We've spent two days "free wheeling" (driving the CR-V, without the RV) around the province of Prince Edward Island. Our main memories from 1990 when we were here were of the acres and acres of potatoes and a huge pile of lobster bodies used for fertilizer. We didn't find any piles of lobster bodies (yet), but the potato fields are still here enmass.
Our best memory of last time was seeing the trucks, loaded by a machine that picks up the potatoes from a row left by another machine, lumbering out of the field onto the road. Loaded perhaps too full, and lurching up onto the paved road, causing several (sometimes dozens) of potatoes to fall out onto the road and shoulder. We found then that while the ones that hit the pavement might be bruised or skinned up, the ones that made it to the grass shoulder were unharmed, and just asking to be picked up. Result: We had "road-kill" potatoes for several dinners.
For the last two days, we checked roadsides where the trucks were coming out of the fields with no success. The trucks are not loaded as fully, and many of them have covers over the loads. So much for free enterprise! Today, we stopped at a farmer's stand and bought 5 pounds of spuds for a buck. Two miles down the road was a left turn that leaned out a bit and -- you guessed it -- a bunch of potatoes on the side of the road. And a few more at the next stop sign. Drat!
Most of the roadside stands and small shops that offer fresh lobster were already closed for the season. But we found a restaurant last night that would cook us a couple of their usual 1 1/4 pound lobsters and let us take them out (without the rest of their usual full meal items), for half the cost of the dinner. We were running out of daylight and didn't want to sit through a full dinner and have to drive the 50 miles to the RV in the dark on roads we were unfamiliar with. All we wanted was the lobster, anyhow. So dinner last night was sinfully simple --- lobster and melted butter. Not too shabby!
On our first day of free-wheeling, we wandered through and around PEI National Park on the Gulf of St. Lawrence. On one of the unpaved side roads, we spotted a fox trotting across the road. We stopped. He stopped. By the time we got the camera fired up, he was sitting on his butt watching us. We got a shot or two, but wanted him to get up and show off his magnificent black tail. When he did, and ambled off the road, the camera (or camera operator) wasn't quick enough to get the tail.
A hundred yards down the same road, another one crossed. This one we got, although a bit fuzzy. A guide at the park's Visitor Center, when shown the picture, said it was a silver fox, which hasn't been seen around here. She asked us to send her the picture so she could have the park naturalist examine it. Perhaps we have discovered a whole new breed, which will be named after us! Or not.
Tomorrow we move to a different RV park better positioned to enable us to free-wheel the other end of PEI. Stay tuned; we might find that pile of lobster bodies yet.
