We arrived at our HHosts, Frank and Dina's place, and we became old friends in short order; funny how you can make a meaningful connection in such a short period of time. We parked up in their driveway and enjoyed the sunset and later the night sky had some northern light activity. The next morning we went into Charlottetown and walked the waterfront, an area a bit like the Stanley Park seawall in Vancouver, and their waterfront in front of the convention center. We came into the old part of town and met, by chance, a tour group of seniors from Kamloops and Penticton - what are the chances? We crossed paths around the "Birthplace of Confederation" and the old church over the course of the morning.
From there we decided to explore the north central part of the island and ended up swimming in the Atlantic in PEI National Park where we also found beach showers. We had lunch and drove through Anne of Green Gables territory and numerous beach towns. I was the unwilling tourist as Mandy is familiar with the story while I was not.
We got back to our host location in the late afternoon and watched as the neighboring farm was harvesting their mustard crop. Amazing how quickly they cleared two large fields with their harvesting machine. Frank and I were chatting and setting the world right until the mosquito swarm drove us for cover!
We ended up staying two nights, would have happily stayed more, and had good conversation before we headed out. Frank is working on an RV conversion on a freight truck chassis - he is a retired trucker - so we were going over solar panels and wiring and looking over the van. Mandy and Dina were in their world, us in ours.
We started the next day in Summerside, then Victoria by the Sea, Point Prim and other small villages by the water. We are staying at Double Hill cidery in their parking area. Pete gets to wander an orchard again, woof! We are getting indications of another great sunset, fingers crossed for that.
We finished our tour of PEI the next day by going back to the ocean for a parting swim before lunch in Kensington. We left the island, heading to Sussex NB for their balloon fiesta, we are suckers for those!