It's hard to believe we are in the final part of our adventures for the summer. Time FLEW by and Paul and I had an enjoyable time together as we travelled throughout this part of the world.
I'm honestly not quite ready to go back to real life, but I am still excited for: my bed, my shower, and eating normal meals again (even though we've been eating healthy, it's not quite as easy to eat like we are accustomed to without a full kitchen to work with).
This part of our trip was a mix of long days of driving with random activities to break up the drudgery of being in the car to too long as well as a few last cool things on our bucket list.
Day 32: Entering Prince Edward Island!
We had a six hour drive to Prince Edward Island today. It was sad leaving behind Nova Scotia and we didn't even get to do a proper farewell (I'm a sappy romantic) because the border between NS and New Brunswick popped up quite suddenly.
From New Brunswick, we drove across a HUGE and scary bridge over the ocean to get to Prince Edward Island.
All of the research that I did on Prince Edward Island seemed to indicate that it was a pretty boring place with "nice beaches", so I was shocked to find that I absolutely LOVED it here. I wish we had added another day or two on our adventures so we could explore PEI more thoroughly.
PEI reminded me of West Michigan during my childhood (aka before West Michigan became a land of suburbs and more suburbs): rolling hills of farmland, dirt roads, and healthy patches of forests were all around me here. There were even groups of Amish-type folks on their horse-drawn buggies. The farmland was rich and diverse: multiple types of livestock, orchards, hay fields, etc. were everywhere. It was beautiful.
We stopped at a place called Deep Roots Distillery, a 10 acre apple orchard farm, where the guy learned he could make more money making apple brandy than having a u-pick apple farm and also made other delicious alcoholic beverages from local ingredients. Everything we tried was delicious and we bought some maple syrup from them, since it was made from his own maple trees.
We got to stroll the orchard while sipping some moscow mules and it was a nice break from the drive.
After that, we headed to our campground for the next few nights. It is located next to a beach, so we walked the beach for a good long while before going to bed.
Day 33: Anne of Green Gables!!!!!
There are two book characters that shaped me as a child: Jo March from Little Women and Anne of Green Gables.
And ever since I was a child, I've always dreamt of going to Prince Edward Island to visit the land that inspired Lucy M. Montgomery to create such a fantastic character.
This is, quite honestly, one of the major reasons we even did this NorthEast trip: I wanted to eat lobster in Maine and also visit Prince Edward Island for all-reasons Anne.
So today was a tourist-trap day because I wanted to see all of the things related to Anne. Paul was a great companion as we toured the Green Gables Heritage Place, with the Lover's Lane and Haunted Wood and all the other bits of the novels that I loved.
I was especially pleased to learn that Lucy M. Montgomery wrote many quotes in her journals about her love for nature, which showed me that she and I were True Kindred Spirits.
It was supposed to rain all day, but the rain held off until we were done touring all of the Anne of Green Gables things that I wanted to see. What great Providence! (that line would make you smile if you've read the first book).
After that, the pouring rain made things awkward for a bit: we didn't want to just sit in our tent but it was raining pretty hard. So we took our time getting groceries and then put on some rain coats to walk the beach for a bit.
I'm so glad we got to visit the Anne of Green Gables things and I got to cross that off my bucket list.
Day 34: Driving to a very-French Quebec
We spent about 6.5 hours driving today, as we slowly head to Michigan. We decided to drive north along the coast in New Brunswick and then drive along the Saint Lawrence River on the way back.
When we got to the most northern bit of NB, where it meets up with Quebec, we were amazed by the sudden reappearance of Appalachian mountain range. They just came up out of nowhere and it was so beautiful!
If we ever go back, I want to explore this area more!
We crossed into Quebec, and very quickly realized that the internet wasn't lying about the Quebecers being too stubborn to use English. Everywhere else in our Canadian adventures, the provinces put both English and French on all the traffic signs and food labels, etc.
