August 11, 2019

Today we stayed around home for the day. I did a little work on two hiking sticks I picked up in the woods in Yellowstone NP last year, and Nancy and Frisco took a walk. Later, we got Alice ready for the drive to our next destination……Nova Scotia.  We leave first thing in the morning.

Some final thoughts about Prince Edward Island–

The maximum posted speed limit we have seen on PEI, even on major roads is 90 k/mh (which is 56 mph). But as soon as you get off one of the main roads around the island, and especially when there is any housing or retail around,  the speed limit drops to 40-60 km/h (25 – 38 mph).  So it takes longer to go places. It was refreshing to see everyone so relaxed and taking their time as they were moving about. It kind of rubs off on anyone trying to go at a faster pace. People respect the speed limits. We drove around quite a bit this week but didn’t see a single traffic accident …..and we didn’t see anyone practicing their NASCAR track moves (like we see so often in the US!).  In fact, I honestly don’t recall hearing a single car horn.  Everybody, even the tourists, seem to be operating at a slower pace. We saw a lot of families having good ol fashioned family fun time together playing games, swimming, sitting around a campfire, etc. You know, Ozzie and Harriett stuff…… it’s part of what makes PEI such a popular vacation destination for other Canadians. It also helps that PEI has the lowest crime rate, by far, among all of the Canadian provinces.  Low crime and few traffic accidents explains why we saw so few police vehicles. We only saw one the whole week.

PEI has a serious lack of affordable rental housing. I just read that PEI has 1300 people/families on a waiting list to get one of the 1500 currently occupied government subsidized apartments (renters only pay 25% of the cost). In Charlottetown, a waiter told us that occupancy rates are near 100% for rental units all over the island.

We thoroughly enjoyed our week in Prince Edward Island. There was no one thing that makes it special……its the pace of life, the feel of staying in individual cottages, the access to the beach, fresh seafood daily and lots of family friendly activites.  Its just a nice place…..nothing very geographically or geologically spectacular…..but still very nice. Nancy really liked the lush, rolling farmland.  It’s also nice to be taking advantage of the very favorable exchange rates right now………$1 USD = $1.33 CAD.