On August 30^th we arrived in the Red Sands Shore region of Prince Edward Island in a small town called Borden-Carleton, home of the Confederation Bridge connecting Nova Scotia and PEI.

The Confederation bike trail could be accessed from the campground and on Sunday when we arrived we rode a short distance on the trail.  The trail was once a railroad track stretching from tip to tip on PEI.  The campground here is called Sun and Shade Campground and it was loved by the entire family since it had cable television and WIFI assessable in our motor home. We decided that this will be a week long stop, since it has all the amenities that we need- which included a grocery store within 20 minutes in Summerside which is the second largest city in PEI.

On Sunday night when we went over to Harmony Hall (where the weekend entertainment is held) to enjoy a gospel sing. We were the youngest family in attendance and slightly underdressed (shorts and t-shirts) but we still enjoyed the entertainment which lasted until 10:30. The groups played guitars, keyboards and sang songs ranging from old church hymns, bluegrass to Scottish “jigs”, it was rather entertaining.

Monday morning was a typical day; we did our homeschool lessons, worked on marketing, purchasing and end of month details for our business. On Monday we met another family from the United States that was traveling full time too. The Kalers were a wonderful family of five from Washington State that were also living full time in a motor home they had named Winnie.   Zachary and Carson really enjoyed playing with their kids since they had not had much time to play with other kids while we have been traveling.

On Monday night, the kids played pool while the parents talked about living on the road and shared experiences of everyday life in a recreational vehicle. We were sad to see the Kalers leave on Tuesday but they had to move on to their next location; but we made plans to try to meet in Niagara Falls, NY since we would all be in that area at the same time.

The rest of the week we took full advantage of the internet and nice weather and enjoyed being in one spot just to relax. On Saturday, we were going to take our extra large container of laundry over to the laundry room and the car would not start- wonderful a dead battery on the “toad”.  We were able to get one of the gentlemen in the campground to “jump start the car” and off to Summerside to Wal-Mart to look for a battery. Walmart did not have a battery that would fit our 2006 Saturn Vue, next stop was Canadian Tire, no luck there either they would not be able to get us a battery until the following Tuesday since Monday was Labour Day (how it is spelled in Canada) and all the major stores are closed.

In Canada, Labor Day is really a day of rest; all the stores are closed except a few restaurants and convenience stores, no Labor Day sales in Canada. We went back to Walmart and a very nice man in the tire department tested our battery and it was fully charged, maybe there was just a loose connection. The major problem with a dead battery is that our auxiliary braking system in the car will not work without power and there is no way to ensure proper braking of the car while it is being towed behind the motor home.  We picked up a few groceries in Walmart and went back so we could wash clothes since everyone was getting low on essentials.

On Sunday, we rode over to the Gateway Village (the last stop before crossing the bridge) so we could take pictures of the Confederation Bride and the kids could play on the large playground. We also found a railway museum where the boys got to play on a playground that looked like a ship.  Once we got back we cleaned up the motor home and got everything ready to leave which included hooking up the car, dumping our tanks and securing the inside for a very early departure. The Sun and Shade Campground had some of the nicest people we have met on our travels so far.

On Monday morning the alarm started ringing around 4:15 am, I cannot say that we were “bright eyed and bushy tailed” (as the saying goes), but we were up and ready for our 9-10 hour drive to the Quebec area, praying for safe travels.

Follow Our Journey:

Please subscribe to our blog.
Add Brian Godwin as a friend on Facebook
Add Polly Godwin as a friend on Facebook
Follow Brian Godwin’s daily post on Twitter.

[Show as slideshow]

Bookmark It

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 6:37 pm and is filed under Everyday Living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.