to Canada and Saw Halifax!

Here's what we've done on our trip so far:

Here's our first stop at Steamtown National Historic Site.

Here's our second stop at Lowell National Historical Park.

Here's our third stop at Acadia National Park

Here's our fourth stop at Hopewell Rocks

Here's our fifth stop at Fundy National Park

After leaving Fundy National Park, we drove to Halifax, Nova Scotia!

I'd been looking forward to our accommodations in Halifax, because I'd booked us a three-bed room in a dormitory in St. Mary's University. It would be the kids' first time staying in a university dorm, and eating breakfast in a university dorm cafeteria--how fun!

What I didn't realize, however, until I unlocked the door to our room, is that I hadn't actually booked us a three-bed room. I'd booked us a THREE-BEDROOM APARTMENT! We had a wee, but full kitchen. We had a full bathroom. We each had our own bedroom! Mine looked out onto the football field, where team practices had apparently already commenced:

We were all absolutely thrilled. By this time, we'd been living in each other's pockets for nearly a week, and the thought of spending the evening each of us all alone in her own room?

Oh, my gosh. Just... bliss.

But first, we needed groceries, and we finally had a decent-sized city to buy them in! Just so you're aware, grocery shopping in a foreign city is one of my favorite tourist activities, and the kids have caught onto that just fine. We all three of us adore wandering around an unfamiliar grocery store, picking out unfamiliar foods with fun packaging, and nomming it down. Will, in particular, was on a mission to spy the VERY Canadian Milk in a Bag.

We did spy that milk, although we did not buy it--this time. We did buy juice, and fruit, and sandwich stuff, and Whippets, and a different brand of All-Dressed potato chips that was NOT as good as Ridgies, and frozen pizza, and I absolutely thrilled a liquor store clerk when I asked him if Nova Scotia has any local hard ciders.

DOES it?!?

Friends, it DOES.

And after only one incident in which I thought we had a flat tire but it turned out that Will had actually just managed to close her door onto an entire tree branch (?!?), and another incident in which Syd thought she'd locked herself out of her room but I'd showed her that she hadn't, so she then proceeded to immediately ACTUALLY lock herself out of her room as some sort of misguided science experiment (!!!), I am not ashamed to tell you that we each settled down into her respective private bedroom with frozen pizza and her own respective screen (props to the quality of university wi-fi!), and proceeded to completely ignore each other for the rest of the night.

It was exactly what we needed.

I  am a firm believer in early rising on vacations if you want to see stuff before it's crowded, and the kids are now believers, too, because WE got to the Paleo station in the dorm cafeteria when it was empty, but by the time we were ready for seconds the line for that station stretched out the door. There were probably people STILL in line for their eggs and sausage by the time I'd found my way to downtown Halifax, the kids had helped me score a free parking spot (that's what you get for reading all the signs really carefully!), and we'd walked the waterfront to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic:

This is Merlin. He has his own webcam!

There was stuff about pirates, which was awesome--

--and a movie about right whales, which advertised itself as "family friendly" and "a message of hope" but was actually deeply upsetting and we all came out of it staring at each other with big eyes, like, "Umm, were you also traumatized by the devastating human impact on the right whale community?"

The movie was the story of Calvin, though, and you really should know it. Just be prepared to be upset for about a month afterwards.

This is the set of Theodore Tugboat:

You guys, I am 100% sure that I watched this show as a kid!

The kids and I had JUST been talking about birchbark canoes--you know, as you do--so it was perfect timing to see this one on exhibit:

I knew nothing about the Halifax Explosion before we came to this museum, other than that it was a thing. But man, the Halifax Explosion! How horrible and terrifying and heartbreaking!

But here, although I don't have many photos of it, is the reason why I wanted to visit the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic:

That's a remnant of the Titanic. After the Titanic sank, survivors were sent to New York City, but bodies came to Halifax. The rescue crews also brought along other pieces of the ship and its belongings, and what wasn't returned to living relatives, buried in the local cemetery, or taken by private individuals, has remained, and some of it is displayed in the museum.

The gallery takes an extensive look at the lives of all three classes of passenger, as well as the crew, and details the recovery efforts and how artifacts were preserved and, as with this deck chair fashioned using that above wicker remnant as a model, occasionally recreated:

The lighting in the museum was not great, so here are just a few photos of artifacts:

Rest assured, however, that I obsessively pored over the exhibit and in my head I have models of the lifeboats and the sunken bow of the ship, diagrams of where each class of passenger slept and took their exercise, maps of where the ship sank and where the other nearest ships were at the time, telegrams and newspaper articles, wreckwood, a medicine cabinet, and a heartbreakingly small pair of shoes.

There were other exhibits of other artifacts recovered from other sunken ships--

--and a billion more things to look at, but Syd got bored and restless and needed tending to, so I bought her a sweatshirt and took her back to talk to Merlin:

At one point I went to look for Will, and found her on the second floor, reading all about archaeological excavation of a shipwreck. I told her to take her time, but that her sister was finished looking around, and she responded, kind of frantically, "I don't know why I have to read every sign, but I do!"

That's cool, Kid. Read every sign, and afterward I'll buy you a sweatshirt, too, and take you both back to the waterfront:

There was playground play by my two toddlers-at-heart--

And then we sampled that Canadian dish known as poutine:

It didn't sound appetizing to me--French fries covered in brown gravy and cheese curds--

--but we gave it a shot: 

We all agreed that we probably don't need to taste poutine again...

We actually left Halifax after this for Kejimkujik National Park, but we were back the next evening, and with a couple of hours to kill, I took the kids back to the waterfront (I mean, that free parking lot!!!), bought them some ice cream, and we sat quietly by Halifax Harbor while they ate. And then one kid cried out, and then the other one joined her, and then I saw them, too:

Seals, playing in the harbor:

Other tourists came and went, noticed them or didn't, but we sat and watched them quietly for more than an hour, until they finally swam away and I took my two to our hotel, where we could swim, too.