But here in Quebec province, they were like 'NOPE!' and only put french on everything. We stopped for gas and the guy only spoke French, so Paul had a fun time trying to pay for our gas. Then, we stopped at a winery, La distillerie du St. Laurent and fumbled around with various workers there as no one could (supposedly) help us since they all (supposedly) only spoke French.
Finally, someone came over who spoke both languages and dusted off the ONE English copy of the wine list that the store owned and we were able to try some wines.
When we got to our campground for the evening, we had some more fun trying to figure everything out with French-speaking folks and I was already looking forward to leaving this area for some English-speaking places again.
We've travelled to many places with other primary languages before, but it's never been a struggle to get by and communicate. I suppose we should have learned a bit of French before coming here (and if we come back, we will definitely do that!) but it was very surprising that this province simply refuses to have anything to do with the English language, especially since they are surrounded by all the other provinces in their country where everyone speaks English.
Day 35: French Bistro and the last long drive
We had our last long drive today, putting in about 9 hours of driving. So sadly, we didn't get to do many cool things today. We did stop for lunch at a cute French Bistro in Quebec city called Cochon Dingue Carrefour Saint-Romuald. It was on the outskirts of the city and on the main road we were driving, so it worked out nicely.
We enjoyed some duck confit in various forms and wanted to try all the food on the menu. I'm already salivating for our future trip to France. I love French food.
If we had more time, we would have explored Old Quebec City, which is supposed to be really similar to the quaint cities of Europe. Sadly, we had to keep driving.
Even though it was annoying how hardly anyone spoke English here, Quebec province was very beautiful and I wouldn't mind coming back to hike their pretty mountains and explore Old Quebec City as well. Maybe someday...
Day 36: Oil Changes and Gardens
We technically only had a 3 hour drive today, but apparently Toronto is notorious for being an awful city to drive through and it can take much longer to get to the other side. So we took extra precautions and did our drive through Toronto on a Sunday (less traffic) and with plenty of cushion-time, just in case.
Before we did our bit through Toronto, we had to get an oil change in our vehicle. We ended up doing about 6,000 miles(!!) on our vehicle during this adventure, which is crazy! It was amusing to try to figure out the miles-to-kilometers stuff with the oil change guy and he did NOT do the math correctly for our oil sticker, which was pretty funny and makes me chuckle every time I look at it in our vehicle window.
After that, we headed to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, Ontario. Ah....so nice to be in an English-speaking area again! The gardens were very pretty and I drooled over many plants and wrote down lots of them to research in the future to possibly add to my own garden someday.
It was a hot and humid day though, and halfway through our sweaty walks in the gardens, I started to get a bad headache. There is something about this part of the world (aka West Michigan and the Great Lakes) that gives me such awful weather-related headaches.
So we headed to our airbnb so I could try to recover. Tomorrow is Niagara Falls and then off to Michigan and family!
Day 37: Niagara Falls and the U.S.A.
My headache did NOT diminish and I spent the night tossing and turning with bad pain. But I wasn't going to let that stop us from seeing Niagara Falls, so off we went. If I look unhappy in the pictures here, it's just because my headache was SOOO bad that I could barely concentrate on anything.
But despite the pain, Niagara Falls was pretty cool. I definitely suggest you see them from the Canadian side, though! They are WAY better to see over there. We did a boat tour, and that's the best way to see the falls. Paul could probably add more about this than me, as I was just trying to stay standing upright and not collapse in a puddle of pain. But in my blurry pain-state, the falls were worthwhile and very cool.
Then it was six hours of driving to Paul's parents house in Michigan. I napped for a lot of that, to try and get rid of my headache and it did eventually fizzle out.
This ends our travel journal of our NorthEast trip. We'll spend the week with family/friends in Michigan and then we're back to normal life in South Carolina.
Overall, we had a wonderful time. It was great seeing so much scenery and parts of the world and I am so grateful that we have the opportunity to do these types of adventures in our life.
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