What? A rest day already? When my alarm went off this morning I headed for window to check the weather. I saw blue sky, and in spite of still feeling tired I dressed for riding. I headed downstairs for breakfast and somehow during my quick descent of two flights of stairs, a black cloud stopped over the building and there was an absolute downpour. It must have been a sign... The rain had stopped by the time I finished my breakfast, but I decided to listen to my body and take a rest day. I really don't think my desire for rest was related in any way to my ride yesterday. Instead, I believe it was caused by not taking a day to re-group after driving here. It's funny, when I fly to a tour I usually plan on not moving on my first day at my destination. I use that day to reassemble my bike - not necessary this time - and to get acclimated to my new surroundings, filling the day with light activity and resting. Hopefully I'll remember that when I head out on my next tour.
As I got up to leave the breakfast room, Judith walked by the doorway and did a double take. She's the woman who told me about this place yesterday morning, and we were both delighted to be able to say hello again this morning.
After our short conversation, I headed back to my room for a little more sleep. Two more hours of shut-eye, and I was ready to explore. Before I headed out I had to stop by the front door to take a picture of the "umbrella tree". This inn is prepared for rainy weather since they have umbrellas for the guests to borrow hanging from what was probably intended to be a hat tree. Pulling my camera out in the lobby was a conversation starter, and I started chatting with someone sitting on the sofa next to the unbrellas. I told him about riding my bike around the island, and we talked a bit about my plans for tomorrow. I'm heading along TransCanada 1 at least as far as the Wood Islands light. From there I may continue along the coast, or I may take one of the small roads heading in the direction of Montague. He confirmed that there are good water views from route 1, and that the roads heading toward Montague are nice quiet two-lane roads with not a lot of traffic. It's nice to have that confirmation, but I have to admit that I really didn't think that TransCanada 1 was a busy road either. It must be the contrast with the roads and traffic during my normal commute to work!
An umbrella tree should be a required fixture in every inn!
This bird was happily prancing over the cars parked beside the inn.
I picked up a map of Charlottetown on my way out of the door, and I decided to head toward the water. I spent a little time at Founder's Hall learning about the confederation of Canada. Somehow the history classes I remember from all those years ago in high school didn't include much information about our northern neighbors. I did some wandering along the water in the area of Founder's Hall, and then I set out on one of the self-guided walking tours of the area. Oh, and I had to stop by the inn for an extra layer of clothing. Typical for me I was wandering in a pair of shorts and a sleeveless shirt while most of the people around me were wearing fleece and long pants. That's not too odd for me, but as the wind picked up it started getting a little chilly out there. Adding my screaming yellow wind vest warmed me up again.
The walking tour map was an interesting aid to wandering, but it also caused me to be very confused for a while. While the shoreline of Charlottetown isn't a straight line at all, it pretty much faces south. The walking tour document starts with a map of the center of town, with markings showing the three walking tours. The odd thing is that colors of the lines (showing the tours) on the map were backwards. The tour on the left side of the map was marked with a blue line, and legend for the blue line is "Historic Charlottetown East / Charlottetown Historique Est". Let's see, from everything I know about directions, the left side of a map where the top of the map points to the north (as this one does) is the west side of the map, not the east. For a while I really thought that I was very confused - and I have to say that direction is not usually a weak point for me. It turned out to be a problem with the brochure though. The text sections were correct, it was just the colored lines on the map that were backwards. I wonder if that bothers anyone else or if it just bothers me. Even though I knew better, for a while I thought that my sense of direction was missing in action!
During my time walking today I saw two more of the lighthouses of Prince Edward Island. I'm still surprised at that they are small wooden structures, must shorter than I expect a lighthouse to be. I guess height doesn't matter as much given that the lights I saw today were actually within Charlottetown Harbor as opposed to a light that needs to be seen across open water.
The weather today? It started with a downpour, but for the most part the rest of the day was dry. There was blue sky, and there were a lot of clouds - both the fluffy white variety and the gray gloomy clouds bringing more rain. The rain was sporadic as the day went on, and it usually disappeared before it moved much beyond sprinkles. The wind was amazingly strong all day long, but I couldn't tell whether it would have been pushing me or blocking me if I had headed out on my bike this morning.
It was a good day. I'm glad I made the decision to spend an extra day here - even though it would have been a fine weather day for cycling. Tomorrow? The forecast is for sun, which my bike and I will certainly welcome.
While this may be viewed by many as unwanted graffiti, it definitely made me smile.
