Friday, 16 September.  Warmer.

Drove through Charlottetown.  The first discussions to create a Canadian Confederation were here 1864, which is a common informational point throughout the town.  A lot of late night partying was involved by all accounts.  (PEI in fact didn’t join the Confederation for six years.  Railroad debt pushed them into it.)  The State House is under renovation.  It’s not a very impressive building, having used imported stones rather the island’s sandstone.  Nearby church is much more handsome (No picture! go figure).  Lots of parks.  Cows Ice Cream shop.  Nice shops, but not too many of them.  The population is only 32,000, which is a quarter of the island’s total.  Real estate is cheap, from a California perspective.

Drive to the ferry was okay.  Once again my $#^%* GPS tried to get me to drive down a gravel road.  Ferry boat (“Confederation”) is huge.  It had pictures of an earlier, much smaller ferry that I believe I was on circa 1963? Motorcycles get on first, off first.  In Truro tonight.  Had perhaps the worst smoked ribs of my life.  Well done, glued to the bone, and spicy hot. Not a good memory of Truro.  But they had a Coors sponsored celebration last night. Best One Horse Town.  Won by number of votes cast.  Hotel host theorizes that the townspeople have nothing else to do but click on a web site.

For days I’ve been struggling with some kind of itinerary to visit Nova Scotia, Cape Breton and maybe Newfoundland.  Concerns are that hotels are expensive, rain is forecast, and I should probably get new tires.  But I’m here, so why not push myself?  The decider arrived last night when I woke up with “Just go home” repeating itself in my head.  So home I’m headed.  Prince Edward Island was always my final destination, so this is not defeat.  “This far and no farther.”