Tim & Denise Tiner Travels: 2017 Canada North East - Day Three

July 22, 2017 - Day 3 Grand Falls, Nb and Prince Edward Island (PEI)

Well, we are halfway through our NE Canada trip. And all in all it has gone pretty good. It is a busy time of year up here in this area. Lots of people touring and vacationing. And hotel prices are quite high as a result I believe. Nonetheless, we have been able to find nice places to stay that have been clean and up to Julee's standards! :-)

To start the morning off, the Quality Inn provided us each a $5 coupon towards breakfast that was served up in a small deli like place that was attached to the Inn. I think when we got to the deli, so did everyone else in the hotel. The line was fairly long and really slow. The most expensive thing on the menu were waffles at $5.50. I had an Egg McMuffin and it was $4.25. Anyway, you'd think our orders would be easy. But out of 4 dishes requested, two came back wrong. Oh well. The waffle they built nicely for Dale, they just kept. He did not want whipped cream, bananas and Nutella on his. Just butter and syrup. This was not on their menu but they said they would build it for him. But they forgot. So they re-made his and served his original one to the next patron. For me...they just forgot to make my egg McMuffin. We eventually got out of there....but it was almost 9:30 AM.

We headed back into Grand Falls to check out the gorge and waterfall. In reading the materials about this falls, at high time, it drops 9/10th of the same water that flows over Niagra Falls! But they said within a couple of months, the water is re-routed to a power plan and little flows over it. Well, that is what we saw. But it is quite beautiful there even with a small flow.

After spending some time walking around the gorge, we got in the car to do our next 3.5 hour drive. Upon putting in our destination, it turned out to be a 5.5 hour drive! Whoops! It was telling us that we would not get to Anne of Green Gables Authors home until 4:30 PM and it closed at 5 PM. So off we went. Within about 5 minutes, the seniors will slobbering in the back of the car. Eat, sleep and use the bathroom. I look forward to that. :-). Julee swears she could hear us talking even though her eyes were shut for an hour and she did not move. Dale....it is close car door, lower eyelids, buenos noches! I think he has not seen a single thing while in the car. But, they are always well rested and ready to go at our stops.

We made it to PEI, after crossing the Northumberland Straight on a very long bridge. Upon crossing the bridge, we noticed that the toll was $47. We took a double take on that and kept going. More on that in a minute. We drove immediately across the island to Anne's authors home making it there at 4:20 PM. It was a nice place but nothing to shake a stick at. We took some pictures, went on a walk through a little grove of trees and just stretched our legs a bit. The island is full of agriculture and beautiful fields of yellow topped vegetation. We are not sure what that is but we are determined to find out. After leaving Anne's house, we headed toward our BNB. This was going to take us through the main town here, Charlottetown. So we decided to look for Fish and Chips. It pulled up a place call Brit's Fish and Chips. So off we went. As we drove into Charlottetown, we were passed by a really cool parade of semi-trucks. They were honking their horns and having a good time. I bet there were a good 50 of them together on the high way, most without trailers. I thought of my brother Fred knowing this would make him proud to see being the Peterbilt guy that he is. It also made me think of my brother Scott, who drives these things for a living.

Anyway, we found Brit's to be a nice place right in the middle of Charlottetown. We were able to eat out side on the street and just enjoy a very nice evening there. Upon finishing dinner, we drove through the streets and out to the water. Charlottetown is a picturesque town with a lot of fun things to see and do. But, our BNB was a 45 minute drive going south. As we were driving, we were seeing signs indicating a Nova Scotia ferry. We were heading in that direction. Turns out, you could drive back up north, pay the $47 toll to get off the island OR you could take a ferry to Nova Scotia from the southern end which costs $77 for 4 people and a car. That was a no brainier as it would save us nearly 3 hours of drive time if we took the ferry for $30 CAN. So we booked a reservation on the ferry that will leave at 2:45 PM tomorrow. It is a 70+ minute ride.

We easily found the Cliffside Inn. We were warmly greeted by Robert, the single fellow who owns and hosts this facility. It is made up of numerous rooms which can host up to 15 people he said. We booked a two room suite with one bathroom. Our room is really large with a king size bed. The other room is a bit smaller, and has a double bed. Guess who got the King!?!? I know you thought I'd be generous and let Dale and Julee have it. Not this time. I wanted to stretch out so the seniors got the smaller one this go around. I think we all survived. The Inn does sit right on the edge of the cliffs overlooking the Northumberland Straight. Off in the distance, you can see Nova Scotia. And once in awhile, you can see the ferry that we will go on later go by. The only downside to this inn are the mosquitos. Holy smokes, go outside and you are carried away. Robert does provide lots of mosquito repellant and of course Julee sprayed herself to be able to go for a walk to get her 'steps in' almost immediately. Pretty funny the importance those steps are to her.

Let me take a quick side trip here and talk about Dale again. I told the story about getting pills without a prescription from a Pharmacist. Well, after dinner, we stopped to fill up the car with gas and there happened to be a McDonalds inside. So we sent Dale into get some Ice Cream cones. He was to buy two. We gave him $5. He bought 3. After we got on the road, Denise asked where her change was from the $5. He said that he did not have change. He then went on to say that it rung up for more than $5 and he just told the clerk that he did not have any more money. So they just let him go with the 3 ice creams. It was only 15 or 20 cents more than the $5...but he gets away with these kind of things all the time! We just laugh about it. Also, poor Robert, he was fresh meat for Dale. I think he and Robert could have talked for many hours. Instead, we broke off the chatter to play a quick game of cards. But Dale and Robert, with Julee joining them for a bit, could have talked for many hours.

Tomorrow, it looks like we will go to small branch here for church. There are 3 'building's on the island here. Fortunately, one is about 25 minute drive away. We will do that, come back to change our clothes, and then go do some Lighthouse and Beach touring before we get on the ferry. Should be a fun day!

Pictures...

Some pictures from the Grand Falls and Gorge....