Day 32, July 28, 2007

Day 32, Saturday, July 28, 2007
We were up fairly early but did some cleanup. Willa met a lady camper next door and she is a tour director for PEI and so Willa got the lowdown on where to go and what to see. With her advice we headed up to North Cape at the northerly most point on the West side of PEI. Our first stop was - - - - - - -now you are trying to guess where I am going - - - - - -Willa made coffee at the motor home so we didn’t need Tim Horton’s. Now where was I - - - - - oh yes! Our first stop was a little town called Miminegash, PEI. Now that town was not well known to me but when you consider what it’s main export is you will recognize it right away. This town exports “Irish Moss”. Amazing isn’t it. WHAT! You don’t know either town or product????????? Neither did I but we all use it almost every day. Irish moss is gathered from the ocean as a sea weed, it is then processed and this gives a liquid that is used as a thickening agent in just about everything we use. For instance: ice cream, evaporated milk, chocolate milk (so the chocolate won’t separate from the milk), chewing gum, car tires and a number of other things. Irish Moss is harvested from the ocean after heavy storms and while the waves are still coming in and by horse. I won’t go into the details but if you look it up on the internet you’ll get a better explanation than I could give you. Miminegash is one of the areas that harvests, collects and packages it for processing down in the states and we buy the finished product back. We went through the museum and drove down to the harbor and we had seaweed pie at the museum made from the Irish Moss. We came part way up the #2 highway then cut over to the coast to do the coastal road. You go through all the quaint little villages, most with only a corner store and maybe a garage but lots of boats for harvesting Irish Moss, fishing and catching lobster. Good road for the most part. People are friendly and most wave when you go by. Lots of ATVs on the roads buzzing around. We traveled up the West coast to North Cape, this is where they have a number of wind turbines for generating power. I should have counted them but didn’t but I would say 10-12 at least. The banks in this area are about 4-50 feet high and at the low point you can walk down to the beach. Once on the beach you can look back at the banks and see the different layers for over the eons. From a writeup I read there were mountains here higher than the Alps and over 250-400 million years they have worn down. The red colour of the soil is from the iron in the soil and apparently is very hard on car bodies. Off the cape is the largest rock reef in North America according to something Willa read at the Interpretative Center. We walked along the shore for a bit and a few people walked out on a thin line of rocks to a sandy area but if that tide ever came in you could be stranded out there a long time. Looking back at the banks from the beach you could see swallows nesting in the banks in holes I assume they carved out for their nest, maybe they were Martens. Another traveler was sitting on a bench and she had a Blue and Gold Macaw, very pretty bird and it has a perch at the dash of their convertible that it rides on. There is a restaurant at the Interpretative Centre and we decided to have a late lunch and an early supper. Tegan and Willa only wanted clam chowder soup but I wanted a little more so ordered a seafood platter with the idea that Tegan and Willa would help me eat it. Lucky they ordered light because this came with a bed of steamed mussels, large shrimp, scallops, 2 ousters, large piece of Haddock, 12-14 oz lobster plus a salad, and cup of chowder. The flavors were superb. We all enjoyed the platter. We decided to put on a few miles to shorten up tomorrows drive. We were going to be near the campsite we stayed at two nights before with the music show. It’s out of the way a bit but a free night of entertainment. Who can say no even if you have to drive a little further. They had a young fellow on the fiddle and could he ever play and not just the fiddle but about 2-3 other instruments. One of the people in the audience was one of the fiddlers who played with the Don Messer Band. It was a great show and a couple of people from the audience even came up and sang and they were real good. We bought a cd of the fiddle player and asked him to autograph it and took Tegan’s picture with him. Truly was a great show and even Tegan enjoyed it. Well off to bed again running a bit late again tonight. Morning was a good time for driving not too hot but got a little warm in the afternoon. The motorhome sat for about 4 hours and was 107 f inside when we went back to it. Thank goodness0 for the air conditioning. Starting to cloud over and they are forecasting rain for tomorrow. Will make me feel right at home. Till tomorrow.