Prince Edward’s Island

Kilometers today: 389.6 (4,262.6 so far)

Hours in the saddle: 5:18 (63:24 so far)

Theme music: Johnny Cash

This morning we set out to Prince Edwards Island. It’s connected to the mainland by an 8 mile bridge. This is longer than our beloved Bay Bridge, but shorter than the bridge + tunnel from the DelMarVa peninsula to Virginia Beach. Julie loves bridges, and Jaron has come a long way towards being ok with them for motorcycle purposes. I think he’s even gone over the Bay Bridge voluntarily on a bike on his own by now. 😉 He did note, however, that there was one last fuck-with-you rise on the bridge before the island. 

I’d read some of the recommended scenic drives and they had a very helpful visitor’s center with a very good map that had several scenic routes highlighted. We picked a reasonable one for a day trip and got a recommendation on where to eat. PEI has a 150k population, 50 of which is in the 2 major cities. Outside of the cities there are potato, rapeseed (used to make canola oil — 👍🏻 to Canada on rebranding), and wind farms. 

We took the scenic coastal route to see the red sands and red bluffs. 

Apparently, we independently took photos of our bikes in this field. 





We took a wrong turn at one point. Check out this golden-ass hay next to the red dirt road separated by the green stuff. 

The island is gorgeous, with a lot of vibrant colors. Green fields and trees punctuated by golden fields, surrounded by red sand and blue water. And everyone’s yards and fields were immaculate. Not a blade out of place. Looking at the much-talked-about red bluffs made me realize that we do have some pretty spectacular sights in the US, because seriously nothing compares to the Vermillion Cliffs. 

Julie saw a very geared up woman in the gift shop at the visitor’s center and we talked a bit. She & her husband travel around the world 2-up on their KTM!  She writes for Overland Journal https://overlandjournal.com/ and Explore Mag  https://www.explore-mag.com/member.php?id=740321 and they are on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AdventureHaks/ . Here’s another one, you can get their email updates: www.adventurehaks.com . They sold their business and all of their stuff and have been on the road for almost 2 years in North America. Living. The. Dream. Well, we saw their bike at our restaurant when we parked and asked to sit at the table next to them and talked about motorcycles and traveling. 

The oysters in PEI are definitely worth the hype. 

We both had baked potatoes but didn’t really notice a difference in the flavor of PEI potatoes, apparently another one of their “things”.

We made our plan for the night and headed out. We are not going to get to see any whales on this trip. We tried twice and we don’t really have time to try again if we want to enjoy our trip back. 

On our way out, we saw the craziest thing. There were two smoke or steam stacks and they were puffing out whatever cloudy white substance it was. And they were both making smoke rings in between billowing clouds! 

I’ve noticed a lot of road signs in pictures here. I wonder if that’s simpler than printing in both English & French, or better accommodates international visitors. So it’s been fun figuring out what they mean. One showed a thermometer at 0 degrees C and a car skidding. After realizing it always preceeded bridges, I figured that one means “bridge freezes before road”. Today there were a lot of cute little hammers with different dollar amounts. On closer inspection, I figured out that these were gavels, so it was telling you the fine for, say, using your cell phone. (The graphic for a cell phone has proportions more like a Blackberry, but that’s alright.) Two cars side-by-side with a gavel and dollar amount means there is a fine for speeding. 

Apparently around here the bridges and ferries are free when you go TO an island, and you have to pay to get back. Also, Julie tends to handle the local currency for some reason the few times we’ve traveled internationally together. We’ll probably cross the US border tomorrow so we’ll dump the remaining Canadian money on our gas or something tomorrow. 

We got checked in to our motel in Moncton, New Brunswick and addressed some bike maintenance. Jaron’s tires were low, so he used the compressor to fill them up. Julie’s visor was loose again, so she threadlocked all 4 screws that hold on the base that it attaches to. The oil levels on both Tigers appear to be fine. Jaron used up the small can of chain lube. We may try bringing chain paste that he tried at home for travel in the future. It’s more space efficient than an aerosol can. We haven’t had any complicated issues on the road yet and feel good about having been prepared for the minor ones that we have had. 

Check out that squiggly line around PEI.