When I opened my eyes this morning the first thing I needed to do was my early morning out-the-window weather check. The sky was gray, but the ground was dry. TIme to get up, my bike is calling me!
By the time I emerged from the shower it was absolutely pouring outside. I dressed for cycling anyway, hoping, hoping... By the time I was done with breakfast, the rain had stopped falling, but the pavement was still very wet. I spent some time talking to other guests and just generally relaxing. I finally got on the road at 10, which is late even for me. It was worth the wait though because the roads were dry when my bike and I rolled out of the door.
Because of my late start and because I didn't trust the weather not to turn again, I opted to follow a relatively straight line from Summerside to Charlottetown instead of looping down to the coast. I say relatively because there is nothing straight about the road, and I did do a very short loop to the coast at Victoria. I started on route 1A, but I spent a good part of the day riding on TransCanada Highway 1. It's not the first time I've ridden on that road - I did a section of it riding to the east out of Banff, Alberta on my first solo tour back in 1998. And although it sounds like a limited access highway, here it is a 2-lane road with the occasional third climbing lane.
I suspect that it was the very strong wind that blew the rain away this morning. It made for an interesting riding day too. I started with a headwind but with my direction changes the wind switched to a sidewind for most of the day. It was strong enough that there were a few times where I felt like I could easily get blown over. Luckily that didn't happen, but it was certainly a funny feeling.
I expected rolling hills today and I certainly got them. Judith, one of the women I was chatting with before we both left the hotel stopped as she drove by me with her friend. He wanted to make sure that I knew about the Confederation Trail, a path across the island that is advertised as a good bike trail. He told me that it is flat while the road is not. The trail is not paved though, so I thanked him for his thought but told him I would be sticking to the roads. This morning's reasonable rollers changed to some long but shallow hills. And it was one of those "Let's fool Denise" days. There were several times when I couldn't figure out why I was pedaling so slowly heading downhill. Of course when I stopped and looked behind me I found that I was still heading uphill.
The main reason I veered off the main road and into Victoria was to see the lighthouse. I was surprised at how small the structure was when I saw it. There was a small visitor center across the street from the light so I was able to verify that what I was seeing is a working lighthouse. It's a rangelight housing two different lights. It also had a banner hanging from just below the opening for the light that is apparently used to help line up a ship. Mariners use this light in conjunction with 2 others along the coast as a navigation aid. The combination of the lights allows them to plot their course. Very interesting.
The light, the stripe on the lighthouse, and the flag are all used as navigation aids. This light is a rangelight, housing two different lights.
(And yes, I did get that information from an official visitor center person. I was a bit surprised to see a flag hanging on the outside of the lighthouse, so I asked its purpose.)
Just before I hit the turnoff for Victoria, I rode through a town named Crapaud. Now tell me, what do you think the town's founders were thinking when they chose that name?
I find it amazing that people don't know how far it is from one point to another. I stopped a a small store for a snack, and I asked how far it was from there to Charlottetown. The answer I got was "20 minutes". I looked at the young woman who gave me that answer and asked "20 minutes in what kind of vehicle?". Of course she meant a car. That didn't work for me, but luckily there was another woman working in the store at the time. Her answer was "12 miles". I looked her way and she smiled and said that she's lived here forever and learned distances before Canada switched to the metric system. I'm perfectly happy with getting that answer in miles although the kilometers to miles conversion is one that has always been second nature to me. She also verified that the road I was on would take me right into the center of Charlottetown.
I passed quite a few motels on the way into town, but I really wanted to stay downtown. I stopped at the tourist information office to get some information on B&Bs in or near the center of town. I actually went to one to check it out, but it was a little off the beaten track, and I was definitely being picky today. Judith had told about the Dundee Arms Inn in our after breakfast conversations, and as I left the tourist office I rode right by the place. I went in to see if they had a room available. Not only was the answer yes, the woman at the desk gave me a room at a discounted price. Excellent. This is definitely not a budget accommodation, but it was a fair price and comparable to what I paid for the B&B and inn that I liked so much during my June trip to Maine. And hey - I'm on vacation! The other important thing is that the inn has a locked room in the basement where I could store my bike.
Dinner tonight was at the inn. There are a lot of restaurants around so my initial thought was to walk around town until I found something that appealed to me. I didn't have to walk past the front door of my inn though. I had dinner at an unfashionably early hour, listening to my body which insisted on being fed. I had an awesome seafood linguini - pieces of salmon, lobster, shrimp, scallops, and halibut in a nice light sauce over linguini. Nice.
After dinner I walked to the harbor and spent some time trying to capture a picture of a beautiful rainbow disappearing into the water. Then it was time to satisfy my craving for ice cream, thanks to the store named Cows. It appears to be a chain, selling ice cream and cow stuff - as in T-shirts and stuffed cows All I needed tonight was ice cream!
And now, it's time to dream of tomorrow. And it's time for another conversation with the weather wizard about the thunderstorms that are threatening for tomorrow morning. Enough! No more threats. Sun would be a nice plus, but dry is what I'm dreaming of right now.
I actually had to be told that this was a bike rack - as I was busy locking my bike to a light pole. And here I thought it was just an interesting sculpture outside of the Charlottetown City Hall.
A rainbow too! And it isn't even raining where I'm standing.
