PEI Trip Day 4: Haunted Mansion, Cavendish and Hurricane Igor

This is what I had to come back to the next day: The Haunted Mansion. I had seen it the night before as we drove through Kensington, all lit up and looking fabulously spooky! We asked Susan at our B&B about it and I could tell she was trying to be polite, saying that some people find it a lot of fun. I sensed what she really meant was it was a tourist trap. No worries, I was a tourist.



We were greeted by this gargoyle only to find out that the mansion was closed until October!



My husband and I considered what it would be like to run this kind of place, how perfect it would be for us. Talk about the coolest job ever! Oh well, time to move on...

You would think we would have started our drive south towards to bridge to New Brunswick from here but no, we headed north to Cavendish country.


You can see how this countryside inspired Lucy Maud Montgomery to write Anne of Green Gables. This is Hostetter's Viewscape along the French River. We had to stop and take a photo, it was so beautiful. That was our only stop, we drove all the way to Cavendish Beach from there:



Hurricane Igor was attacking Newfoundland at the time which was not that far away and you could literally feel Igor's presence here. We had to fight against the wind and got sandblasted all over just to reach close to the shore. The photos were just not illustrative enough of how crazy it was so...



I took a video! Yes, my new camera has video capability which rocks! You can barely hear my voice and I was screaming as I videotaped the ocean which is why you will hear an annoying high pitch voice but probably not make out the words, "This is Suzie the Foodie, getting her butt kicked by the Atlantic Ocean," or something like that. You will see a glimpse of my husband at the end too!



But that wasn't the end of the story either! Being in Cavendish, we just had to check out Green Gables Heritage Place. We were only there for a little while so we did not pay to go in for the tour but we got to see the house and some of the museum:



Anne is a cherished character in Canadian Literature and I am ashamed to say I have never successfully read any of the books. I was never into children's literature, even when I was a child, but after spending time in Prince Edward Island and getting to know the setting so well, I now want to read the books.



I absolutely love the displays, totally inspired by Lucy Maud Montgomery as a writer and a woman. To see her old typewriter and all her books, so exciting. As a woman with a degree in English and Creative Writing with a minor in Canadian Literature and Studies, there is no excuse for me to not have read her books. I think that will be a project for me this winter.

On our drive back along Highway 6 we actually saw an Open sign at a store and stopped to check it out. Sadly, they were in the midst of packing up the last of the nicknacks, it was looking like we were not going to be getting any souvenirs of our trip. 

We totally went by this house the first time and missed it, Lucy's birthplace. We just had to go back. I wanted a photograph so I got out of the car and took some photos. From there we drove all the way into Summerside. I had discovered that I still had the keys to the inn and our room so we stopped by the b&b to drop them off. Since we were in the area my husband and I picked up a souvenir from Marks Work Warehouse, LOL.



We each bought a famous dirt shirt. I made my husband put it on in the parking lot. A shirt dyed by the earth of PEI, that was totally up our alley:



As we drove along empty farm land and highway I changed into my dirt shirt too. Better to do it there than along the bridge where there are bound to be many cameras!



The bridge costs $42.50 to take when you leave which is still a lot cheaper than the ferry. It was such a cool experience we had to do it one more time despite the crazy winds.

So that is our PEI adventure. I hope you enjoyed going on the trip with us. I wanted to make an online scrapbook of our trip here to share with you. In four days we saw a ton of the island and I have to say getting battered by the winds in Cavendish was the most exciting part of the trip for me. I really connected with nature there, it was so wild and exciting. Since we got home life has been mostly dark and dreary. Oh well, at least I got to escape to the gentle island for four days!